While visiting in the lounge one day, we discovered that every nurse there was on an anti-depressant.
I have had 'Treatment Resistant Depression' for about 20 years--as long as I've been a nurse. Now I am totally burned out, on major meds, and am seeking disability d/t depression/anxiety.
I beleive years of long hours, high stress, high expectations and little appreciation (from management, not patients) has contributed to this.
How many other jobs consider you a tratior b/c you call in sick? And trying to get off for a sick child is an unforgivable sin. How many other jobs want you to work overtime on the days you are scheduled, call you at all hours of the night or day when you are off, first pleading w/ you to come in, then laying a guilt trip on you if you say "NO!" And let's not forget the mandatory inservices and CEU's that take time away from your family.
If any profession should understand the importance of the individuals' physical, mental, social and spiritual self it should be nursing--after all we are taught in nursing school about treating the patient as a whole, not just a disease! Why don't we treat our staff the same way.
I think a lot of depression is mislabeled in caring professions.
To be a really effective caregiver, you have to have empathy, sensitivity, keen senses, and be alert to someone else's ills.
It's a form of self-sacrifice that may require more "down-time" than other jobs/professions, to re-energize and get back to work. Nurses get strained, saddened, frustrated, because of the job. It looks like, walks like, talks like depression but it's really just a healthy reaction to the work itself.
I think a lot of depression is mislabeled in caring professions.
To be a really effective caregiver, you have to have empathy, sensitivity, keen senses, and be alert to someone else's ills.
It's a form of self-sacrifice that may require more "down-time" than other jobs/professions, to re-energize and get back to work. Nurses get strained, saddened, frustrated, because of the job. It looks like, walks like, talks like depression but it's really just a healthy reaction to the work itself.
Or one could be cold. Catch 22.
Amen! My concern is for those nurses who aren't feeling this (o rather for their patients).
I didn't read the entire thread either, but about the first 4 pages or so. Anyway, I feel like the depression symptoms I have came WAY before the nursing career. However, I felt that they were much more manageable before I added all this extra stuff to my plate. I sometimes (thankfully not every day) take my work home with me and want to be the perfect nurse to every patient. I think this requires a huge amount of effort and now that I am getting close to the depths of the depression area, I am having a hard time listening to pt complaints and actually lending a sympathetic ear. Just way too much effort some days. Why do I want to get out of bed and listen to other people's problems when mine seem so much worse? (even though they maybe aren't). then I have to go home and be supermom there too. anyway, I did post a similar reply to a different thread about this, sorry. I just need the vent. Even though I don't know any of you personally, it helps to know that I am not alone and that at least SOMEONE out there might understand how I feel.
We are nursing students at the University of Magallanes located in Chile, in our opinion can easily say that this problem also exists in our country, as staff shortages in hospitals and clinical centers do you have a high level of occupational stress in nurses, and also makes the lack of a solid family ties, and this also affects patient care, because having a high level of stress causes each day that passes we see the patient very superficially and not as a whole
Specializes in OB, Peds, Med Surg and Geriatric Nsg.
As I'm reading this thread, I can't stop crying. I hate to accept that I maybe having depression. I've been feeling totally crappy everytime I go to work. I am resentful going to nursing school and being a nurse. I get attached too much about giving the best care to my patient and being a perfect nurse. I can't sleep enough on my day off. I feel that if I keep doing things, I'd either go crazy or kill myself.
Pretty much any occupation with a lot of stress and long hours can lead a person to feeling overly tired and perhaps sad, but depression is a disease. I have suffered from many episodes of it already (I'm only 22). I honestly believe that I will continue to fight this disease my whole life, regardless of my career choice.
Thanks for starting this thread, carpe de em, and also the very enlightening poll. It may not be the exact same boat as you are in but similar. I admire your reaching out to others on this thread. It helps me just to vent on here. Years ago, I asked my MD for something to help me let things just roll off my back more and not let it get to me so much when I began being bogusly written up for being 'rude and unprofessional' to my coworkers. I told my manager I was trying everything I knew to get along including starting on a mild anti-depressant for the first time and to that she suggested I double up. She was so elevating it was scary. She wasn't a nurse but her assistant directly above me was. They worked hand in hand with staff as well.
Also, after being fired, the fact that I'd been on a mild anti-depressant not only made my new private insurance premium go up in price, it also excluded depression from my new policy. Thank goodness, I didn't feel depressed anymore. :) Insurance companies in America have us all by the short hairs!
I am having a lot of trouble getting my doc to allow me to go on LTD d/t my depression, which does impact my job and homelife to the extreme. I am even having nightmares about work and becoming more and more anxious as the days go by. To much stress looking after 32 residents, sometimes 40 residents by myself, with no help as the other nurses have the same resident load.
Regarding this thread, have any nurses who are on antidepressants or have taken them ever had difficulty remembering things, slower reaction time or slight yellowing of the eyes? A nurse that I know said these things happened to her so she decided to stop taking the meds...I think it was Paxil.
I am not a nurse yet, but a pre-nursing student. I searched for this thread because I am concerned that my new career choice is going to trigger new and worse episodes of depression than I have ever dealt with...hopefully I'm wrong and it will bring a new sense of satisfaction to my life! I am now 25 and I have been on zoloft twice (about a year each time) and am now taking St. John's Wort (which actually seems to work, or at least has a nice placebo effect ) I never want to have to go back on zoloft...the side effects when coming off of it were gruesome and I never want to have to go through that suffering again!
Lately, I have been thing about this question of nursing and depression and have come to the conclusion that I really believe that because of my experiences with depression, along with witnessing the slow and painful death of my father from a rare disease, that really feeling and knowing about suffering is one reason I felt the need to be a nurse. I feel compassion for others that have gone through tremendous amounts of suffering...but I am also stronger from it. Perhaps this is why many nurses have depression? Because the depression came first, and then the call to nursing? Which came first the depression or the nurse?
I actually feel great right now, confident and healthy, but still a little worried about the cloud that always seems to loom in the distance (in my memory if not in my actual life)...hopefully I'll notice it before it gets too close and be able thwart it off!
Anyway, I know there's not much advice you can give to someone who has overcome depression several times already in their life...by this point I have already learned many tricks and usually know what works for me...I guess I just wanted to read about other nurse's experiences and share mine, because if anything is more useful to battling depression (and the battle never ceases) it is to know that you are not alone.
She was so elevating it was scary. She wasn't a nurse but her assistant directly above me was. They worked hand in hand with staff as well.
) I never want to have to go back on zoloft...the side effects when coming off of it were gruesome and I never want to have to go through that suffering again!
makawiliwili
24 Posts
I didn't read the whole thread, forgive me...
I think a lot of depression is mislabeled in caring professions.
To be a really effective caregiver, you have to have empathy, sensitivity, keen senses, and be alert to someone else's ills.
It's a form of self-sacrifice that may require more "down-time" than other jobs/professions, to re-energize and get back to work. Nurses get strained, saddened, frustrated, because of the job. It looks like, walks like, talks like depression but it's really just a healthy reaction to the work itself.
Or one could be cold. Catch 22.