Please Help - I have no where else to turn

[abbaking]

In a nutshell, I am so fed up with nursing that I will do anything to avoid it. 10 minutes into my shift it was a madhouse. I didnt ever recieve any report yet and The call lights were going off like crazy. I went into a room 12 to check on the lady in the second bed since she had called for something. I could not even get to her because the lady in bed one (whom I have never met before) began to verbally and physically attack me. This is only some of what the crazy lady in bed one said (replace with curse word in your mind since i cant post them on here) :

"Knock on the door you fat jerk. Are you a nurse or an idiot. Your a fat piece of lard. I have rights. I pay your salary and I dont care if Obama was here you will do what I say. I will find where you live and have you TAKEN CARE OF".

The patient began to throw the meal utensils at me and anything she could grab. I backed out of there.

In 10 years of bedside experience, I have NEVER seen this much verbal abuse and aggression directed towards me - EVER!!

And in 10 years of bedside experience i have never lost my cool - except tonight. I SCREAMED back at this vile lunatic of a person as loud as possible to back, relax, and not give me any crap cause I will not tolerate it. I told hee I have feelings too and she will not abuse me. My stress and anxiety boiled over and I lost my cool by screaming at her (although I must say, she did deserve it).

The lunatic called the house supervisor and demanded everything under the sun. At this point i was outside my body watching myself react. My adrenaline was in full swing, I was shaking uncontrolably and i was on the verge of a hysterical breakdown. I gathered my backpack and I left. I told the team leader the entire situation and she said to go home and relax. She said that I was not fit to work in the condition i was in being a nervous wreck.

Before I left i told the house supervisor my side of the story and email my boss. I am now home.

Regardless of how "I could have handled the situation differently", I want to make it very clear that this patient was beyond out of line. Nobody - NOBODY deserves what i experienced tonight.

I am in a deep state of shock right now. I am severely depressed and i have awful anxiety. I am so streesed. I am on one hand happy that i stood up for myself and put this lunatic back in her place. On the other hand I feel like an ass.

Regardless, I realized that I cant do nursing anymore. All the deliberate short staffing, terrible hours, bad working conditions, and stupid people all served as the backdrop for my breakdown tonight.

I dont think I can even go back to work. I am thinking about going to my doctor tomorrow and asking for emergency FMLA time (work induced stress/depression). I think I am going crazy.

If anyone can offer any advise or words of encouragement - I need it now. I am home crying and just feeling terrible

[llg, PhD, RN]

Call the police and have her arrested for assault and battery. She will cool off when she is in handcuffs.

I do think you should at least talk to an attorney and consider pressing charges. She assaulted you -- and she needs to be held accountable for that. Also, by actually filing charges of assault, it will put your hospital on notice that they need to take this incident seriously -- and consider you the victim of a crime -- and not treat you like you were the instigator.

Filing charges may give you some protection (and maybe even compensation / assistance) from your employer. If you don't file charges, they may to blame you for any negative outcomes of this incident.

[mclennan, BSN, RN]

Hey OP. I did something very similar to this a few years ago. I was working in a street clinic for homeless people, and had a REALLY bad day. A cracked-out patient was verbally abusing me for over an hour, then grabbed me and tried to set my shirt on fire with his lighter. It was the culmination of many bad days, and many encounters with mentally unstable, high, drunk patients.

I'm not trying to "one-up" you here, but it's a similar situation; there's only so much anyone can take. I LOST IT with this guy, and basically twisted around and threw him to the floor, judo-style, screaming at him like a banshee the whole time. The security guard (a cop) jumped between us, but we continued to scream at each other: him, high on crack and not bathed in weeks, and me, in torn scrubs and smeared makeup. It was quite the scene.

I was hysterical and crying and my boss sent me home. I nosedived into a guilty depression thinking I did everything wrong and that my career was over. Once I finished hyperventilating I calmed the hell down, and took care of business. I called my employers EAP and got counseling lined up; I called my boss and left a message asking for a face to face meeting when I got back; I called HR and filled out an incident report, and called the police and filed a report. These things helped me immensely later on when I filed for a leave of absence and short-term disability.

My boss and I met 2 days later and they were SUPER UNDERSTANDING. They said they had my back, and that if I needed to take a leave of absence they would approve whatever paperwork I filed with the State or for short-term disability. I was SHOCKED they were so cool about it. I ended up taking 2 weeks off, one paid for by vacation and one paid for by short-term disability, which was arranged by the psych I ended up with through the EAP. I went back for 4 months, then quit. AND MOVED ON!

Yeah, my old clinic was not as genteel an atmosphere as a floor in a hospital, but I just wanted to let you know someone else here did what you did and lived to tell about it. My career is fine, I work in case management now and never got a bad reference from anyone who worked in that clinic. You DON'T HAVE TO USE YOUR SUPERVISOR as a reference! You can pick and choose people who were your charge nurses, co-workers, and higher management who could vouch for you. And, you can also be honest. If a potential employer didn't have compassion enough to understand why you reacted the way you did, and the brains to understand that you learned not to do it again, you wouldn't want to work for them anyway.

I kind of applaud what you did, you screamed at that abusive patient for ALL OF US. You will be okay. I promise.

[netglow, ASN, RN]

If that woman was AO, then I'd page for some meds. If I was physically attacked, guess what? That is psych/assault code. Don't wait, don't let them think they might hide what they've done. Restraint and a nice shot should do. This way as well it will be charted by more than one person...

Edit to add: never assume that the elderly have dementia. How ridiculous. Look. People who treat others poorly often have done so their entire lives. Do you actually think as soon as they turn 75, they are going to become sweet, cute, old people? More often they quickly see the teflon that white hair and wrinkles can give them and their absolutely horrible self gets free reign - what power.

[anotherone, BSN, RN]

Good luck op. Too late for could of , should of now. In my outside fo work life if someone treats me like this, he/she will be the one left in tears. However at work I keep my mouth shut, smile and nod which is so different from my real personality that is hard to keep it up sometimes. Sometimes when I am already really stressed out and despise going to work, one little incident can send me over the edge. Maybe this pt wasn't completely with it?

[sistasoul]

Any nurse can understand the breaking point. No judgements here. It is hard to keep smiling day after day when we are faced with patients like this day after day. I work on a neuro/ortho floor where we get most of the detoxers and change in mental status. It is hard to deal with these folks day after day. Even some of the patients who come in with an ortho related admission have psych or alcohol problems. It does get old extremely fast. I hate to say this but I never realized how many people have "problems" like this until I became a nurse.

Take care of yourself and don't be hard on yourself. A person can only take so much stress.

Hugs...

[IdianaCNA1993]

I understand this feeling though I have never yelled at a resident I have had the erges too and I have gotten snippity with a few residents that cant learn to wait there turn or that think they are the only ones I have thought so badly whether to quit my job or not because I had one resident that would yell my name when her call light was on and that was only because she wanted a twinkie. but It was 110 degrees where I live so I blamed alot of it on the heat. I never blame the residents for having needs its just when they get nasty and cant understand that I cant give them a twinkie right now when there roommate is crashing. I think that it is just normal maybe you just need a new job in nursing like home health care and get to spend a little one on one no interuption kind of care. I think that after you think about it you will feel better and maybe you can go back to your job. yelling in my car while going down a back road after working a night when I wanted to really lay in to the resident that think that her twinkie is more important than a dieing person lol :hug:

[GrumpyRN63, ADN, RN]

I hear ya. I had a similar breaking point after 23 yrs and one night had enough. At that point I was per diem and had another Home Hospice job. A traveler I was working with actually went in and told the pt off which was cool since she didn't even know me. I emailed my boss after I got home that I was done. I have never looked back. I would never go back to bedside nursing, certaintly isn't what it was 25 yrs ago. I wouldn't say HH doesn't have its issues. Mostly computer nonsense though, for the most part people are really grateful to be home and have you helping them. Still have some pt's and families that test you, but for the most part you do what needs to be done and you are out of there. Don't have to put up with them for 8 or 12 hrs. And if you really have a problem, you can refuse to go back.

[PacoUSA, BSN, RN]

Sorry, I have not read the entire thread and perhaps someone asked this question already: how come manpower code was not called? This was not a situation you should have handled alone.

[Maremma]

I am so sorry this has happened to you. I hope your facility is good to you like some of these other posters have had. I am learning so much from being here.I didn't even realize there were places that actually defend and care for their employees in situations like this!

If your facility is anything like mine it is no wonder you don't want to go back. It is always the nurse's fault where I work and we get written up if patients or their families complain about us. It makes no difference if they are psych and/or lying through their teeth about us. My heart goes out to you.

[2gurlsmama]

I know exactly how you feel. Sadly, this is what I go through regularly at work also. I am so sick and tired of people saying that I should feel sorry for these raving, screaming clients. I'm sorry, but after doing this for 13 years, I'm a little fed up and done being someones target. And I apologize but in my opinion, the only clients that are "allowed" to behave this way are the ones with dementia, which I completely understand. And I disagree that because I am the nurse it gives them the right to verbally and physically abuse me. I am looking at options other than nursing and as soon as I find one, I'm DONE.

[xoemmylouox, ASN, RN]

Well we all have a breaking point. You reached yours. It is most likely a build up from the last few days, weeks, months, etc. That patient was just the last straw. Take some time if you can. I wouldn't give up on nursing yet. In just about any career now you are going to have a ton of stress. It is the way of the world right now. There are other options. Try a Dr office, insurance company, informatics, etc.

[oliviasnan]

Sounds like you are a "Stepford Nurse". Obviously this nurse is a human.