achristineg

So I’ve been ER nursing for just over 10 years...10 years ago I would have considered myself a very emotional person, any emotion over a 6 on a 1 to 10 scale could make me cry whether it was happiness, sadness, anger...i had a tremendous amount of compassion for all humans and some people may even say ‘i care too much.’ In recent months, I have started to notice a significant level of emotional detachment that I think has been slowly creeping up on me over the last couple years...I struggle with feeling emotion at all, even in my everyday life...it’s hard for me to feel super happy, sad, motivated toward anything that is fueled by an emotional drive...i even struggle with emotion towards my closest family members and in my relationship...i can’t even recall the last time I cried...i wouldn’t say I am depressed...i just feel like I’m on auto-pilot and just going through the motions of life and nothing really seems to bother me and i don’t really care about much of anything...has anyone else experienced this? How did you deal with it? Did you find a way to get out of the rut? Do I need to leave nursing? Are there articles or studies related to emotional detachment in nurses?