Lmm1988

I don't know why this will not let me reply individually, but anyhow.. I do understand the whole "your job should be your passion!" idea is relatively new in human history and is also somewhat privileged. I have spent all of my adult life bartending and waiting tables, with the exception of two jobs which were great and meaningful but did not pay. But for me, I don't know if I can handle the stress level, the lack of kindness that comes with the nursing field. The fact that "nurses eat their young" is a known phrase is despicable to me, and oh how I've seen it. Yes, I get that there are bad apples in every job, but this is a job where someone's LIFE is in your hands and the amount of responsibility is extreme, so it makes a bigger difference when your coworkers treat you like shite. So, this weekend presented a new challenge to me and now I feel absolutely depleted. I suppose I had a nervous breakdown about nursing. I was unable to push through it and just study. I became really depressed to the point of being unable to make myself a cup of coffee let alone memorize meds. I've never been this bad before, and I attribute it to nursing school. I don't know what to do. I don't want to go on antidepressants just to get through this; I am not passionate enough about nursing to do that to my body's chemistry. I don't know how to force myself against my mental health to continue forward in this program. People say, "yeah but its only a little more than a year," but that is for my ADN, not even BSN, and each week for me is grueling. I feel I'm losing my joy as time goes on ? I'm not trying to sound "whiny." I have worked extremely hard all my life and have had two jobs consistently while I've been in school. I had a 4.0 (before nursing) and had over 80 credits in other subjects. Sometimes I think on my way to clinical... if I just get hit by a car, I won't have to go.... is nursing really worth feeling these ways? ?

Thank you all for your responses. Contrary to the belief about most millennials, I do not know how to utilize technology very well and don't know how to respond individually. But I really appreciate your responses. I am going to try giving it a little more time. Today I woke up feeling overwhelmed with anxiety and dread, and had a few more anxiety attacks throughout the day, all due to nursing school. I've been told "this is the norm," but I feel like my light is dimming and my happiness is decreasing significantly. I will attempt to find a way to cope better with nursing school, but if it continues to effect me like this, I can only imagine that it will continue like this beyond school? Maybe not. Maybe school is just absolute hell? Either way, as someone who is interested in psych and promoting mental health, I have to be compassionate and caring of my own.

Hello, everyone. I have just begun my second semester of nursing school. Aside from the stress and overwhelm felt due to the schooling itself, my bigger stress comes from a worry that I am not on the right path. To be honest, I never wanted to be a nurse; it was never my passion. I was a psych major who became fascinated with biological sciences, became a TA for Anatomy & Physiology, and got pressured into nursing school. I was more interested in therapy, education, and research within biobehavioral health, but so many people influenced me into nursing. "It is steady, it pays, there are opportunities," is what caught me. (I have spent a decade of my life struggling to put food on the table, even working two jobs, so please understand why stability became important.) The problem is, that while I am very fascinated by learning pathophysiology and educating others about it, I do not enjoy the nurses role in clinical. I do not enjoy performing the skills, the stressful environment, the documenting, the poisonous and belittling attitudes of other nurses(eat their young) and doctors; nursing has made me feel very depressed. I don't really want to be a nurse. The only thing that has kept me is the prospect of perhaps becoming a psychiatric nurse practitioner, but it seems ages away. Is it worth going through the next two years to complete by BSN if I don't enjoy this? Does a psychiatric NP get to do much counseling and therapy and educating? Have much autonomy? Or is it mostly medication management. Please help. I cannot afford to waste any more money. I don't want to live a life of stress and exhaustion when this is what I wanted to teach others how to maintain ?