coderunnerRN

I am in the same boat as you. Looking for some relief. I wish I had some good advice, but it is so good to see someone else post about this.

Absolutely! I am struggling from this as well.

that is a great idea

Thank you to everyone who responded to my post. There is a lot of wisdom here.

I hate my job and I hate myself for hating it. I WANT to love nursing. I became a nurse for a reason. But I can no longer stand the idea of taking care of another person any more. I feel like a failure and a terrible person. Can I recover from this? My story: I am an RN in a MICU/CCU. I graduated from nursing school 6 years ago and immediately took a job in the ICU where I had done my senior practicum. I was one of few to be this lucky. The first year was hell (as it has proven to be for the nurses who have followed me), but I now recognize that this is typical as the learning curve is quite steep-- They do not teach you ICU skills in nursing school. Luckily, my unit has very strong team work, and my peers held me up until I could stand on my own two feet. After this I found my niche and became one of the leading nurses in the unit, training newbies, helping interview new-hires, obtaining my CCRN, and being chosen for advanced training opportunities. I loved the pace, the close relationship with the docs, the constant learning, and the autonomy. But for the last two years or so, I have been more and more miserable. I don't think that burnout quite describes it. It is not just being overworked-- I really feel like medicine is a much darker world than I realized. It is not death that bothers me. In fact, I feel the most peace when I am caring for a hospice/ comfort care patient. The cases that weigh on me most are the ones involving families who cannot let their loved one go. Especially when those patients have an advanced directive stating that they wouldn't want these measures. I went into nursing to help people, but much of the time I feel like my hands are carrying out orders that are perpetuating someones pain. I think it became much worse after one patient in particular, but I will not tell that story here, because it is quite long. In essence, I just feel like I cannot make a difference. At first I felt irritated and overworked. I didn't look forward to work anymore. Then I started getting angry about little things that never bothered me. This got worse and worse. I would become so frustrated that I would have to leave the floor to cry-sometimes in the middle of rounds or report. I started becoming severely depressed, and I used all of my sick time. I was truly so mentally exhausted that I felt I could not function safely at work some days. I refused to be an unsafe nurse. I would get anxiety attacks the night before work. Many mornings I did not feel like I could even get out of bed, and I was often late to work. I work late charting almost every day. The harder I have tried to be on time the worse it has become. I started to become cynical-- not just about my job but about the world, mankind and life in general. But now something is happening that WORRIES me even more deeply. I am beginning to stop caring... about patients, about my performance, about my coworkers, about my social life. When I start to get frustrated, I just switch off. It affects every area of my life. I feel like there are no emotions left for anyone or anything else. I am in counseling, and he says to take better care of myself, but all I want to do is sleep. I don't want to talk to friends, I don't want to go out, I don't want to exercise or shower or even get a massage. I always said that if I ever stopped enjoying nursing, then I should get out immediately, and I always believed that a burned out nurse should choose another career or retire before the patients were affected, but here I am. I am that nurse. My husband got hit by a car, and is just recovering enough to get back into the work force so I am the sole income and I cannot just quit or take a leave of absence. I want to leave nursing or maybe I just want to leave civilization. I don't know what to do. I want my passion back. Can anyone relate?

Your post makes me want to cry with you... To be repetitive, try something new! I was hired on to a medical ICU right out of school, but my manager suggested that I spend 3 months on the med surg floor before delving into the unit. The floor gave me perspective to say the least. I felt like a chicken with my head cut off without time to know the doctors or patients I was working with. I ran all day but still felt like I made no difference. Some days I felt more like a waitress than a nurse. The ICU is very different for me. First of all, I have only 1-3 patients---I know them well. I have much more autonomy. The physicians have respect for the nurses here and include them in care planning-in fact they rely on us because if S*** hits the fan we cannot always wait for them to return a call. I get to use my technical and critical thinking skills. It's exciting and fast paced, and still busy but in a different way. At the end of the day I actually feel like I have saved a life. Plus (and I feel guilty for adding this) many of the patients are sedated, which reduces the stress and drama sometimes (I used to hear call bells in my sleep). It isn't for everyone of course (I feel like a salesman lol), but I found my niche here. Try something new, and you will probably find yours too. And more importantly take care of yourself: pee when you need to, never miss lunch, and don't take no crap from anyone! Burn out happens fast.