My give a damn is broken....and it has been broken for a few years now. I have taken a less stressful job part time in Home Health...it has helped with this some. Unfortunately my husband is ill and has been out of work for a year now. So I have to have insurance and fortunately I am able to work part time and have insurance at my current job. Really, when I can be objective, this home health job is the absolute best job in nursing I have ever had. Comparing it with other positions, I am able to have more of a life.
But something in me is just broke. I am not motivated to work hard, to do extra. I am always afraid I am one mistake away from loosing my license. Really this constant low level anxiety about making a big mistake has been constant since I became a nurse. I haven't made a big mistake, just tons of little ones....no more than most nurses, but that fear and anxiety hasn't improved even though I am a very competent nurse with lots of experience now (10years). I am sooooooooo exhausted from worry. I worry about phone calls from my manager even just for little critiques. I worry that I may have advised a patient wrong. I worry that I may have hurt one of my patients by missing something. I worry when at work and I worry on my days off.
I have always had a hard time keeping up with changes, computer program changes, new forms to to fill out changes, added responsibilities changes. And I am tired of trying to stay on top of it.
I was thinking about applying for a phlebotomy position at my facility. But I worry that taking any break from nursing will cause me to be unemployable or having to explain that I just had a period of burn out. I also fear not having enough money, but I would rather live in a tent under a bridge than keep trying to just plow through.
I also really hate most of the advice out there for burn out. It's all like, "rest, take care of yourself, eat right, exercise, yadda, yadda, yadda". I am barely motivated to get out of bed on the days I work. Then I spent all my time off distracted about how few hours I have left before I have to go back to work.