Hi all, I am wondering if anyone has taken a break from this site and come back to it, and if so why? How long did you stay away, and did you come back "refreshed?" I've been on much more than usual during shelter in place. I previously logged on a few times a month, to ask a question, see what's new, and answer questions. I've always appreciated the answers and feedback I've gotten, and as I gained more experience I enjoyed answering questions from new grads and hoping I helped.
Lately I've found the site triggering, especially the recent thread after the Derek Chauvin verdict (thread now closed). It hurts me that there are nurses who believe racism is over or "black people are racist for having their own, exclusively black organizations." I tried to explain these organizations were created because black people were excluded from all organizations, and to promote civil rights. It scares me there are nurses who think like this, and I wonder how they treat their black pts. There are statistics about black people receiving worse care, less pain meds, etc.
I saw this when a pt was having chest pain but nothing showed on the ekg so resident labeled her drug seeking, didn't call cardiologist. Turns out she was having ischemia to the back wall of her heart which doesn't show on ekg. She died. Cardiologist was livid. I knew her for 4 years and it hit me hard. Also, there have been posts about people in mental health crises. I give my advice based on my experience w/ bipolar, but they come back and make the same posts and it scares me. Maybe I'm too sensitive and need to realize I don't even know these people, but I feel I need to take a break for my own mental health, as it exacerbates my bipolar and makes me more scared about my black in-laws and friends. There have been more killings of black people arrested for traffic stops, air freshener in their window, etc. I don't understand how people can't notice the pattern of black people being pulled over for nothing, then ending up dead, or someone like Breonna Taylor shot while sleeping, completely innocent of any crime. It makes me cry to read that people don't care and think it's "overrepresented in the media." There is hard data showing it's not. Any advice? It seems hard to avoid threads w/ triggering topics, because threads start about one thing and take sharp turns to end up talking about other topics. thanks. ❤️
That makes sense. Other than initiating conversations with my partner who is black, I wait for my friends of color to bring up race and injustice, in case they don't feel like talking about it. They have said sometimes it is difficult to talk to white friends no matter if the white friends agree with their opinions, because they end up having to explain and educate, and sometimes deal with "white fragility" of white friends getting defensive and feeling they are accused of being racist if a person of color brings up something they said that offended them or brings up white people being racist in general. They have to hear a "not all white people" and "I'm not racist" speech, and reassure their white friends when THEY are the ones who need support.
This is something I've been working on, coming to terms with the fact that I have implicit biases and I will mess up, that all white people have biases. I try to listen more than I talk, and if I'm given feedback take it in without getting defensive, which I'm not good at in general. And when I hear white people complained about as a group, not take it as a personal insult. I like this thread because people are expressing opposite opinions but staying calm and not hurling insults. Wish America could do the same ?
This, exactly. There's plenty of times I feel somewhat guilty for being white and having that "white privilage" that comes with it. I don't want to be put in the position of defending myself for not being racist during that conversation. It turns the conversation away from my friends experience as a person of color and puts it right back on the white person's experience.
Same for my friends in the LGBTQ community. I don't want to end of feeling like I am proving my lack of bias instead of offering support.
When I lived in the big city I had 200 kids on my porch at Halloween. We moved here to the country to a great old house up a long driveway shared c two other houses. The kids and I made 8 smiling jack-o’lanterns and put them all the way up from the street as a guide and readied the stash. And got two kids, former students of the kindergarten teacher from whom we bought the house. The next year my brother brought his 3 year old. And that has been that ever since. It makes me sad, a combination of fewer kids in the neighborhood and net-driven panic over CSA and razor blades in apples.
What is "net-driven panic over CSA"
"CSA"?
I live in a fairly poor neighborhood, with a lot of renters who stay for 6-8 months and move on. The police come every week or two in the Summer, either for fighting/shouting or for loud, disruptive noise at night. They've shut down drug dealers on my street. It's hard to get to know all the neighbors. And it simply isn't safe anymore to go door to door to the homes of strangers.
I see that my post to Libra referred to the tomboy thing, but truthfully I just extracted that from your post without reading through the entirety of it.
Obviously it meant to convey much more than that. I can see why your are upset. It was thoughtless of me and I apologize.
Im still leaving. I just cant find a way to leave this site completely now.
Im really frustrated. I feel like I have been cancelled by people on here for being gender fluid *and* not taking sh*t from anyone.
I started getting excited to be here in re another post on right to refuse care, and (not that Im trying to bring it up now as a discussion topic, just sharing) it spurred me to start a website on patients having the right to refuse respected, but more specific even. So thats a plus. But I decided to start planning this because so many nurses seem so oblivious to the laws and also to how hard it is to be a patient with a DNR in some places, to be respected, so I feel I will have to help start a campaign educating nurses about this on one website that includes state by state legislation, links, and the written statutes themselves. More frustrating than that is how many nurses say they don't care if someone is wearing a DNR necklace, that they would start BLS anyways and I just am really upset about that.
I also found out tonight, just a little while ago, that the founder of allnurses committed familicide, which was apparently planned in advance. He was seeking mental health care in the months leading up to that, and I have yet to see how the civil case against his medical team was resolved, but it does seem that there was a long lapse between appts and some potential for a medical error. None of this I am sure about, really. I was skimming through a different civil case that allnurses won, and was trying to determine why one of the admins was playing a victim card over data storage fees that accumulated during that case, which allnurses never filed a motion to change. Thats the reason they had to pay half of the data storage as it was presented.
So IDK. Just a lot to deal with I guess.
I don't expect anyone to understand what gender fluidity means to me..
It just feels like since presenting myself that way, I have had all but two nurses on here belittle me and otherwise ignore me.. this is after defending one nurse that was belittled for wanting a DNRO, in that she was having her mental health questioned. My own mental health was also questioned based on my gender fluidity alone. It's bs.
And I cant even edit or delete my posts now.
I don't like it. It feels like a pretty disturbing place.
Even had a nurse suggest I take self defense classes to be able to have protection against violent patients.
What the heck?? They are PATIENTS. You escape. You don't fight them. OMG. IDK. Just... What??
So clearly there are some people here with some serious issues LOL and I honest to God have way too much going on in my life right now to deal with all of THIS.
So thanks for the apology.
I know.. or.. I like to believe that most people have good intentions.
And I need to keep believing that. Thats for me.
So good night. God Bless. So long. Have a great life. ?
Ha ha I thought you meant a break at work. I took a break for a bit, now with Yahoo Answers gone ?, who knows. At work (sly way of changing the subject) I don't take a break until, my first round is done. My time doesn't start until my food is nuked and I start to eat. That's me.
I take breaks all the time and come back and some threads I read through and keep going because I know I'll get in trouble for responding. Some people really tell on themselves in certain threads. However, I try to leave my anger in that thread, if that makes sense. Unless the person is really far gone, I can be upset with you in one thread and laughing with you in the next thread. I try not to take things to heart but there are some on here hell-bent on their racist ideologies and I have to mute/block/ignore or whatever for my own sanity. There have been threads where people have stopped debating and everyone's on the same page and certain posters are still offensive and well aware of it. It's those people I can't deal with. When every thread turns racial or political I just stop reading or posting on AN and go on with life because that's not why I come here. Sometimes you just want to joke, learn, help, and speak nursing things without all the rigamarole of pettiness. Don't we deal with that enough IRL?
kbrn2002, ADN, RN
3,967 Posts
This, exactly. There's plenty of times I feel somewhat guilty for being white and having that "white privilage" that comes with it. I don't want to be put in the position of defending myself for not being racist during that conversation. It turns the conversation away from my friends experience as a person of color and puts it right back on the white person's experience.
Same for my friends in the LGBTQ community. I don't want to end of feeling like I am proving my lack of bias instead of offering support.