Nursing and Other Anxiety Disorders

In the medical field your typical 12 hour shift can start off fantastic and go to hell in a hand basket within seconds. You just never know what will happen.
It’s even worse on the psych unit.

I am not a nurse, I am a tech. I basically am a nursing assistant. But the only things I don’t do are giving meds and charting on the patients.

I help give showers, take vital signs, lead group therapy sessions, and I even wipe butts if I have to. I am a listening ear, a helpful teacher, a hair brained lunatic at times. I get overlooked, overworked, and many times overburdened.

It is a stressful enough job without all of the work politics, yet they are hard to avoid.

So it goes, I show up to work with a smile on my face and try to pass it along to my patients. Some who haven’t been able to smile genuinely in a long time truly appreciate any small act of kindness. There are times when all it takes is providing someone with a clean, safe environment. Other times it takes an arm and a leg to make someone happy. I can be pulled in 10 different directions all at once, and somehow I manage. Well, most of the time. I like to go to work and make the patients feel as if they are people, not patients. I want them to feel as if they are not outsiders, or social rejects as many of them express that they feel. I give advice, kindness, therapy, and a caring touch.

Sometimes I forget that if I give too much I won’t have anything left.

It is a rewarding yet mentally draining job. No one can quite understand unless you’ve been there. Psych patients require so much more attention, one on one therapy, and frankly, they seem to absorb whatever sanity you have left. At times, it is almost unbearable.

Until you arrive at work and someone tells you how much they appreciate you and what you do. Of course there are those who decide they want to yell at you, attack you, and pretty much do anything they can to make you miserable. I suppose it isn’t really their fault, but still it is very frustrating.

Still, it is all worth it seeing the effect you have on those who you help and make better. Yes medication is a big part of it, but supportive action and caring hearts are the ultimate healing powers.