Traumatized Nurse Says The Job Destroyed Her— ‘I Don’t Recognize Myself Anymore’
She deserves to heal, even if that means quitting.
PeopleImages.com - Yuri A. / Shutterstock Nurses are the largest sector of the American healthcare workforce. They make up almost 30% of hospital employment across the country, existing on the literal frontlines, doing the daily work of healing illness and saving lives.
The daily pressures they face have a deep impact on their mental health, especially since 2019, when the onset of the pandemic overloaded hospitals, leading many in the profession to their breaking point.
One woman, who’s been a nurse for two years, got brutally honest about the emotional toll of working in a hospital without adequate support.
The traumatized nurse said that the job ‘destroyed her.’
She shared her story on the r/nursing subreddit, saying, “I just need to get my thoughts out into text in a forum where others will understand.”
She outlined her professional trajectory, explaining that she started her nursing career in outpatient, then went to the Emergency Department, and now works in the Intensive Care Unit.
“Since becoming a nurse, I don’t recognize myself anymore,” she revealed.
“It started out as dreading every shift, anxiety at messing up, making a critical mistake, getting assaulted by a violent patient,” she said.
During her time in the Emergency Department, she was part of an “extremely traumatic code situation… at a community hospital that was ill-equipped to handle such a case, and it did not go well.”
While she’s at a different workplace, she’s still haunted by the events that took place, saying, “I’ve never healed from this; I think about it every day, I have nightmares about it every week, and walking into the hospital makes me feel sick.”
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“I’m honestly at the end of my rope [and] feeling really lost,” she said.
She revealed just how dire her mental health has become, noting that she finds herself “wishing sometimes that I won’t wake up when I fall asleep.”
“I feel like I need to get out of this profession,” she said. “The thought of any job in healthcare at this point makes me feel sick.”
‘The healthcare industry is broken, and nurses are suffering for it,’ she declared.
According to a 2021 study from the Journal of the American Medical Association, nursing-related burnout has reached a crucial tipping point. In a survey of 3,957,661 nurses, 9.5% reported leaving their jobs, and 31.5% reported burnout as their reason for walking away.
The additional factors nurses cited as reasons they left or considered leaving included a stressful work environment, inadequate staffing, and lack of good management and leadership.
The National Council of State Boards of Nursing reported that about 100,000 nurses quit during the pandemic due to stress, burnout, or retirement.
Almost 900,000 nurses plan to leave the workforce by 2027, which will create a major crisis in the American healthcare system.
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50.8% of nurses said they feel emotionally drained a few times a week or every day. 56.4% said they feel used up at the same rate.
Reported burnout was the most pronounced in nurses with 10 or fewer years of experience, which has driven a 3.3% decline in the overall nursing workforce since 2021.
In a separate survey, a meager 19% of nurses under the age of 35 reported feeling like their workplace cares about their well-being.
The nurse who shared her story captured the tangled connection between trauma and burnout, bringing the statistics to life.
As a fellow nurse noted in the comments, there’s nothing wrong with walking away from an unsafe, emotionally draining workplace.
“Your mental health, emotional health, physical health, and spiritual health come first,” they said, advising her to take time away from nursing or find a different job.
“Life is so short, you’re wasting good years,” they concluded.
The nurse deserves a stable, balanced life. She deserves to move beyond her job-related trauma. Quitting a job that no longer serves her will allow her to put herself first and center her healing, which is the most important thing she can do.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture, and all things to do with the entertainment industry.