Burn out? part 1

I wrote these installments years ago and am a little shocked at the tonality that I see through out the posts.  But i believe that it is beneficial to share the reality of the experiences.  I just hope to be some bit of support to other worn down Nurses.  Even in your darkest moments you aren't alone. 

Ergophobia: An abnormal and persistent fear of work. Sufferers of ergophobia experience undue anxiety about the workplace environment even though they realize their fear is irrational. Their fear may actually be a combination of fears, such fear of failing at assigned tasks, fear of speaking before groups at work, or fear of socializing with co-workers.

I am a pretty social guy, I can relate to people of all walks of life and have no qualms regarding race, creed, religion, sex, age.
I'd like to take a moment here to focus on the fact that people with anxiety disorders KNOW that the fear is irrational. A good analogy would be to imagine that you are in the operating room undergoing a routine surgery only to find that the drugs used to put you out did not stop pain but did stop you from moving. You would sit there and understand that if you could just move a limb, a digit, change your breathing, shed a tear, that everything would be ok. Someone would notice.

This is how I have felt many times. Over the last 8 years I have found various reasons and methods for leaving jobs just to get away from the feeling of nausea and vomiting associated with waking up and knowing I am going into the work place. I can trace this. Vividly. I know that I have a knack for allowing this type of understanding to lay dormant. One can assume that such a thing is dormant, but for me I think that the emotions transmuted into rage. One can assume that during the surgical process wherein on can feel pain but not move that one would feel the red heat of rage inter the scene just behind fear and before helplessness. 

In school, and by this I mean the odd hybrid of education that I underwent to become both a high school grad and graduated vocational nurse in time for the summer of 2000, I spent two academic years dealing with the anxiety of puberty, relationships with the opposite sex, and crazy ass parents on top of and in addition to the craziness of a 17/18 year old boy trying to make old/sick people believe that I was capable of healing listening and preventing further injury to them while they were in the hospital. 

Add to that the fact that while I was convincing myself and my patients and my instructors that I was able to become and function as a nurse, I had other nurses and Doctors to deal with as well. Doctors. Let that sink in.

 From the moment a child is born the profession of Doctor is amongst the top desires of parents for their children. Doctors reputedly make for a fine catch on the day time tv. Doctors are authority, they are ranked just above cops and just below the President in the mind of a child. So there I was... Dealing with all the normal bullshit that (some) kids deal with and trying like hell not to get on the radar. I did not want to kill any one. I did not want to be the catalyst of causation for some sort of catastrophic event.

I never spoke to people about what it was to go to school at that age. Most people would hear that there was once a group of 13 kids that were allowed to attend nursing school while in high school and would think, "damn that's lucky... Wish they had that when I as a kid..." Those types of comments or even observations do not allow for the open hearted complaints and undersides of the experience. some things have been hammered out by now. the relationships with the opposite sex. Never speak to my parental units again, and yeah Doctors are fallible.

My first job out of school was through the hospital network that provided my education. They allowed me to work in a confinement center at the resilient (see tender) age of 18. I was an LVN not in a hospital. I liked that concept I figured less I could make go wrong. I was wrong. The management at the medical unit I worked at decided that I was capable of handling a facility that contained over 500 inmates on my own over night on the weekends. So it was a bit of a kick in their ass when I had to respond to a complaint of chest pain and had not clue what I was supposed to do or how to do it. But more importantly it rocked my little world too. That wasn't supposed to happen I was the medicine man the guy that passed out tablets and capsules. Not the guy that saved potential heart attack victims. I was sure that I had done something wrong. that I didn't know enough to do the full work that the position required and that I was at fault. These many years later i see that I did not really have the fault there, that I was used and the management staff had absolutely no grasp on what was needed to safely run the facility. So first job lasted around 8 months.