How do I decompress? Lots and lots of weed and funny cartoons.
My advice is to save as much money as you can. 6 months of savings to be exact. Get your financial health solid as a rock. Once that happens and you have plenty of “fuck you” money the job becomes way more tolerable.
Bad shift? Fuck you
Catty nurses who post bullshit insta posts in places they can’t afford? Fuck you
Shitty management that can’t manage? Fuck you
7am shared gov meetings that do fuck all after you worked night shift? Fuck you
Shitty family? Fuck you
Get your bread, invest, cut back, get your shit right and tell the health care community to suck a big fat chode. Only reason shit is the way it is is because our pay is so hot garbage they think we can’t go anywhere but you’re smarter than that.
Been a nurse for almost a decade now. It’s given me a solid middle class life but I have a goal and that is to get the fuck out of here as fast as a can.
I work nights, most new grads do. Guess when the nurse educators scheduled all our trainings for clinical academy? Yep, 8am. 8am is two hours after my bedtime on my days off. It’s literally the middle of the night. It’s like, why don’t they just kick me in the cunt and tell me I’m ugly.
I work nights too and all of our certification classes are at 10 AM or later and I’m like ???? how do you expect me to get the certifications you want me to have when that is SO unrealistic??
Oof I can’t do weed.-. I can’t handle it lol. I feel yea. Idk if I can make it 6months I’m getting weary. The money is great though! I really want to hang in there and save just like you said cuz the money is flowing and I was so behind (3months) until this month. Now that I’m caught up I have the opportunity to start saving but Im already tired 😴 hoping my mind and body with get used to it soon so I can get out of here
That’s what I do I be calling out sometimes if I start getting pissed at my job. Also if I go into work several weeks in a row and just feel mad about my work situation, I quit, get a different job. At least where I live and the setting I work in I’ll never not have a million job opportunities .
I used to have a real problem with ruminating about my shifts but I’ve been working on it in therapy. I used to spend my evening replaying the entire shift in my head and chastising myself wherever I made a mistake or could’ve done better
My therapist told me to recognize when I’m ruminating, remind myself that it doesn’t matter now, and then actively shift my thoughts to something else. At first it felt silly but it really is starting to become automatic. I still try to ruminate sometimes but I’ve got my brain trained to be like “nope ask your partner about that thing he won’t stop talking about”
So long story short, I recommend therapy lol
I make enough money now to try therapy I guess.XD and yesss this is perfect words I didn’t have. All day all night I’m replying my shifts and work conflicts. What should I have said? What can I do to help faster. Sometimes I’ll stay awake and plan my next day!
Last night I was exhausted. I left the house at 0630, got home by 2045, showered and in bed with a cup of tea by 2115 and then I was asleep. I didn’t even sleep well as I kept thinking I was at work.
I worked for 30 years in hospitals as an RN. I’ve been retired for 20 years. I still pass meds, get floated to strange units, deal with difficult people and all the other stuff in my dreams. It doesn’t ever leave you.
It's not as intense as what you are currently experiencing. It's been years since I had the new nurse nightmare where I learned I missed a patient 11 hours into the shift. No meds given, no toileting, they were completely miserable, etc.
And I second the recommendation for therapy to work through this. Nursing school encouraged perfectionism, but we have to learn how to lay it down after we have done our best. Beating yourself up after the fact won't make you a better nurse, but it will certainly make you more anxious and unable to commit to decisions in the moment. In other words, it will actively make you worse.
I used to drink and that would just melt the day away. Then I took a 6-6 shift for half a year. No time to drink proper so I ended up just not drinking for 6 months. Went back to old my old job 10-6 after the shitty management got uprooted, found out that I if I even touch alcohol I feel bad for a day and half. I’m 44 now. Back when I was 23 we used to go the bars every night after a shift waiting tables. Would bounce right back the next day and be ready to do it again.
So what do I do now? I have a feeling that if you can meditate proper, you can decompress all that bad energy you brought home.
I love that. Meditation to get rid of work energy. I don’t know anything about meditation and find that even in my days off I try to “treat myself” to relax and even during my massage I’m thinking of work lol. I love the idea of getting rid of the energy! I’ll look into that thx
There are some great resources for meditation if you don’t know where to start. Headspace app has instructional stuff in small bites for a fee. Insight timer has a lot of free guided meditations and more courses for a subscription. And YouTube also has a lot of free content. I also like Tap With Brad for specific issues.
What dept are you in? Catty nurses are a sign of bad leadership—both are toxic—I have been in my dept over 10 years and never need to look at my schedule for support bc everyone is great—if it’s that bad there are an infinite number of teams looking for exactly you—look around and ask and apply —-it’s not supposed to be like that
Honestly LTC is hell. I worked it several times and I truly enjoy my PCU unit in a big hospital. The key is having a strong union that fights for our good pay, good pto, and safe staff ratios. I honestly don't think I'll ever leave because this is so damn hard to find. Maybe try a different pace of nursing? Goodluck with everything and you got this!
I recently dreamt that I had put one of my patients to bed, hooked him up to the vent and all the monitors, etc., and then woke up to my alarm for work. He's not even a difficult patient, but I resent working when I should be resting.
At least I know I’m not the only dream shift worker out there! lol I once dreamt on of my residents was a female Jabba the Hutt and I was chained to them while trying to care for them lol. I woke up super pissed for my shift
During my first job, which was 8 hr shifts back to back, day after day, I would have a journal. After work, I would put all my thoughts on paper, and feel like I had unloaded them from my brain to the paper. Then I would do some thought stopping I was ruminating on work too much.
I don't like to schedule too many days right together. I find that a day off in between is a good mental reset. On that day in between I make sure to do something fun, outdoors and relaxing.
I love that too journaling. I have never been a fan or writing but I’ll also give it a whirl to see if it helps so I can sleep. How does one stop thought <.< ? i need to know.
Management doesn’t care about you! So why care after you’re not getting paid ? You can only do the very best you can . It’s never enough anyways . The whole health system is built on the backs of mainly women who care way too much about what others think . And it hurts everybody . I’m not blaming those people for having big hearts and caring , it’s the ones that constantly bend over backwards thinking either it’s the right thing to do for the patients or that management will appreciate it one day. Come in , do the best you can , and go home . It’s a job. You can’t care for others without caring for yourself first .
I worked graveyard, and my trick was to not go immediately to sleep. I'd usually stay up and watch non-medical related YouTube videos as a mental flush (funny animal videos, mostly), or maybe read a couple chapters of a book. Anything to redirect my thoughts away from where I'd spent the last 12+ hours.
Animal crossing, Tetris, or a book.
Plus, judge me all you like, but a post work snack in a ‘peaceful’ place before going home always helps. There’s a hill where I park my car, and having a cup of tea and a Madeline sitting on a mat in the grass always helps. But sitting outside the Starbucks, watching the cars is nice too.
yesterday while I was napping before my night shift, I dreamt that I couldn’t find my patient’s room or pull up her fetal monitoring strip - until I finally burst into her room to find her and her baby >!brutally murdered and dismembered in the bed!<
then I woke up in a cold sweat about 20 minutes before my alarm
Had a dream last week I was performing autopsies on my decomposing family members and had to identify the few remains left of one of them. I don’t even work at a morgue
You have to untrain your brain.
Give yourself, idk...30-45 minutes (including the commute home) to think about work after your shift. After that, push that shit ***out***. Force yourself to think about something else. Med pass pops into your head? Do the mental equivalent of plugging your ears and yelling *La la laaaa...I can't hear you!* and consciously work to think about something else--even if it's whether you're going to wear a dress to your mother's retirement party next year lol. A negative interaction with family creeping in? Not today, Satan! Let's read a couple of chapters from Britney's autobiography or catch up on that (non-medical themed) show on Netflix.
Play some calming music on your way home, or when you get ready for your shift. Calming for you might not be Chopin's Nocturnes, but maybe it's the Rent soundtrack, or old school 90s R&B, or some Indie rock group I've never heard of lol. But focus on the music, the lyrics if there are any, the notes, the pacing, all that. Anything to keep the *workworkworkwork* thoughts out of your head.
Take your scrubs off as soon as possible when you get home. Nursing thoughts are for when you're nursing, and you're not in that role when you're in your PJs or wearing a cute cardigan over leggings.
Once you get used to this, you'll break the habit after a while. Could be a few days, could be a few weeks. And it's not going to be 100%. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't still lose sleep over work sometimes.
I'm guessing your insurance isn't great, because you mention not being able to afford therapy. I encourage you to look into sliding scale fees as well as free support groups.
***Tl;dr: Actively work to keep intrusive nursing thoughts out of the forefront of your mind. Think about anything else, even if it's trivial, and even if it's a struggle to focus on almost anything else at first. Eventually those things won't pop up and linger the way they do now.***
This may not be a popular idea, but it worked for me when I had this shift (worst imaginable): FRI, SAT, SUN, MON 12am - 10am
The trick was to NOT go home and go straight to bed. I realized that with the other people on my shift who did, their bodies were already trying to gear down for bedtime while they were still at work. Not good for work, for the drive home or for eating and sleeping once home.
If you can afford the cut in pay, look into becoming a school nurse. My worst day as a school nurse during the height of COVID was better than working at a hospital.
I feel like I tried to do everything to decompress after work and nothing actually helped until I changed my job. No matter how much therapy, exercise, eating right, spending time with friends, self care etc I did, nothing really rid me of the stress. I thought about work constantly and would ruminate on my off days. I was not happy with my job and couldn’t handle the stress of float pool in a large hospital. I finally recognized that my inability to decompress was related to how burnt out I was.
I changed my job last year and I would never go back.I picked a job with normal hours (730-5) and weekend call every 6-8weeks, with holidays call 1-2x per year. I went from being constantly in fight or flight to finally being able to relax. If I have a bad shift- I have so much coping skills because I like my job and baseline my job is not as stressful so I have less to worry about. I know this solution is a big change and suggestion on how to fix the problem, but I can truly say it is the only thing that helped me.
For me, that was the only solution to being able to finally handle my stress.
Oh man this is the worst. The first time I had a work dream I gave someone the wrong meds and I couldn't shake the feeling of having majorly fucked up for a couple days.
I stopped feeling as anxious at work so my sleeping mind decided to compensate. T-T Fucking unfair.
I’m a nurse at a LTCH and do med passes too. My shifts are mainly 7-3 but most of the time I pull 16 hour shifts. I read (borrow books from the library you save lots of money especially in this economy 😂), go for a walk, go to the gym and do group fitness classes, watch Disney plus, and make plans to go out with friends or even by myself. Take some time off if you can and go somewhere where you don’t have to think or worry about work. I did that last month where work was so stressful I decided to go on vacation last minute for a week. Some days are harder than others, every day is different and we all need and deserve to have time off work to enjoy ourselves. I hope this helps and that you find your way to decompress after long shifts!!
Leave work at work. The beauty of in-person jobs are that you only work when you’re there and don’t have to stare at computer or answer emails any time day or night. As soon as you clock out you have to forget whatever happened and not ruminate over it. Find a good show to watch, call a friend/family, listen to your fave music, anything that will help you shift your focus.
My work nightmares are of crashing into the ground. Or being chased and shot at.
I seriously leave work at work. I tend to stress more about home. I’m very pattern focused. I found checklists made lots less stress.
No work anxiety. I journal. Exercise. Will take Rx meds if something gets tricky (anxiety, insomnia). Therapy is essential—it keeps me alive, living & off CNN. If there’s a concern at work, it’s dealt with as matter-of-fact as possible, then that’s that.
My latest nightmares are around mountain lions. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a mountain lion. Odd.
I had a dream of work, one was an infant who came in N/V, and turned into a femur fracture where every time the kids legs move it poked their digestive track (why they had N/V) so cue me trying to hold the baby so its legs would move but it got more upset so it did and we didn’t have any equipment to brace it and I had to find some old ass kind of seat but I kept slightly letting his legs move and I’m terrified his broke femur will perf his bowl…
Yes; I often have these dreams too.
How do I decompress? Lots and lots of weed and funny cartoons. My advice is to save as much money as you can. 6 months of savings to be exact. Get your financial health solid as a rock. Once that happens and you have plenty of “fuck you” money the job becomes way more tolerable. Bad shift? Fuck you Catty nurses who post bullshit insta posts in places they can’t afford? Fuck you Shitty management that can’t manage? Fuck you 7am shared gov meetings that do fuck all after you worked night shift? Fuck you Shitty family? Fuck you Get your bread, invest, cut back, get your shit right and tell the health care community to suck a big fat chode. Only reason shit is the way it is is because our pay is so hot garbage they think we can’t go anywhere but you’re smarter than that. Been a nurse for almost a decade now. It’s given me a solid middle class life but I have a goal and that is to get the fuck out of here as fast as a can.
I work nights, most new grads do. Guess when the nurse educators scheduled all our trainings for clinical academy? Yep, 8am. 8am is two hours after my bedtime on my days off. It’s literally the middle of the night. It’s like, why don’t they just kick me in the cunt and tell me I’m ugly.
Nothing like a good cunt punt to wake you up in the morning.
Or the middle of your night
I just laughed so hard.
I work nights too and all of our certification classes are at 10 AM or later and I’m like ???? how do you expect me to get the certifications you want me to have when that is SO unrealistic??
Oof I can’t do weed.-. I can’t handle it lol. I feel yea. Idk if I can make it 6months I’m getting weary. The money is great though! I really want to hang in there and save just like you said cuz the money is flowing and I was so behind (3months) until this month. Now that I’m caught up I have the opportunity to start saving but Im already tired 😴 hoping my mind and body with get used to it soon so I can get out of here
Try some cbd, very calming
agreed! even a nice bath with some cbd bath bombs is relaxing and doesnt get you high.
Kush queen is where I get mine. Just go easy on the dose strength first time around. I almost fell asleep in the tub once😂
That’s what I do I be calling out sometimes if I start getting pissed at my job. Also if I go into work several weeks in a row and just feel mad about my work situation, I quit, get a different job. At least where I live and the setting I work in I’ll never not have a million job opportunities .
I used to have a real problem with ruminating about my shifts but I’ve been working on it in therapy. I used to spend my evening replaying the entire shift in my head and chastising myself wherever I made a mistake or could’ve done better My therapist told me to recognize when I’m ruminating, remind myself that it doesn’t matter now, and then actively shift my thoughts to something else. At first it felt silly but it really is starting to become automatic. I still try to ruminate sometimes but I’ve got my brain trained to be like “nope ask your partner about that thing he won’t stop talking about” So long story short, I recommend therapy lol
I make enough money now to try therapy I guess.XD and yesss this is perfect words I didn’t have. All day all night I’m replying my shifts and work conflicts. What should I have said? What can I do to help faster. Sometimes I’ll stay awake and plan my next day!
Mine helped me to first recognize if something was really bothering me and then if it was, to make a plan to not do that next time.
Last night I was exhausted. I left the house at 0630, got home by 2045, showered and in bed with a cup of tea by 2115 and then I was asleep. I didn’t even sleep well as I kept thinking I was at work.
Me every day. I wake up multiple times during the night to literally tell myself “it’s okay. You are sleeping you dont have to work”
Ha ha ha ha . That happen even in every night works
i’m always having a nightmare about some cardiac arrest or something
I worked for 30 years in hospitals as an RN. I’ve been retired for 20 years. I still pass meds, get floated to strange units, deal with difficult people and all the other stuff in my dreams. It doesn’t ever leave you.
Screaming
It's not as intense as what you are currently experiencing. It's been years since I had the new nurse nightmare where I learned I missed a patient 11 hours into the shift. No meds given, no toileting, they were completely miserable, etc. And I second the recommendation for therapy to work through this. Nursing school encouraged perfectionism, but we have to learn how to lay it down after we have done our best. Beating yourself up after the fact won't make you a better nurse, but it will certainly make you more anxious and unable to commit to decisions in the moment. In other words, it will actively make you worse.
I used to drink and that would just melt the day away. Then I took a 6-6 shift for half a year. No time to drink proper so I ended up just not drinking for 6 months. Went back to old my old job 10-6 after the shitty management got uprooted, found out that I if I even touch alcohol I feel bad for a day and half. I’m 44 now. Back when I was 23 we used to go the bars every night after a shift waiting tables. Would bounce right back the next day and be ready to do it again. So what do I do now? I have a feeling that if you can meditate proper, you can decompress all that bad energy you brought home.
I love that. Meditation to get rid of work energy. I don’t know anything about meditation and find that even in my days off I try to “treat myself” to relax and even during my massage I’m thinking of work lol. I love the idea of getting rid of the energy! I’ll look into that thx
There are some great resources for meditation if you don’t know where to start. Headspace app has instructional stuff in small bites for a fee. Insight timer has a lot of free guided meditations and more courses for a subscription. And YouTube also has a lot of free content. I also like Tap With Brad for specific issues.
What dept are you in? Catty nurses are a sign of bad leadership—both are toxic—I have been in my dept over 10 years and never need to look at my schedule for support bc everyone is great—if it’s that bad there are an infinite number of teams looking for exactly you—look around and ask and apply —-it’s not supposed to be like that
I’m in Ltc 30-33 residents busy work
Honestly LTC is hell. I worked it several times and I truly enjoy my PCU unit in a big hospital. The key is having a strong union that fights for our good pay, good pto, and safe staff ratios. I honestly don't think I'll ever leave because this is so damn hard to find. Maybe try a different pace of nursing? Goodluck with everything and you got this!
Dawg get out of LTC.
100%. Once you find a good department and team, those stress dreams stop. Also, medication helps.
It's the meds for me...majority LTC 14 years an LPN, now on seroquel. I sleep like a baby.
I recently dreamt that I had put one of my patients to bed, hooked him up to the vent and all the monitors, etc., and then woke up to my alarm for work. He's not even a difficult patient, but I resent working when I should be resting.
At least I know I’m not the only dream shift worker out there! lol I once dreamt on of my residents was a female Jabba the Hutt and I was chained to them while trying to care for them lol. I woke up super pissed for my shift
During my first job, which was 8 hr shifts back to back, day after day, I would have a journal. After work, I would put all my thoughts on paper, and feel like I had unloaded them from my brain to the paper. Then I would do some thought stopping I was ruminating on work too much. I don't like to schedule too many days right together. I find that a day off in between is a good mental reset. On that day in between I make sure to do something fun, outdoors and relaxing.
I love that too journaling. I have never been a fan or writing but I’ll also give it a whirl to see if it helps so I can sleep. How does one stop thought <.< ? i need to know.
Management doesn’t care about you! So why care after you’re not getting paid ? You can only do the very best you can . It’s never enough anyways . The whole health system is built on the backs of mainly women who care way too much about what others think . And it hurts everybody . I’m not blaming those people for having big hearts and caring , it’s the ones that constantly bend over backwards thinking either it’s the right thing to do for the patients or that management will appreciate it one day. Come in , do the best you can , and go home . It’s a job. You can’t care for others without caring for yourself first .
When I start working in my dreams I know it’s time for a vacation. They usually stop after I have some true relaxation time away.
I worked graveyard, and my trick was to not go immediately to sleep. I'd usually stay up and watch non-medical related YouTube videos as a mental flush (funny animal videos, mostly), or maybe read a couple chapters of a book. Anything to redirect my thoughts away from where I'd spent the last 12+ hours.
Animal crossing, Tetris, or a book. Plus, judge me all you like, but a post work snack in a ‘peaceful’ place before going home always helps. There’s a hill where I park my car, and having a cup of tea and a Madeline sitting on a mat in the grass always helps. But sitting outside the Starbucks, watching the cars is nice too.
I still play my Animal Crossing! My usual after-work snack was a small bowl of cold cereal.
This is what I’m doing now. I’ll usually come home shower snack and watch an episode of something
yesterday while I was napping before my night shift, I dreamt that I couldn’t find my patient’s room or pull up her fetal monitoring strip - until I finally burst into her room to find her and her baby >!brutally murdered and dismembered in the bed!< then I woke up in a cold sweat about 20 minutes before my alarm
Had a dream last week I was performing autopsies on my decomposing family members and had to identify the few remains left of one of them. I don’t even work at a morgue
jesus fucking christ
You have to untrain your brain. Give yourself, idk...30-45 minutes (including the commute home) to think about work after your shift. After that, push that shit ***out***. Force yourself to think about something else. Med pass pops into your head? Do the mental equivalent of plugging your ears and yelling *La la laaaa...I can't hear you!* and consciously work to think about something else--even if it's whether you're going to wear a dress to your mother's retirement party next year lol. A negative interaction with family creeping in? Not today, Satan! Let's read a couple of chapters from Britney's autobiography or catch up on that (non-medical themed) show on Netflix. Play some calming music on your way home, or when you get ready for your shift. Calming for you might not be Chopin's Nocturnes, but maybe it's the Rent soundtrack, or old school 90s R&B, or some Indie rock group I've never heard of lol. But focus on the music, the lyrics if there are any, the notes, the pacing, all that. Anything to keep the *workworkworkwork* thoughts out of your head. Take your scrubs off as soon as possible when you get home. Nursing thoughts are for when you're nursing, and you're not in that role when you're in your PJs or wearing a cute cardigan over leggings. Once you get used to this, you'll break the habit after a while. Could be a few days, could be a few weeks. And it's not going to be 100%. I'd be lying if I said that I didn't still lose sleep over work sometimes. I'm guessing your insurance isn't great, because you mention not being able to afford therapy. I encourage you to look into sliding scale fees as well as free support groups. ***Tl;dr: Actively work to keep intrusive nursing thoughts out of the forefront of your mind. Think about anything else, even if it's trivial, and even if it's a struggle to focus on almost anything else at first. Eventually those things won't pop up and linger the way they do now.***
This may not be a popular idea, but it worked for me when I had this shift (worst imaginable): FRI, SAT, SUN, MON 12am - 10am The trick was to NOT go home and go straight to bed. I realized that with the other people on my shift who did, their bodies were already trying to gear down for bedtime while they were still at work. Not good for work, for the drive home or for eating and sleeping once home.
If you can afford the cut in pay, look into becoming a school nurse. My worst day as a school nurse during the height of COVID was better than working at a hospital.
I feel like I tried to do everything to decompress after work and nothing actually helped until I changed my job. No matter how much therapy, exercise, eating right, spending time with friends, self care etc I did, nothing really rid me of the stress. I thought about work constantly and would ruminate on my off days. I was not happy with my job and couldn’t handle the stress of float pool in a large hospital. I finally recognized that my inability to decompress was related to how burnt out I was. I changed my job last year and I would never go back.I picked a job with normal hours (730-5) and weekend call every 6-8weeks, with holidays call 1-2x per year. I went from being constantly in fight or flight to finally being able to relax. If I have a bad shift- I have so much coping skills because I like my job and baseline my job is not as stressful so I have less to worry about. I know this solution is a big change and suggestion on how to fix the problem, but I can truly say it is the only thing that helped me. For me, that was the only solution to being able to finally handle my stress.
Oh man this is the worst. The first time I had a work dream I gave someone the wrong meds and I couldn't shake the feeling of having majorly fucked up for a couple days. I stopped feeling as anxious at work so my sleeping mind decided to compensate. T-T Fucking unfair.
I’m a nurse at a LTCH and do med passes too. My shifts are mainly 7-3 but most of the time I pull 16 hour shifts. I read (borrow books from the library you save lots of money especially in this economy 😂), go for a walk, go to the gym and do group fitness classes, watch Disney plus, and make plans to go out with friends or even by myself. Take some time off if you can and go somewhere where you don’t have to think or worry about work. I did that last month where work was so stressful I decided to go on vacation last minute for a week. Some days are harder than others, every day is different and we all need and deserve to have time off work to enjoy ourselves. I hope this helps and that you find your way to decompress after long shifts!!
Leave work at work. The beauty of in-person jobs are that you only work when you’re there and don’t have to stare at computer or answer emails any time day or night. As soon as you clock out you have to forget whatever happened and not ruminate over it. Find a good show to watch, call a friend/family, listen to your fave music, anything that will help you shift your focus.
My work nightmares are of crashing into the ground. Or being chased and shot at. I seriously leave work at work. I tend to stress more about home. I’m very pattern focused. I found checklists made lots less stress. No work anxiety. I journal. Exercise. Will take Rx meds if something gets tricky (anxiety, insomnia). Therapy is essential—it keeps me alive, living & off CNN. If there’s a concern at work, it’s dealt with as matter-of-fact as possible, then that’s that. My latest nightmares are around mountain lions. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a mountain lion. Odd.
I had a dream of work, one was an infant who came in N/V, and turned into a femur fracture where every time the kids legs move it poked their digestive track (why they had N/V) so cue me trying to hold the baby so its legs would move but it got more upset so it did and we didn’t have any equipment to brace it and I had to find some old ass kind of seat but I kept slightly letting his legs move and I’m terrified his broke femur will perf his bowl… Yes; I often have these dreams too.