Interesting that Spice_Weasel mentions EMDR as that’s what I did. It was awhile back, so I don’t recall how I went looking for them, but I was upfront about what I wanted and it worked out well. I felt that I owned it to my patients and that resolved any conflict I had about ‘needing help.’
One day I was just watching an episode of ER on tv. The scene was of dueling crises in different trauma rooms, the camera cutting back and forth, it was a well-crafted scene. But the final bit was quiet as they pronounced time of death on a child. I instantly went from a place of jadedly thinking ‘that’s outdated. That’s current but you’d never get the results so fast,’ etc, to having my heart try and leap out of my chest.
As I said, it was such a blindsiding event, on a subject that I thought I had reasonably in hand that made me decide to reach out, I felt like it was too unpredictable to carry around while I was working.
Thank you for sharing your experience. You have a profound self awareness about your situation and what was needed at the time.
I find it encouraging that the EMDR process seems to work so well.
I like to think I’m OK but I know that’s simply not true. I recently finished a year and half long series of therapy sessions with a very efficient clinician. My focus, however, was not on any of the trauma associated with my past personal life or ongoing work in child welfare. I was focused on making a deal with myself to get certain segments of life sorted out so I could retire. Those goals were met for the most part.
I think it would be beneficial to work on some of the tangled issues that remain in bits and pieces and EMDR might be a good way to start.
I’d have to travel a little bit of a distance to get away from the people I interact with professionally but it’s manageable.
ellecram, you’re paying the price for being supremely professional and supremely empathetic.
Mom is a retired Hospice Nurse. She carried it all inside. Dad had no capacity to share, hear, be her venting person. Many of her colleagues supported each other and so she had them. But…in reading your O.P. some of Mom’s most painful cases echoed.
Please, be kind to yourself. Seek whatever level of care and counsel is available to you. You were threatened in your private life: SO many boundaries crossed with that one case.
You deserve deep and genuine peace. Let those well-trained to assist you do so !!
This is something I heard again and again over my years (Ha! decades) as a paramedic, sometimes from physicians or hardened E.R. nurses. I never understood it. I’ve seen some devastating things and managed patients with horrific injuries, experienced soul-crushing glimpses of lives destroyed.
But they were glimpses. My role largely ended at the E.R. doors. It was up to others to see those patients through to whatever end was destined. I don’t know how anyone has the emotional strength for that. I can’t imagine how you kept it together all that time to help those who desperately needed the help.
Dear, Ellecram. Dear, dear hurting human, the world is a better place for what you’ve done. Many, many people’s lives are immeasurably better because of what you put yourself through. I don’t know how much it will help to contemplate that, but it’s true. Not all heroes get statues. Not everyone even gets the thanks they deserve. But thank you, Ellecram for you steadfastness and strength. I hope you will find the joy you deserve.
Hospice nursing has to be one of the most emotionally exhausting jobs but one that needs dedicated, compassionate people. My thanks to your mother for doing that all these years.
Like your mother the support of coworkers has kept me sane through all of the years of chaos.
THIS. People carry your care and love and professionalism with them. Like, forever. Mom’s slowly dying of vascular dementia. Somewhere safe I have a lovely letter written by a family. It is what I will read at her Quaker Memorial service when we lose her. Instead of a bereft and loving son waxing on and on, I’ll share the words of family members.
You spoke of grace. My gosh, yes. Bearing witness to those moments, those struggles, that hard work as you do YOUR work, is a rare gift in life.
