depression....

I have spent a lot of time working the field of mental health now, going on 10 years. Much to the dismay of my mother, who still says to me, "When are you going to be a REAL nurse?" I really love what I do (on most days). Some behaviours are so fascinating. Nothing like a manic person, talking a million miles an hour; flirting with my male co-workers, clicking down the hallways in six inch stilletos, thinking she is at a health spa, instead of a psychiatric in-pt unit. Or the homeless man who was psychotic and thought my girlfriend was his long lost lover, "CC Rider." Or 100 pound girls who have been hopped up on cocaine for three days and are still spinning around my unit with tons of left over adrenaline. Some days it's very amusing. Some days it's not.

I work with a lot of really depressed people. And I don't mean sad; I mean depressed. That have nothing left. Their families are emotionally bankrupt from dealing with them for so long. They can't work; and now they have no income. They are in bad relationships because decent people won't even go near someone who needs this much support. They are addicted; alone; and often, no one cares whther they were dead or not. So how do you tell someone like this that there is hope? And in reality, often the odds are stacked against them.

So they come to us....and what happens? It's pretty much common knowledge that nurses are overworked and underpaid; and unless you are gushing blood, screaming at the top of your lungs, or physically impaired in some way; there will be days when no one notices you...sitting in your room, willing yourself to stop living. And for extra fun, you may share a room with a seventeen year old girl who thinks cutting herself up like a roast on Sunday dinner is a "coping stregy," and her gothic friends see this as a sign of "inner beauty." There are days I say to myself, "I can't handle this shit..." How does the sucidal person feel?

I have met some amazing people in this field who have had to walk away, beacuse of how this had affected them in one way or another. And these are high functioning, intelligent, caring people. There are a lot of reasons for this; but I think a huge factor is the lack of respect for what we do. Most people don't understand mental illness) depite the fact that every single person out there knows someone with a mental illness or an addiction), and we are also looked down on by "real nurses" (grrrr) who think that unless you work in an ICU or medical unit, you are not really nursing. It is very easy to get dismayed.