Storytime! I was overnight charge nurse of an acute inpatient psychiatric unit every single night I worked (3/7 days a week) for over a year with a full set of patients every night the same as any other nurse working each of those nights except I also had to make sure all the unit administrative tasks got done (some of which would be critiqued by the incoming shift, particularly the assignment / patient split I made for the next shift).
I was really really good at it. I've been working high acuity units for years including specialized units for patients facing legal charges so I know how to handle some really violent patients but I've also been an inpatient myself more than once so I know how to approach a lot of issues with a lot more ...understanding? I guess? Than most. I was really good at it. Even when I wasn't charge nurse I'd wind up taking care of other people's patients so their patients wigging out wouldn't start affecting my patients or for bigger incidents half the time I was the only person that even knew what to do.
But then comes the "we can't assign anyone else because you're the best at it." Well if I'm going to be the dedicated charge nurse can I not have my own patients? Well no we don't have the staff for that. Well can I go work another unit for just one day each week? Can I go work the clinical liason team and respond to behavioral codes in the hospitals medical units? Well no we need you here. And so on an and so on.
And then they start telling me I need to tighten up on my night shift. Don't let them hide in the nurses station but they're not allowed to take anything on the unit to make them comfortable out there even if they keep track of it all carefully. Make sure they do every single round and and it doesn't matter if that wakes the patients up every fifteen minutes (and on top of everything else you're doing you personally need to make sure each person is doing their checks every fifteen minutes). Make sure they clean the whole unit every night. Audit their charting and make sure they're not missing anything.
I lost 40 pounds at that job by the time the supervisor came into the nurses station in the middle of morning report to yell at me about not doing it right. I handed her my badge and left.
The entire time people were offering to listen, to be there for me emotionally. We work in mental health and sometimes you just need someone to listen, right? I had plenty of people listening but no one was helping. Even when I was explicitly offering specific ways to just lighten up on me a little, they said no. They even blocked my attempts to apply to other units in the hospital. Every single night I worked it was like having my head shoved under water and the dread I felt every day before work was literally making me physically ill.
Listening only goes so far.
If people are willing to listen but not actually to address your concerns, they don't actually care what you have to say.
I'm sorry to hear about your experience working at such a place. It's no wonder that the industry ends up devoid of both empathy and efficacy when it actively screens out such qualities, if not in intent then in practice. For the time you were able to endure despite the impossible demands and pressure, I hope you were a ray of sunshine for those patients you were able to help.
Decades of experience has revealed the overwhelming majority of ‘suicide prevention’ concepts are exclusively focused and fixated on acute suicidality, which are often precisely the opposite of what’s required when dealing with chronic suicidality.
One of the most effective mechanisms, particularly for chronic suicide prevention, is to create an environment in which one can realistically and actively choose to participate in when we’re at our most vulnerable.
Obviously, the best way to treat someone who is desperate to the point that they want to die is to strip them of their rights, put them in essentially a prison, and traumatize them even more.
I went inpatient voluntarily a few months ago. When I asked to leave, they got an order to hold me. I had vape smoke blown in my face by their staff, was physically assaulted, and was placed in a woman’s ward - despite being legally male and having had surgery to that effect.
The carceral approach to suicide prevention is horrifying and helps no one.
Thoughts and prayers!
Hey! I work for a suicide line!
This is 100% accurate! Debt relief, housing, and just generally human beings not having to sacrifice their minds and bodies for basic necessities would cut down the suicide rate by tons!
Mental health awareness enables class consciousness. Please don't do this.
I think the thing being advocated here is using context, not stopping talking about issues.
Like instead of saying "you are not alone with burnout, it is something most people experience from time to time", say " you're not alone with burnout, it is the result of the alienation from your work and the incentive structure of our society".
After a certain point being aware just means you keep reaching the lucky 10,000 instead of actually doing anything to address the problems.
It's like all the charities that are doing all kinds of stuff to raise awareness for whatever problem they're championing, but hardly ever make a dent in furthering the goal of actually fixing what they're championing.
Yes keeping people informed about mental health problems is important but the solution to the rise of the mental health crisis is "fix what's causing so much unnecessary stress on people." But instead we get more money dedicated for researching medicines and therapy to fix what shouldn't have been broken in the first place.
"Raisin awareness" more often than not helps that Charity in terms of Marketing, which in turn leads to more funding.
(Finding a human interest subject, linking your company to it and taking it all the the Press as a nice pre-package piece of "today's news" is quite a common PR strategy)
When it comes to modern Charities, generally fixing what they're championing is at best a secondary priority to their own self-preservation as an entity.
“Deaths of despair” is a powerful concept which deserves whatever shove into the mainstream that it can be given, regardless of purity tests. Occupy had problems, but it still got people to take on the concept of “the 1%.”
Medical professionals can be particularly ignorant when it comes to the day to day life problems of their patients. I think it's completely inappropriate to tell someone like a single mother on low income that her mood swings are just the result of some syndrome, can be managed with chemicals and is totally disconnected from the trouble in her life. Therapists will call her entitled for continuing to experience emotion. It's sick.
"It's not actually a good thing to be well adjusted in a deeply sick society"
Money implies poverty.
-Iain M Banks
Yes, but also if you have the time or inclination you can still volunteer.
The above is a list of resources like free food fridges, reproductive health and other outreach.
I like to cope by doing absolutely too much for one person, so I've learned to spread that around to many people! I'm fine, this is fine, 4 hours of sleep a night is totally sustainable.
Using "mental health awareness" to victim blame is a proper cunt move.
