hang in there, may…

>>hugs

I became a “bad family member” when I helped my sibling get treatment. Since then, the quality of life has been better.

If you need help, seek it out. It is there. Don’t think you have to ride the merry-go-round forever.

Not two days ago, I had a patient in the ED. While assessing her, I noticed distinct, tell tale slash marks on her wrist.

I felt a cold, icy ball materialize in my stomach. A wave of nausea briefly passed over me while my mind recoiled in anguish and relieved memories I’d long thought suppressed and forgotten. There was no mention of SI in her history and I had stumbled upon it purely by chance of doing a good workup.

But the effect was just as powerful.
The image of her scarred wrists draw my thoughts to my own… it will probably be a long time before I can put these thoughts away again.

I still pause and collect myself before I walk in to a patient’s room with a known history of suicide attempts/SI/depression. I try to be as therapeutic as I can. I strive to put my professional self before my personal self….

… but deep down inside, I can’t help but “feel” for another human being who is experiencing the wretchedness of human suffering. Suffering of the kind I was once very intimate with as a person.

Depression is very real.

I was deeply touched by yout very frank and candid post.

Thank you.

- S. (a nurse on your Nurse Bloggers list).

In regards to depression, it is ultimately a lone battle, since the pain is a spawn of our own minds, appearing out of nowhere instead of some external stimuli that can be pinpointed and addressed. It is absolutely true that emotional pain you feel in the throes of depression is no less than that of concrete tragic events, and by no means should it be cast aside, ignored.

However, when it comes to reaction from non-sufferers, maybe it can’t be helped that there might be some hostility. After all, from the rational mind’s point of view, a depressed person’s suffering does seem insignificant when there are so many obvious causes of pain in the world, as you already pointed out. There is some truth to it when you say “pesky unreal narcissistic dilemma,” which is how I sometimes view depression to be honest.

Don’t misunderstand. It’s not that I don’t know the pain. It just reminded me of an experience I had, (if you don’t mind my long comment.) Years ago I ended up in ER as a crying mess of self-mutilated body (but no life-threatening wounds to my great disappointment at the time.) There was a nurse who coldly stated that she was too busy and proceeded with straight cath instead of letting me drink and wait to go to bathroom. Then there was another nurse who kindly asked me if I was cold and replaced the blanket with another one fresh out of blanket warmer.

Remembering the first nurse brings back the feeling of hurt, humiliation and… sting, which, even to this day, makes me cringe whenever I have to put in a foley on a conscious patient. However, while I would’ve appreciated gentler approach, I understand how she might have viewed me among more urgent patients she must have had. Then there were mental-health professionals with condescending gestures with forced empathy, which are just as non-therapeutic as outright hostility. All those people who I’ve crossed path with, those who I’ve “inconvenienced” during those years I grappled with depression, some of their reaction frustrated me, shrank me further inward. Looking back with certain detachment, though, I realize they all had reasons, and I’d never dare ask them “why couldn’t you be nicer?”

In the end, it’s up to the person him/herself to get better from depression regardless of others. When I find myself in presence of a distraught person, I don’t presume to be able to help significantly or to be empathetic, since the pain that person feels cannot possibly be the same as the pain I know. I just remember the nurse who wrapped me in a warm blanket when I was cold, and I try to do the same: do the simple things within my reach to comfort.