Everyone wants to know. From the nursing school admissions committee to family members, to dates to coworkers, everyone wants to know the reason behind your selfless and honorable choice to go into the virtuous profession of caring for others.
For, what could be more admirable than soothing the hurt, helping the injured, caressing the upset, the damaged, the deranged. And what drew you to make such a difficult choice?
My pat answer for years has said something about how my aunts are nurses and I grew up with their stories and blah blah about loving to take care of people and how rewarding it is, not to mention a good job... I've listened to other nurses talk about the shining example of Nightingale-esque nurse-tasticness that took care of their dying grandmother or mother who drove them to carry on that light in the grieving darkness, and caring for others in the same way. Nurses whose mothers and grandmothers were nurses, people who thought the human body was fascinating, who loved to watch surgeries, and the ubiquitous and oh-so-cliche "I wanted to help people."
And while that's all good and makes everyone sigh "How graceful, how noble," the truth of a nurse's caring nature may lie in a darker part of her character.
Don't get me wrong, I am sure that some people have very admirable reasons for their career choice, but I was recently enlightened about the dark secret that some nurses carry on their hearts; the real reason some of us spend our lives caring for others.
A good friend recently confessed to me her struggle with addiction. She had just started treatment, and unfortunately had her nursing license suspended. As part of her healing process, my wonderful friend has taken it upon herself to educate others about the sordid history of substance abuse in healthcare professionals such as ourselves. Despite our lily-white public image, nurses are just as likely as the general public to abuse, but much more likely to have a problem with prescription drugs (narcotics, benzodiazepines, etc...). Think about it: not only do we have easy access to such drugs, we know just what to tell someone to get them prescribed to us legally. Nursing is a high-stress job - with increasing amounts of overtime, short staffing, sicker patients, and high injury rates, it's no wonder we seek some kind of escape - healthy or not.
So, she talked with me for a while about what got her sliding down this icy, lonely slope. She said nurses care for people, right? So, where does all that nurturing come from? How do you teach a child to selflessly give to others? You force her.
Nurses often go into nursing because that's what they've always done. We often come from families with a history of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, substance abuse, or co-dependency, forced at an early age to take care of our parents who could not take care of us. We felt the pressure of dysfunction in our home, strove to achieve lofty goals at school (as kids with something to hide often will) and have spent our lives repenting for our parents' sins. Nurses have a very high incidence of alcoholism in their families of origin. We know that addiction is a disease, arguably with a genetic component - people with substance abuse problems are highly likely to have parents with substance abuse problems. No matter how much we'd like to think we should know better, that we can recognize the signs of a problem, that we are immune to the consequences of drug abuse, the apple does not fall far from the tree.
"So why did you go into nursing?" The real answers might go something like this:
Because my mom was an abusive alcoholic, and I was the go-between for her and my distant dad.
Because I was abused by my uncle until I was thirteen, and have spent my life absorbing energy from others to cover the hole he left in my soul.
Because my dad had a heroin problem and no-one else was there for my little sisters.
Because I have spent my life trying to take care of other people instead of taking care of myself, and I don't know how to do anything else.
Because at a young age, I learned that being tough, working too much, and large doses of denial and other highly addictive drugs could make me feel invulnerable to the attacks on my self-esteem, character, coping ability, and sense of self.
Watch me change shame into guilt.
Watch me save someone else, because I cannot save myself.
Watch me cover up my weaknesses with attitude, aloofness, and sly denial.
Watch me find other ways to cope that all have to do with feeling less, instead of dealing more.
Watch me become addicted to my job, to helping others, to the sickness and the pain of others, and when that's not enough anymore, to painkillers and sleeping pills.
I am a nurse, and that means somewhere inside me is an addict. My conversation with this friend opened my eyes to my own personal risk for substance abuse. While I don't have a violent family, there are people with addictions in my family, and that puts me at very high risk for using. I am so glad I know now, and can keep an eye out for dangerous situations. I became a nurse to help others to stay healthy. But first and foremost, I have to find good ways to keep myself healthy.
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