Cult of Personality - A Firsthand Experience

 When  I first moved to Los Angeles, I worked in locations.  A majority of the work was film locations, but we had one property that was widely used for special events: Union Station.  I started out as a site rep, which is the person designated to monitor the location and make sure that nothing is damaged, that the crew stays where they're supposed to, etc.  I eventually worked my way up to agent, but this story is from one of my very first assignments as a site rep.  

It was 2003, during the presidential primaries.  Howard Dean was a frontrunner.  It was an interesting campaign, because this was really the first presidential candidate to take hold using the internet to put together a grassroots following.  I was assigned to work a large fundraiser for Howard Dean at Union Station, and I was thrilled!  His trajectory fascinated me, in what was essentially a brave new world of online connectedness.  

My first red flags appeared when I realized that Howard Dean, as an early frontrunner, had refused secret service protection to avoid costing the taxpayers any money.  This made me uneasy in a post 9-11 world, working at an event with very little control over who was coming and going, as it was attached to Union Station, which is very much an active public transportation hub.  I noticed that the campaign had hired off duty police officers as security (which is pretty common in LA for both events and filming), and they're armed, so that gave me a little peace of mind.  For reference, because it will be relevant in this story, the security provided as part of the venue were minimum wage, unarmed security guards.  For weddings and smaller events, they essentially shoo away the lookie loos and make sure random train passengers aren't eating the catered food, and are provided as part of the venue rental for that purpose.  For larger events or film locations with expensive equipment, celebrities, blah blah blah...the off duty police officers were standard and were hired by the event organizers/film production.  

The next red flag appeared as I started interacting with the people running his campaign.  Many of them had this thousand mile stare of a cult follower, and the main person running the event (who was likely in her early 20's, as was I) affected this dreamy sound to her voice when discussing "the governor."  The way she said, "the governor," in her dreamy, breathy baby voice, with her cult-glazed eyes made my skin crawl. She sort of drew it out, like the *sigh* govern-oor.  I may have been fresh off the boat from the Midwest (or tractor...or outta the corn fields...whatever lol), but I have had an uncanny ability to see through bullshit for most of my life, which almost seems to be innate.  

She trailed me throughout the event, which was spread across the old ticket concourse (for the plebs) and the secluded north patio (for the VIPs).  Throughout the event, I mingled with celebrities in my cheap suit (thank God I was young and cute, because I did not know how to dress), and filled various requests for the *sigh* govern-oor...from the girl running the event.  

Aside: I met Martin Sheen at this event, who was playing the president on The West Wing at the time, and he was lovely.  I thought it was funny to see the pretend president at an actual presidential fundraiser. 

Here's where things get weird.  It was dark outside, and there is a short outdoor walk from the old ticket concourse to the north patio, and baby-voice cultface had another request: "The *sigh* govern-oor would like to go visit the VIP area, and he has to walk outside to get there.  I was wondering if we could borrow some of your security guards to surround the *sigh* govern-oor while he walks from the main event to the VIP area."    

I paused.  Over the course of working these events, I had gotten to know our security guards.  They worked long hours and made shitty money.  Many of them had families they were trying to support, and they were working their assess off trying to survive in LA.  I was enraged by this request.  My thoughts flashed to this joker's campaign, refusing secret service to make a political point, now asking for my grossly underpaid, unarmed security guards to form a bubble around the *sigh* govern-oor!  

I looked at her, and could feel the anger sparking through my eyes, "Let me see if I'm getting this right.  You're telling me that the candidate who refused secret service on principle, the 'people's candidate', wants to use my unarmed, $8 an hour security guards, as human bullet shields?  That's going to be a 'no.'  You have your own armed security.  Use them."  

Baby-voice appeared shocked, and scurried away.  Howard Dean found his way to the VIP area, without our security guards, and I didn't see my little cult follower for the rest of the night.  

This event forever changed the way that I look at politics.  I told everyone who would listen that Howard Dean's campaign was a nightmare, and while he was my first choice leading up to this, he had become my last.  The Dean Scream in early 2004 confirmed my suspicions that he was fully aware of his cult-like following.  

I had a visceral reaction the the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016 and again in 2020, because I watched that same mentality in person years before.  *Makes note to avoid Vermont*  Politics, especially high level politics, are exciting.  There's an energy to that level that can be electric.  When it veers into the cult like territory of believing that your candidate can literally do no wrong is where we start flirting the cult of personality.  

I'm seeing this now with the garish Trump displays, where our country is leaning into propaganda.  The Howard Dean and Bernie Sanders campaigns pale in comparison.  People assume that I'm some ultra liberal because I've been so outspoken against Trump.  I've voted both dem and republican, and would say that being a parent has made me more liberal-leaning out of concerns for the environment and his future.  I wanted to share my own experience with cult politics as a cautionary tale, in the hopes that someone reads this and it parts the clouds of propaganda. 

Any political candidate with a cult-like following does not have your best interests at heart.  It becomes about the power, the grift, the ego...whatever the selfish motivation is that fans those flames.  Be it Trump, Sanders, Dean, whomever, you are the $8 an hour bullet shield and nothing more.                   

    

Dysfunctional grief and taking it out on the nurse

Now that I'm fully entrenched in my NP clinicals, it's starting to sink in that my career as a registered nurse is coming to a close.  I can still remember walking to the mailbox in my shitty apartment complex, and finding my acceptance letter into nursing school as if it were yesterday.  It's crazy that this all started with an associate's degree. 

I had a case this week that hit me hard.  I'm usually pretty disturbed when there is a disruption in the natural order of things, but I've been a hospice and palliative care nurse for 6 years.  Throughout those years, I've learned to compartmentalize an extraordinary amount of emotion.  I have loved being a hospice nurse, and the relationships that I've forged along the way.  There's this gray area in terms of clinical and personal that allows (in certain cases) for the formation of lasting friendships.  I adore those families (some of whom will very likely read this blog...you know who you are).  I've loved being able to walk people through this process, helping them navigate a situation that is impossible to spin into a positive.  I respect all of my patients and families for sharing this intimate part of life with me, and I have never taken my job lightly.  Hospice has never been just a job to me.  Let me back that up even further, nursing has never been just a job to me. 

That being said, I've had bad days....so many bad days.  I've cried (usually in my car, which seems to be my safe space) a lot.  I've had families that weren't handling grief well use me as the target of their angst.  As a nurse, who is intimately familiar with grief, I understand that.  As a human being, sometimes I would walk away from these exchanges severely wounded. 

There's one case that comes to mind.  During this time, I had an unusually high number of young cases on my caseload, which alone will wear down your emotional armor.  In the midst of this, I had a family member who was not managing their grief well at all.  Our first meeting involved them following me outside and screaming at me for a full 5 minutes over the fact that my name tag said "hospice" on it.  Shaken, I made sure to let the team know to take off their name tags before entering this home.   

As a hospice nurse, I never tell someone how I think they should be managing symptoms.  I make recommendations.  If someone is averse to pain medication, I try to offer alternative suggestions.  Acupuncture...aromatherapy.  I do my best to advocate for pain control, but ultimately it's not my decision to make.  This family member was averse to pain management.  I was conservative in my suggestions.   

I had to call them one day to let them know that the physician would be coming in my place.  I didn't want them to refuse the doctor's visit because I had already scheduled with them that day.  Ideally we schedule joint visits, but this particular day i was wrapped up in a crisis situation and wasn't able to coordinate.  This family member asked me, during this phone call if, "...you people just medicate your patients so that they die and you don't have to deal with them anymore."  I remember this moment vividly.  I remember where I was standing, the building I was in, the hateful tone as the words were spat out at me.  It felt like an arrow, finding the weakest point in my emotional armor, and succeeding in a kill shot to my heart. 

That night, I went home and couldn't find the wine bottle opener.  I took a bottle of wine over to a neighbor's house so that they could help me open it, and I sat there recapping my day.  I consumed the entire bottle that night, and then some.  I woke up early in the morning with a skull-crushing hangover.  Now, I've had cocktails with coworkers after a bad day, but this was veering into pathological territory.  The next day that I was scheduled to work, I asked to be removed from the case.  This was the first time I had asked to be removed from a case, and the only time I made that request because I felt abused.  Ultimately, I had to save myself. 

In thinking back on this experience, I wonder about this person.  Did they ever realize how hurtful their words and actions were?  Are they ok?  Did they eventually make peace with the loss and their inability to control the outcome?   

Nurses are often the target of dysfunctional grief.  My story is not unique to me and me alone.  I hope that someone reads this and thinks twice before verbally (or physically) abusing a nurse.  We go home to our families, after witnessing trauma on a daily basis (and working long hours).  We have to take that trauma, process it in a healthy way, and try to make ourselves whole.  We suffer when our patients suffer.   

           

The COVID Diaries (Losing Lucky)

 **First, whomever is feeding my blogs to toxic people who weaponize what I write against me - insert middle finger emoji here - Ok, moving on**

We thought we had it all planned out.  Lucky took a turn over the weekend and we thought for sure he would make it until Thursday evening.  I arranged to have my afternoon schedule blocked off so that I could be there.  He was doing well enough earlier in the week that I wondered if we had been too hasty, then he stopped eating yesterday. I went to bed last night thinking, less than 24 hours left...

This morning, we took Lucky outside.  We had coffee under the spectacular monsoon clouds.  I will always remember the cruel beauty of this morning.  I love clouds, and a spectacular, humid sky is a rarity in Southern California.  This morning was something special.  During our last morning as a family, Lucky lost the ability to walk.  We offered him Starbucks banana bread (weirdly, a kitty favorite in our house) and this absolutely disgusting chicken goo in a tube (also, a kitty favorite), with no response.  

We brought him upstairs while I was getting ready to work, not wanting to waste any time as a family during our final day together, when Lucky started to twitch.  Those twitches rapidly progressed to seizures, and our plan to have him put to sleep peacefully as a family turned into a frantic scramble to get him to the vet as soon as possible while I had to finish getting ready for work.  Blessedly, my employer rescheduled my initial consult.  I can compartmentalize with my existing patients, but an initial?  No way...Lucky died peacefully in Evan's arms at our trusted vet's office.

The thing about loss, and I've had my share of it recently (seriously, 2020...back off on the loss, ok?), is that it makes you reflect on your time.  Lucky was my first real adult responsibility.  He was my first baby.  He was probably too young to even adopt when I got him, but what did I know?  He was tiny, his eyes were still blue, and his ears were still a little droopy like brand new kitten ears tend to be.  He would knead so enthusiastically that he looked like he was marching, and he would rear up and violently crash into you to rub against your leg.  He loved with all he had.  He did not understand restraint when it came to affection. 

When Lucky came into my life, it was a case of who rescued who?  My life was evolving at a breakneck pace, at times threatening to throw me off the ride entirely.  I had a different career, lived in a different place, and was just learning who I really was.  Lucky was along for the ride.  He snuggled with me at night, let me hold his paw like I was holding his hand, and let me cry into his fur when life seemed impossibly unfair.  He was one of the few threads that still connected me to a time in my life where the only thing that was constant was change.  I feel like a connection to that part of my life was lost today.  My wild, complicated, chaotic, beautiful days in Los Angeles.  A fading memory, one more relic from that time gone.  

Those beautiful, cruel morning clouds gave way to oppressive heat.  A climate better matched to my heavy chest.  Like I tell my patients, the thing that sucks about grief is that the only way out is through it.  This one is going to be a long road.  

          

The COVID Diaries (Letters to Ethan #1)

 Dear Ethan,

What a long, strange trip it has been.  In March, existence as we knew it screeched to a halt.  Unfortunately, the timing lined up perfectly with your transition from toddlerhood to preschooler, and you will have vivid memories of this time in your life.  

I've tried to hold it together for you, but life has been so complicated lately...even without the glare of the global pandemic obscuring some of  the view.  I finished grad school, and this was supposed to be our time.  My time.  Life was supposed to settle into our new normal.  Just working, and spending time as a family.  Now I work from home, daddy will be changing careers, and I am just trying to keep the three of us afloat.  Grandma and Grandpa will be moving out here for a year to help us with you, because the schools are closed, and quite honestly I'm not fond of the idea of sending you to school with the specter of a brand new virus haunting our lives.  

I wanted to start writing sooner, but I was struggling with crippling depression anxiety.  I miss life as it was.  I miss my friends, and making play dates for you.  My Grandma Miller died in May, and I wasn't able to go see her.  We haven't been able to have a funeral.  My Great Aunt is now on hospice, and can't have visitors at her assisted living.  I spent the better part of a decade dealing with death professionally, my heart aches at the thought of my Aunt Marge dying alone.  I've seen people die alone more times than I can count, and I pitied them.  Now it is the new normal.  I want to get some of these thoughts out of my head and share then with you when you're older.  I hope this isn't our normal for years to come.  

You have been a bright spot in all of this.  You wear a mask without complaint, but I see the toll it takes on you.  You're an extrovert, just like me, and when we take you anywhere you crave interaction.  You tell anyone within shouting distance exactly what is on your mind.  "I like Tron," you yell...or, "We have 10 cats!"  Which is not true, but it feels like it some days.  You said to me a few weeks ago, when I was singing you to sleep, "Mom.  When this is all over, I want to go on play dates and get close to people again."  Me too, my love.  Me too. 

This weekend felt almost normal, with the exception of the masks and the excessive hand sanitizing that we do.  Yesterday we braved Costco, and visited one of the community pools that we had never been to.   Today, you and I went on a paddle board and navigated the entire harbor together.  You were not a fan.  You kept saying, "This is the last time I'm going to do this," when I asked if you were having fun.  When people would ask from the shore if you were having a good time, you told them, "No!"  I tried to point out the minnows and the Garibaldi, which did not interest you.  Instead, you preferred to keep your eyes fixed straight ahead, praying for the ride to be over.  You did enjoy seeing dogs in boats, "Captains," you called them.     

You also would shout to people who engaged with you, "My cat, Lucky, is going to go to heaven," after which I would have to uncomfortably explain to perfect strangers that my cat is sick, but that he's very old and this is kind of expected.  Lucky's illness seemed to carry more weight with you today.  You had a sadness about you when you spoke of him...an awareness of mortality that I had not seen in you before.  My professional advice has always been to be honest with children about death, but it's not so easy when I'm actually having to practice what I preach.  "He's my best friend," you said sadly.  

Lucky was mommy's first baby.  I got him just before my 24th birthday, a present to myself.  I remember the weight I felt from my new responsibility.  I had to actually care for something!  He was so tiny, barely the size of my hand.  I brought him home to my apartment in a cardboard box.  His tiny meows when I would leave for work were heartbreaking  We grew up together, Lucky and I.  From single and living in LA and being transported in cardboard boxes, to my wild house in Long Beach, to my small apartment in Orange County (living the academic life and using a proper carrier), to married and home ownership, to parenthood of a human child.  Lucky is my last thread to a life that is a quickly fading memory.  Growth, and pain.  Hard work and triumph.  Lucky was there when all I had were my cats, my car, and a plan for a better life which seemed nearly impossible to achieve.  He was along for the entire path to my American dream.  I've watched a lot of connections to the past slip away this year.  2020 has been really hard.  

We ended up spending the rest of the day in Grandma's pool, after our adventures in the harbor.  Your little nose is getting freckled from the sun, just like mine did when I was your age.  On the way home, we stopped by the mall where my replacement phone had been sent...it was sent to a store that is closed.  It was eerie seeing all of the empty shops and the still escalators.  I am truly afraid of what life will look like on the other side of all of this, which is ultimately what inspired me to get these thoughts out of my head and onto some other medium.          

Tonight we watched a move, read bedtime stories, and I sang you to sleep...your bedtime playlist, which is the same three songs every night.  You request them, and I oblige, because I will blink and you will not be asking me to sing you to sleep anymore.  

I don't know what the future holds, but I do know this: You will always know that you are loved.  Even when we are stuck wearing masks, we are grieving the terminal illness of our pet, all of the stores have closed, and nothing in life seems like it will ever go back to normal...you are loved and we will do the best we can to make sure that you are safe.  

Love, 

Mommy    

             

            

I had an abortion

Before I even get started here, I want to stress how important it is to have a choice.  After my sexual assault, I was in the ER having some weird symptoms (unrelated, blessedly).  I'll never forget waiting for the results of the pregnancy test that night.  If I had found out that I was pregnant by my rapist at 17 years old, I absolutely would have made the choice to terminate that pregnancy.  If that choice were not legally available, and I was forced to carry the product of my assault to full term, I would have killed myself...while I was pregnant.  I was in a very dark place over that entire experience, and at times I was acutely suicidal.  If I didn't have a choice to terminate a pregnancy, had that test come back positive, I would have been dead by suicide within weeks.

If you thought I was being brave in sharing the story of my sexual assault, you haven't seen anything yet...To be perfectly honest, this part of my past is quite painful, but in light of recent legislation I feel compelled to share what a multidimensional process it is in making this choice.  I'm uncomfortable even getting started.  Only those closest to me know that this happened.  It impacted relationships, because there were strong feelings about what I should and should not have done within my innermost circle.  I've had this used against me during an argument, thrown in my face by one of the closest people to me.

It was 2005.  I had just moved to Long Beach from LA, and was living in a house with 2 dudes.  I was living paycheck to paycheck.  I was dating someone new.  I started taking birth control once it was clear I was in a monogamous relationship.  I've had migraines my entire life, so I didn't stay on birth control when I wasn't seriously dating someone.  Birth control pills can significantly increase migraines and are actually contraindicated in people who get migraines with an aura, a category which I fall into.

I did not work in health care.  I had not studied anything health care related.  I worked in the film industry.  I was a layperson when it came to medications, what makes medications not work as well, and the ins and outs of the different strengths of birth control pills.  I was on the lowest estrogen pill to minimize the risk of migraines.  I was also taking an antibiotic for something...I don't recall.  Bronchitis or a sinus infection...the usual stuff.

Here's where the health care system failed me.  I was not informed that certain antibiotics make birth control pills less effective.  Nor was I informed that the lower estrogen birth control pills were more likely to fail under these circumstances.  The low estrogen pills also made my periods really light, like 2 or 3 days usually.  I thought all birth control pills were created equal, and had no reason to believe otherwise.  I had been sexually active for 10 years without any mishaps.

I had been dating this guy for 4 months.  I'd gained quite a bit of weight, but had recently quit smoking.  There's another thing I don't usually disclose...that I used to smoke!!  I quit smoking using Wellbutrin, which I was also taking at the time all of this happened.  I attributed the weight gain to quitting smoking, and to being in a new relationship where we were going out for nice dinners, and drinking lots of wine.  The only clue, retrospectively, is that I started wanting roma tomatoes all the time.  Not just any old tomato, roma tomatoes.  I would buy them every day after work and eat like 4 or 5 a night. 

It was mid October when I missed a period.  I took a pregnancy test and the 2 lines appeared instantly.  FUCK!!!  How could this happen??  I didn't really know this guy that I was dating well enough to co-parent with him.  I felt like my body was being invaded.  I wanted this situation taken care of ASAP.  I made an appointment with my OB.

Here's the ironic part...Planned Parenthood gets a lot of shit about providing abortions.  I went to Planned Parenthood for all my annual exams and to fill my birth control prescriptions starting when I was 15 years old.  At this point, I was 25 and had pretty good health insurance and an OB in a bourgeois office in Beverly Hills.  It was in this fancy office that I planned to have the procedure, AND it was covered by my insurance.

I had been drinking a lot of wine during the early phases of my new and exciting relationship, and I was taking Wellbutrin.  Neither of those things bode well for a healthy pregnancy.  I scheduled my procedure right after Halloween.  I remember handing out candy in my neighborhood, feeling this weird mix of emotions. All these children out Trick-or-Treating, and here I was pregnant and not wanting to be.

I worked with all men at that time in my life, and they were all very supportive. Some shared their own experiences with me.  One in particular, and if he's reading this, you know who you are.  Shared some very intimate details about his life that paralleled mine. I'm eternally grateful to him for making me feel less alone. I was conflicted.  I really cared for the guy I was dating, and I was in kind of a good place professionally...but I didn't have a college degree, and wasn't sure that working in film locations was going to be my career.  The biggest internal conflict was that my life was almost, but not quite, an OK situation to have a baby.  It took almost 2 weeks before my OB could schedule me in for the procedure.  All I wanted was to get it over with and move on with my life. 

Ok, now here's the real kicker.  When I went in the morning of the procedure, my OB discovered that I was not 8 weeks, but 10 weeks pregnant.  Those fucking low estrogen pills?  Well, my "period" the first month was actually implantation spotting and not really a period.  Those fucking antibiotics?  They caused my finicky low estrogen birth control to fail.  So, technically my first missed period was my second.  My OB almost had to reschedule the procedure, which made me feel a suicidal panic.  This had to end NOW!!!  I was sent home, with some sticks shoved in my cervix in order to dilate it, which was the most excruciatingly painful thing I've ever experienced.  I spent all day vomiting from the pain.  Then, I went back for the procedure after 8 hours of dilating.  The receptionist treated me like trash.  I was in a waiting room filled with affluent expectant mothers, because this was a Beverly Hills private practice and not some sketchy Planned Parenthood in the Valley.               

I found myself thinking about the what ifs.  Around the time I would have had the baby. I pondered what my life would have looked like. I never felt that I made the wrong choice, but it was a sad choice.  A choice I never wanted to have to make.  A situation where I thought I was doing everything right to prevent this from occurring in the first place.  I've used condoms exclusively ever since.  Why?  Because I know when one of those things fails!

The guy and I broke up after we had been dating for about a year, right around the time I got laid off from my job.  That would have been some good times with an infant.  I moved to North Carolina, and that same dude lured me back to California with promises of getting back together.  We dated a few months and he broke up with me again.  Fucker.  I decided to go back to school for nursing, made a solid group of friends, and started building my life.  Part of my reasoning in choosing to have an abortion was so that I could advance myself academically and professionally.  I felt that I had to live up to my end of the bargain, and I did.

The pace of life picked up, and that guy?  The one that I had to make a horrible choice with?  The one that I dated and broke up and dated and broke up with?  He's my husband now.  Cue the mind fuck....

When I found out I was pregnant with our son, I was racked with guilt.  How was I supposed to know that I'd actually end up marrying the guy who knocked me up right when we started dating?  I tortured myself throughout my entire pregnancy.  How could I end one pregnancy, and then be so thrilled about the other with the same person?  Why did I feel so invaded by my first pregnancy, and so immediately in love with my second?  I had a high risk pregnancy and I used my abortion to mentally torment myself...every potential complication had to be my fault.  Pregnancy hormones are a bitch.  It also wasn't something that's super socially acceptable to talk about, so I suffered alone.

As I reflect back on the whole thing, I did not want to have a child with a man I hardly knew.  If he had faded into the anonymous background of all my other ex-boyfriends, I would have been relieved that I wasn't tied to him for the rest of our natural lives.  I certainly feel thankful that I never had kids with any of my other exes.  *shudders*  All of my mental anguish came later, because that guy did not fade into anonymity.  In reality, we would not have made it if we had a child in our 20's.  I would not have grown into the person that I am today.  I was in no way fit to be a mother at that time in my life.  My son has the best possible version of me, because I made some hard choices...one of those hard choices was terminating an unwanted pregnancy.  Not just unplanned, unwanted.  I wanted to have my shit together if I ever decided to have a child, which I did...almost exactly 10 years later.

What are the takeaways from this?  We really need to do a better job educating women about pregnancy prevention.  I did not realize that my low estrogen pills had a higher potential to fail, and I had NO idea that taking antibiotics would alter the effectiveness of my pills.  A perfect storm.  It wasn't a choice I ever wanted to make.  Had I been better educated about my birth control, this may not have happened in the first place.  At the end of the day, the choice was available.  If it weren't, I likely would have sought out an illegal procedure.

I'm sharing this really uncomfortable, complex, conflicted part of my life because it is important to know why I made the choice that I did, and how important it was to have that choice available.  I also want people to realize that it's not black and white.  There were shades of gray in my decision (almost the right guy...almost old enough...).  I'm reliving this painful experience because this shit happens, even when you think you're doing all the right things.   

   

Nursing, a Cautionary Tale of Burnout: Part 1 The Bullies

I'm going to preface this entire blog by saying that I'm at a very good place in my career.  I enjoy what I do, like my coworkers, feel generally well supported by our immediate supervisors, and am well compensated for my time.  It was a long road to this place, and there were a lot of pitfalls along the way.  I guess, in sharing this, I'm hoping that the takeaway is this: Do not stay in a toxic environment, and there is life after burnout.

I've been reflecting on my nursing career recently.  10 years ago, I started my Associate's Degree program.  10 years later, in the present day, I'm starting my Psych NP clinicals.  I've traveled a lot of ground in this last decade, personally, professionally, and academically, so here goes....

Let's start with my first job.  This part of my cautionary tale applies to the brand new baby nurses.  I started my career in critical care.  What should have been a great learning experience occurred in one of the most toxic environments I have ever survived...anywhere.  My first preceptor, as a new grad.  Constantly rolled her eyes at me, talked down to me, reprimanded me in front of patients and their families, and made me feel stupid for asking questions.  One day, she mentioned that she had a headache from "too much wine" the night before.  That same day, she hid out, nursing her hangover, and decided to tell my charge nurse that I wasn't a good fit for her.  This left me, as a brand new nurse, on a unit where I knew almost no one, without a mentor.  It also put a target on my back, because this was an environment where this nasty woman had a lot of clout.  If I was on the outs with her, I was on the outs with almost everyone.

Fortunately, there were some really good people who I worked with that circled the wagons, and agreed to help me out.  I learned a lot from these ladies, and really owe the foundation of my skills to them and them alone.  My previous preceptor? Let's just call her, #1.  She did everything she could to make sure that the doctors, other nurses, respiratory therapists, nurses aides, radiology techs...pretty much everyone who would listen, think of me as the village idiot.  What happens when you're made to feel like a walking piece of shit?  Well, you certainly don't learn very easily...and you don't flourish.

My first day off of my preceptorship.  Literally my very first day on my own, I had a patient with an order for a PCA pump (that's patient controlled analgesia).  This is not a common occurrence in critical care because most of our patients were too incapacitated to control their own pain medication dosing.  Due to the nature of this type of pump, and the risks involved with giving too much IV narcotic medication, setting up this pump required 2 nurses to look at the settings and sign off on it.  I asked for help, and no one really knew how to do the initial set up.  Our educator happened to be on the unit, so the charge nurse had her help me set it up and act as my co-sign on the dosing.  The educator really struggled with helping me set up this pump, and my being new (and the village idiot) I didn't really feel comfortable speaking out.  The charge nurse sent 1's BFF...we'll call her #2...into the room to double-check the dosing.  I'm glad she did, because the educator had set it up wrong!  2 came back, told me that it was set up wrong, we corrected it and that was the last I heard of it, until it was time for my annual review.

At my review, I was told that I would only be getting a 2% raise, because I had a med error on my record.  A med error?  I had never been told about a med error!  My charge nurse brought up the error in the set up of the PCA.  I objected, stating that the educator (let's call her 3) had helped me set it up.  My charge nurse responded, "We asked 3 about it, and she denied setting anything up with you."  When I objected to her obvious lie, the charge nurse just shrugged and said that she knew...and that there was nothing she could do about it.  So, 2 had written me up and just didn't say anything.  The charge nurse that day didn't say anything...and 6 months later I first hear about it, as the excuse for giving me a shitty raise.  Between the paltry raise and the increase in my benefit cost that year, I was making less than I did the year prior.  The money was so shitty, that with the cost of living in Orange County, I had to have a part time per diem gig as a surgical nurse.  Most of the nurses I worked with had part time jobs, which is insane if you actually think about how intense it is to be a full time critical care nurse.  I started looking for other jobs...

Now, the abuse suffered at the hands of 1 and 2 was ongoing.  I overheard them conspiring to stay away from helping me with anything right after morning report one day. They were talking about how they were going to leave me out to dry and laughing about it.  I knew that they wanted me to hear this.  In the ICU, it really needs to be a team environment.  One nurse can't change a soiled patient, or reposition them every 2 hours so they don't get bed sores, or run a code by themselves.  I started scheduling myself whenever they weren't working whenever possible.  Here's how it worked with healthy co-workers: we would have "turning parties" where we would all team up to help reposition one another's patients.  We would discuss the patients that were high risk for coding, so that we all sort of kept one eye on that patient for monitor changes.  We would laugh together, offer to break one another.  This is how it worked when 1 and 2 weren't on the same schedule as I was.  This is how it should have worked all the time.  I didn't sleep the nights before I had to work with the unholy duo.  I cried on my way to work on those days. 

The final straw wasn't the shitty pay, or the bullies, it was a back injury.  I had a confused patient trying to get out of bed.  I ran into his room, verbally redirected him, and casually picked up his legs to help him lay back down in bed. That's when I felt the pop in my lower back, and searing hot pain shot through my entire left leg just before it went numb.  I told my charge nurse, who asked 1 to take my patients from me so I could go to the ER.  1 was working rapid response that day, which the ICU nurses liked doing because you got called to the rapid responses on the other units and didn't have to have a patient assignment.  The RRT nurses sometimes got pulled into the unit if there were more admits than nurses, or, as was in this case, if one of the nurses had to leave.  1 just disappeared after she was asked to take over my patients.  She disappeared for 45 minutes, while I struggled to take care of my patients in the worst pain I've ever experienced.  The charge nurse asked why I was still there almost an hour after my injury.  I told her because 1 was nowhere to be found.  She tracked 1 down, and 1 heaved sighs, interrupted me, and rolled her eyes through my giving her report.  I still have residual pain from this injury, 7 years later.

Right around this time, I was offered another position at a different hospital.  It was almost twice my salary at my first job.  **Pause for a second here...same job, twice the pay.  Both healthcare systems are very successful, both COULD afford to pay their nurses what the second job offered, only the first hospital system simple chooses not to, because they consider the "pride" in working there to be part of your benefits package.**

I was scared to leave, because I was not confident in my skills at all (clearly I was capable, having been offered a job where it is actually really hard to get hired), and I had a few friends that I loved working with.  I heard 1 and 2 conspiring to leave me hanging on the day I was either going to put in my 2 weeks notice, or let the new hospital know I was declining the offer.  That cemented my decision, and I put in my 2 weeks notice that day.  On my very last day, one of the nurses that I had really come to love was charge nurse.  She put me on the telemetry desk, since one of the tele techs was out sick.  It was a nice gesture, and guaranteed a relaxed day.  2 looked at the other tele tech and said to him, "If you need any help, let me know," she looked right at me and back at him and said, "because you're going to need it."  I fired off an email to the department director, and explained the bullying I had experienced at the hands of 1 and 2, and that this was the real reason for my leaving.  She showed up, within minutes of my email, and pulled 2 aside.  I have no idea what she said to her, but she wouldn't even look at me for the rest of my shift.

I moved on to much better things in my career.  The lesson in this story is this: If you're in a toxic environment, leave.  End of story.  Find something else and leave.  If you have your RN license, and you have a least a year of experience, you're marketable almost anywhere.  Too many people stay in a toxic environment because they are afraid of change.  I was so burned out in my first job, that I looked at the gardners outside and considered making a career change to landscaping.  "They work outside...get good exercise..." I can hear myself day dreaming.

I moved on from this job into different hospital systems, different units and different specialties.  ALL of those jobs had more positives than negatives.  The moves that I made after leaving my first job were calculated decisions that I made to advance my career in various ways.  None of those moves were to escape an unbearable situation.  Writing this was cathartic for me, because I have carried this trauma and embarrassment with me for years.  It feels good to get it out there.

I've become confident and capable through wonderful managers and coworkers who helped me to be the best nurse I could possibly be.  I owe all the wonderful things in my career to those people on the way (as well as the nurses who did try to shield me from the bullies in my first job).  We need good nurses and can't afford to bully out our new grads or new hires.  Those of you who know me are probably surprised that I was so vulnerable to bullies.  I was in a position where I was just starting my career, after spending years trying to get to that starting point.  I was so terrified of failure that my defenses were down.  I had devoted my life to becoming a registered nurse, and literally had no back up plan if something went wrong.

Thanks for listening...hopefully this blog will inspire you to move away from a toxic unit, or know that you aren't alone if you've been a victim of bullying.  For any new nurses reading this, know that you deserve better than to be eaten alive.  It's not like that everywhere, I promise! 

Let's talk about mental illness for a minute....

Two years ago, I had these grand plans to write a blog about my emerging from postpartum depression like a phoenix rising from the ashes.  What I hadn't bargained on was that, 2 years later, the struggle would still be ongoing and there would be no grandiose rise from the depths of my darkness. While I feel stronger for my battle, the war is nowhere near won.

I thought I had found the miracle drug last fall, and then it gave me super high blood pressure, so I started over from scratch. I just sent an email to my psychiatrist asking to try a different medication because I'm just not there yet. It's so frustrating. I was lamenting my struggle in the shower this morning, wondering why I couldn't just have it easy...just once. 

Truth be told, none of us truly have it easy.  We are the editors to our life story on Facebook and Instagram.  Our homes are always clean and our faces always smiling. We are SO in love, SUCH good parents, living our BEST life in some exotic locale. We all know that isn't the case, yet we are profoundly affected by the lives we see others living on social media.

You want the truth? Those pumpkin patch pictures, for instance...I was on day two of a horrific sinus headache, and spending the afternoon at a dusty and windy farm was just about the worst idea I've ever had. The Little Lord of the Manor hadn't napped, and he was a nightmare by the time we got to dinner. The pictures don't show me popping Sudafed and Advil like a crackhead, just trying to get through the day. They don't show me picking my toddler up off the floor of California Pizza Kitchen over and over and over and over and over again....then picking up his crayons off the floor so someone doesn't slip on them over and over and over and over again....rinse and fucking repeat. 

So, let's cut the shit. Life is messy, and it's not even remotely perfect. Dealing with depression and anxiety can make you feel isolated, like every other fucking person is #Blessed and you're just some asshole who can't appreciate the good life you've been given. It makes you feel like a failure in all areas of life. Why can't I have more patience for my child? Why am I so tired all of the time? What exactly is my purpose in life if I can't be good at at least one of the things that I'm juggling?

Fortunately, my darkest days led me to my current career path, and for that I'm eternally grateful. That was the conclusion of my ruminations in the shower this morning. This too shall pass. Maybe the next med change will actually work, the most recent change definitely got me closer to level than I've been in a while. With the most recent med change, I noticed something I had never really seen before.  I noticed that the carpet in Ethan's room was worn in front of his changing station, and I smiled, thinking of all the time we spent there when he was a newborn...all the diaper changes...and bedtime routines. Then I wondered, how long have I been trapped inside of my head? How am I just noticing this?

I'm putting this out there, because a lot of people struggle with mental illness, and as a sexual assault survivor the last several weeks have not helped. Not at all. I want those who are out there in the shadows to know that you're not alone. It's OK to get help, talk to someone, and even take meds. There is strength in reaching out, and asking for help is not a sign of weakness.

Take a deep breath, and this too shall pass.