When the Work Becomes the Warning: My Wake-Up Call as a Psychiatric Nurse
There are chapters in our professional journey that leave marks too deep to forget. For me, one of those chapters was working as a nurse in adolescent psychiatric care. It was a role I stepped into with purpose, thinking I could be a steady presence in the lives of young people at their most fragile. And for a while, I was. But the toll it took—on my body, mind, and spirit—was far more than I expected.
In that role, I became uncomfortably familiar with crisis. The kind of crisis that doesn’t follow a script. I was on a first-name basis with the state troopers who were routinely called in to deescalate violent outbursts or transport patients in handcuffs when no other options remained. I witnessed the full spectrum of human emotion—rage, heartbreak, hopelessness—all colliding within the walls of a unit that never slept.
The days blurred together under fluorescent lights, the tension always simmering. There were nights when I came home and couldn’t remember the last time I had a meal or drank a glass of water. Anger and despair weren’t just in the air—they were in the eyes of kids who had seen far too much far too young. And sometimes, despite our best efforts, that pain turned outward in violent, heartbreaking ways.
There’s a kind of emotional fatigue that creeps in slowly. You think you’re coping, managing, compartmentalizing. But one day, I realized I was physically sick. Not just tired—sick. My body had been whispering warnings for months that I’d chosen to ignore.
And it hit me—this wasn’t just a hard job. It was a job that was slowly erasing pieces of who I was. The shifts were demanding, the emotional weight relentless, and maintaining any semblance of a normal family life felt impossible. I was giving everything I had to others and had nothing left for myself or the people I loved.
This was especially difficult because I had already burned out once before, in a different role that had taken its own toll on me. I never expected to find myself in that place again. When I started in adolescent psych, I truly believed I had found the right fit—the calling that aligned with my skills, my empathy, and my desire to make a difference. I thought this was the path I was meant to be on. But even amid the exhaustion and heartbreak, I couldn’t stop thinking about my first passion. The purpose I felt in those earliest days of nursing—the moments where the human connection made it all feel worthwhile—kept pulling at me, reminding me there was still something meaningful waiting to be rediscovered.
That was the moment I knew I had to pause. To truly ask myself: Is this sustainable? Is this who I want to be and how I want to live?
Reevaluating didn’t mean I failed—it meant I listened. It meant I gave myself permission to change the direction of my life without abandoning the values that brought me into nursing in the first place. Compassion, advocacy, resilience—they didn’t leave me when I stepped away from that role. If anything, they became stronger.
Today, I still carry the stories of those kids with me. But I also carry the lesson that just because we can endure something, doesn’t mean we should. Sometimes, the bravest thing we can do as caregivers is care for ourselves.
That clarity eventually led me back to hospice care—a space where connection is sacred, presence is powerful, and purpose runs deep. It brought me back to the heart of why I became a nurse in the first place. Now, in my role as a leader, I’m just as passionate about helping caregivers protect their purpose as I am about patient care. Because healing doesn’t only happen at the bedside—it happens when we create systems that support the people doing the work. And it starts by listening to the moment when the work becomes the warning.
