#mloa

Went to see my doctor today.  Talking about emotions in person is fucking awful.  Like I don’t have time to formulate what I want to say or have the ability to get anything other than one word at a time out because I am instantly on the point of tears.

My doctors office is right across from the hospital.  When he came in he asked why I was there and I said I was having anxiety issues and he half laughed and said aren’t we all right now. Then looked up and was like oh are you still working next door.  I said yes and he was like... oh, yeah that’s not been good at all the past few weeks.  Fucking understatement of the month!

I didn’t go into the issues with management, just about how difficult it is to deal with such a high rate of patient death, plus the paranoia about getting sick or getting someone else sick and how living alone helps me isolate but is just so isolating.  How normally when I have a bad shift once I leave work I can leave it at the door but it doesn’t work that way in a pandemic.  It was nice to have someone validate that all of those things were reasons to be having trouble sleeping and functioning normally.  

He had me do an anxiety/depression questionnaire.  He said I very much have some strong anxiety issues and likely some underlying depression.  Both of which I agree with.  He wrote me a note to be off work for all of June and gave me a PRN rx for Xanax.  I am not sure how much I will really need it if I am not working, I am hoping now that I faxed over the note some of that anxiety will start to fade.  Though in general for about 4 years now I have had health anxiety (kicked off by my mom having breast cancer) so I can imagine some of that will linger even with my exposure drastically lessened.  I will go back in 2 weeks and we will talk more and see if maybe I should start on something routine.  I have always told myself I don’t need to, that I function ok and most of my problem is just laziness.  But, maybe this is the time to give it a try and see if makes a difference.

While I was at the office I felt good about going on leave, but man pretty quickly after the guilt kicked in. Feeling like I am exaggerating things and should be able to handle this better.  It’s so easy to tell myself it wasn’t that bad when I am not actively there.  I for sure have dealt with this in the past where I don’t know how to trust what I am feeling is legit and not just an excuse.  Any friends/family I have told have been super supportive and wanting to know how they can help me out which makes me feel weird too because I can’t really deserve/need that.

Then I got an email I was cc’d on from my union rep on about how the ICU is literally full and they are short staffed and the CNO response in not so many words blaming the nurses calling sick for all the problems.  So that helped remind me why I need to get away.  

I am not really friends with anyone I work with.  That’s never been something that happened with me at any job I have had.  I am not someone people think to invite to things outside of work, which is something I have long accepted as part of life.  

I have texted/messaged a bit more with a couple nurses during this covid BS than was the norm and am “friends” with many on different social media platforms, but I didn’t post anything public about my MLOA just telling close family/friends personally.  However, since turning in my MLOA Friday night I had not heard from anyone I work with.  I started getting some super negative thoughts about the situation thinking either they were pissed with me for not being there when they need help (being the one who is always there / can always come help is kinda the one thing I have going for me) or they just didn’t really notice of care.  

Turns out as usual I was super overthinking it.  I wasn’t even scheduled to work this week until today so no one on the floor had realized I wasn’t coming until yesterday when they were trying to get someone to cover for my shift.  

It has been 14 days since I last work a shift.  I 1000% do not miss work.  I am glad I have some written record of when it was bad because some days I do think I was over exaggerating.  I was not.  What I was going through was too much for me.  

I have taken the Xanax a few times.  When I am just at home I am mostly fine.  But when I do have to go out and be around any sort of group when running errands I need it when I get home.  I have my follow up appointment on Friday thought and I think it is time to discuss something for depression because as I was worried about I have done almost nothing in these 2 weeks.  My place is still a mess, I can’t get myself to go out for walks, I just can’t get myself to really do anything unless someone else is involved and not doing it would mean explaining to them more of why I am not.  I've had a lot of times like this before but I think I just would blame it on work exhaustion and not acknowledge it for what it really is.

I am in talks with my boss to move to case management when I do return to work.  It is not 100% an area I see myself in the long term, but right now it is what is available in non-clinical and what I need is to move from the bedside.  This way I wouldn’t be rage quitting and I can keep my eye open for other jobs and not rush into anything.  Also, who knows, I kinda fell into both my prior units and loved them for a long time.