New job

[anna-sophie]

Hi guys, it's been quite awhile since I've been on here because I thankfully have been doing well and have been overall quite happy. However in the past few weeks my anxiety and depression have been making a comeback. I finished my nursing degree in august and got a job in a nursing home. I started in the nursing home at the end of september. I was SO excited about starting and leading up to it I had been in a great mood. Well to say the job wasnt for me would be a big understatement, I was so unhappy there, everything about it was just no enjoyable. The staff, the atmosphere, everything. It's not the field of nursing I had studied either so I just didnt feel it was for me at all. I gave it 3 weeks and then I decided I just had to leave, my mental health was just not good there and thats the most important thing to me. So I started doing agency work where I'd be sent all over the place to different places. In the country I live in you can't practice nursing until you are on the nursing register and that takes a month or 2 to happen once u get your results so up until the otherday I was just doing carestaff agency work. I received my pin number (what u get when ur officially on the register) on wednesday and so I did my very first proper nursing shift on Thursday. It was in a place I had never worked before and I was the only nurse on the unit. Throughout the whole day all I could think about was how much I wasn't enjoying it. I'm beyond terrified now that I just simply do not like nursing and i wasted 4 years studying it. I LOVED all my placements I did throughout my degree but the responsibility difference between that and being an actual nurse is insane. I'm so upset, anxious and depressed over the thought that maybe I just dont like it. Is this a normal way to feel when u start a new career? please someone give me some words of wisdom and advice because I feel like im on the verge of cracking up

[Retsgard]

I don't think you wasted four years studying! Being a qualified nurse is a great achievement

Maybe you can use it in a different way? What other jobs are related to it where you would have less responsibility? Could you be a nurse somewhere with more staff around you?

[anna-sophie]

Yeah I do intellectual disability nursing which wouldn't be considered nearly as busy or stressful as general nursing in a general hospital, but the problem is because it's not considered as busy etc there tends to only be one nurse per unit! I think I'd just really appreciate the moral support of another nurse working with me. I'm sure there's jobs out there where I could work with a bigger team, I just have to find them! I think I'm just a bit overwhelmed at the moment and I think because I'm doing agency work it makes it's more stressful because I don't have time to get used to a place! I'm hoping once I have a secure job in the field I wanna work on then things will start coming together a bit more! I just can't stop worrying about my future! It's just so disappointing because iv been in such a good place for the last year and I'm just worried that I'm now just heading straight back to where I was before

[Retsgard]

I'm sure it's just a small setback once you get the right job I'm sure you will feel relaxed and settled again.

[musiclover]

Thank you for this post, I can completely relate, I have finished a 3 year social work degree and my first qualified job was so stressful that I am off sick! It has taken me back in my recovery and I need time to find my feet again!

[anna-sophie]

Thank you for this post, I can completely relate, I have finished a 3 year social work degree and my first qualified job was so stressful that I am off sick! It has taken me back in my recovery and I need time to find my feet again!

I'm sorry to hear you're going through something similar to myself. Have u been off sick long? There's no worse feeling. I just feel totally hopeless and useless, im scaring myself with my thoughts at the moment. I keep needing people to talk me off the ledge but I can tell they're all getting sick of me now. I dont know what to do

[musiclover]

Anna-Sophie, I've private messaged you

[unspoken]

Hello. I'm sorry your first job didn't work out. I've learned over the past 5 years since leaving uni that the working environment and the people you work with are the most important things about a job. My degree was much more general than yours so I've tried a few different areas but the jobs where I've struggled the most and had to leave were ones where I was working with people who had unreasonable expectations.

Can the agency you're working for help you to find places where you wouldn't be working alone? They should understand that being new, you'd be happier having some guidance. I don't know what the opportunities are like for longer term temporary jobs, like 3 or 6 months. I've found those kind of jobs helpful as I don't feel the pressure of "I'm stuck in this job forever" but if I like it, I can try to continue in the same workplace after the initial contract is up, and if I don't, I can leave when the contract is up without feeling bad about it.

Try to resist the tendency we anxious people have to catastrophise and fortune tell (as CBT calls it). One bad experience doesn't mean the whole degree has been wrong for you.