When I joined SS, it was a few years after believing I had lost my career as an RN - - my job had been sabotaged by someone who used to be a really good friend. The particular job I had was perfect for me - rewarding, exciting... therapy for my depression (bipolar), it took me out of my head after I lost my girlfriend, and kept me engaged with people... I had always needed a push to overcome social anxiety. It was more than a job to me and in many ways I felt like I was getting paid to do what I enjoyed.
After losing the job the way I did, my license to practice was on the line for something I didn't do. At the time it was the biggest loss I could imagine. The lies and rumours were crushing. I had worked at that hospital for close to 20 years, starting as a volunteer then working in different parts of our (diagnostic imaging, the OR, etc.) before becoming a nurse there... It was like my second home.
I fell back into a deep depression with complete anhedonia, severe anxiety and was hospitalized 5 times, 180 days over the following 4 years. The last hospital I was put in was the one I had worked in for nearly 20y! How demoralizing to venture into the university hospital wearing a patient gown, unshaven, pale and thin. I was there for a month after a failed attempt, against my will for everyone to see. The smokers I knew were still there, but I wasn't interested in talking to them anymore. I couldn't even enjoy a cigarette like I used to. After I got out, I tried to ctb again. I wasn't interested in any outpatient stuff. The pain was intolerable, every day a nightmare, and my situation seemingly hopeless ... I was put on assured income for my mental illness and a year later, covid started and "even I" could work (as an RN), just not in the capacity I would have wanted to.
Getting back to work after 3 years of being a psych patient helped my self esteem, but I was still desperately depressed and, working outside my specialty area of nursing, I had to learn again. Over the past 2 years, I got off of the assured income (which was very freeing) and I moved into management. Last summer, I landed a Director of Care position and qualified for a nice mortgage based on the letter, bought a nice place and started fucking living again! I started riding a motorcycle again, got up early to see the sun rise and hear the birds wake up on the island facing the back of the house. I got my sex drive back and even met a few girls on Tinder... my confidence was back and I LOVED the place I got. I remeber sitting in the entrance a few months ago thinking this is too good to be true!
Sadly, I was right. I didn't know it but in a couple of weeks I would be terminated on the last day of my probationary period. Yep, no more being the Director... Apparently my performance didn't meet expectations, but the one who judged that wasn't a nurse. I was being measured by a different metric than clinical competence but had got no negative feedback. The staff liked me and I listened to them and took the job very seriously. Point is, I knew I was getting better at the new job and was shocked when I was let go.
But I'd been eating well, had a routine, had ENERGY again, and could sleep through the night without waking up in terror. I had developed resilience. So, I accepted the job loss and looked for another job...and found another Director of Care job in a different province. I found a great family to rent out my home to, and I even won a settlement for being terminated a day after my probationary period. Sounds pretty good, right?... But what happened over the past few months has destroyed everything that was good. The city I moved to is in the middle of the mountains, isolating, I brought too much with me, issues with the provincial license (given what was on record after my job was sabotaged) meant I was working without a license initially (illegal /stressful), the job was a huge fail, and I had to move from one overpriced shitty apartment to another and I just want to move back to my house, but can't (it's being rented).
In the past few months the nightmare of what I once knew has returned and my experience is a painful, weird sort of existence. There's SO much Anger. It's the most isolating, hopeless feeling. I had a nightmare about this when I was well (and wrote about it 5 months ago)... Reliving that nightmare for another few years is something I have to avoid!
