working in hospice is making me intolerant..

[everythingsgoingsouth]

I've been working as a nurse in the hospice for 8 months. it is an amazing place, never known anywhere like it (been a nurse all my adult life) it is a total privilege to be part of a person, and their familys' life at this stage.
however... it has definately had an effect on how I am with people in my life.
I am so intolerant of the moaning and tittle tattling, bitching, hypochondria and negativity of OH and friends.
I feel like I am so much more balanced about things that happen in life, most can be sorted, even if sacrifices are to be made, or diets stuck too, or a bit of extra hard work needed. ( in my world of friends, family, work etc,, not for everyone)
I haven't voiced any of this, and really try and be supportive...but I feel like saying FFS...Really???

I agree with needing support. In the first few days after a significant loss I was so close to punching a random who said/did something insignificant but it seemed HUGE to me. My perspective was very skewed. I didn't have to be professional.
You must need somewhere to vent the emotion you absorb.

You will get used to these feelings as you do the job for longer but when is your next supervision? You really need to raise it then.

Both my parents died in hospices when I was in my early twenties. My dad died just as the sun was coming up on a very early summers morning. I drove home after doing the necessary paperwork, just as the world was coming to life, and was really thrown by people just starting to go about their day, when my world had just fallen apart.

It was a privilege to be with my parents in their final hours, to hold their hand, tell them I loved them, and say goodbye. As a result I now look at life through new eyes. I was never materialistic, but even less so now. I don't worry, I don't sweat the small stuff, and what will be, will be.

Some people have never been through that experience, and you should try to cut them a little slack, although I know it's not easy. What you experience in your job is the gift of insight, and you are lucky to see that side of life. Care for your patients and their families. Love your family and friends, and tell them so as much as you can. Spend your money on experiences, not things. Nothing else is important, it's just noise.

You and your colleagues, from the medical staff to the cleaners, cooks, drivers and gardening staff who volunteer their time, do an amazing job. Thank you.

Gosh, I don't blame you in the slightest.

Both my parents have passed away, and I'm only just middle-aged. It was my birthday earlier this week, and I said to DH that more than anything I'm just glad to be alive.

He thought I was being really morbid and depressing. I thought I was being the opposite!

That's not to say that I don't get down or wound up about irrelevant shit, I absolutely do. But at the end of it, just being above ground is something to be thankful for, really.

Why do you think you aren't allowed to show emotion? I work in a nursing home and a lot of what I do is end of life care. If we get particularly close to a resident and their family we've shown our grief. Obviously you can't break down in hysterics but we still show it. Some people have been with us a number of years.

I sort of get where you're coming from. I've worked in this sector a while. Before this I worked with homeless people. It does put things into perspective. But it doesn't make me insensitive to the small things. I still struggle being a single parent on 8 quid an hour trying to study and make some kind of life for my boy. And even then some of the tiny things get to me. I often find it easier to get so distressed about the small things and lock the bigger things away. In fact I'm a master at repressing my past! Everyone is different and we should be sensitive to that.

I understand. My 4 year old has a lot of health issues and we spend a lot of time in our local children's ward. There are a few of us who often see each other there and keep in touch via Facebook in between times. So my Facebook feed is full of childre with cancer and other serious illnesses. And posts from parents of children who have died. And then there are the posts from other people who moan about nothing

Sorry, computer keyboard playing up. It is infuriating. I'm trying to rise above it but it's hard.

I feel like I am so much more balanced about things that happen in life

But you're not a bit balanced, you're dismissive of everyones feelings on the basis they are not dying so should shut up and and get on with it. That's not balanced, that's horrible.

And the people in the hospice wouldn't be impressed with that attitude either.

You sound at risk of burnout OP, if the sad situations you deal with at work are affecting the way you relate to family and friends. Agree that you need more support than you are currently getting.

I think how you're feeling is totally understandable and I think if you can process it by talking (here or to someone IRL) then you'll come out the better for it.

Life is very short and most things just don't really matter. People use irrelevant things as a distraction - it's easier to moan about slow broadband than it is to think about the fact that anyone you love could die at any moment. I think part of what you're feeling may be jealousy about the fact that people can focus on such petty things - I know sometimes I envy that level of obliviousness.

If you can process this feeling properly then it can be of great benefit to you because IMO it makes life much better when you can genuinely say 'I don't care about (X small thing) because I'm alive and well and it really doesn't matter.' So much less time is spent wasting energy on feeling aggrieved and so much more time is there to genuinely enjoy life.

I think once you process it, you'll find that you don't have less compassion for people, but that you're more able to see why they're complaining about that insignificant thing and you might actually be more compassionate and more helpful IYSWIM. So if a friend always seems upset about clothes for example, you might see that actually she worries about how she looks and deep down she feels unlovable, so rather than sympathising about clothes, which doesn't really help anything, you can help her to feel more loved and secure so eventually clothes aren't such an issue any more.

OP, do you get any support for yourself? Your work is essential; valuable beyond belief... but who re-charges your emotional batteries as you help people meet a good death?

I think your reaction is completely normal. It's just that we are, all of us, usually so engrossed in life that we forget it is fleeting and finite and death awaits us all. You know, I would guarantee that the people you nurse were exactly the same as your loved ones, and the rest of us, when healthy and well. You are just living close to the reality - that most of what drives us is, essentially, rather meaningless.

OP this type of work is not always for everyone. It can be tough to integrate this specialist setting into a work-life balance when such fundamental issues as you are encountering are so pervasive for you.

I agree with pp that you may be heading towards burnout, and that you should look at other areas which you will find less difficult and more fulfilling. This is no kind of failure, I also work in a variety of health settings and colleagues often recognise that there are horses for courses and we can't all be all things to all men and women.

Are you using supervision to work through your present issues?

It's so easy to say, At least you're not dying, your problems have a simple solution! Of course some problems have a simple solution - theoretically. Practically, life and the human mind are extremely complicated and there is no such thing as "easily turning around the difficult relationship you have with your parents", "never smoking again", "simply deciding to be happy". Life is messy and complicated and it's easy to see all the solutions to life's problems when they are not your problems, or you are no longer capable of actually acting because you are dying.

^^This. Turn it on its head for a moment. It's just dying. We all do it, it's generally unpleasant and what you are witnessing happens all over the world and every minute (and generally it less comfortable, supported conditions than you are witnessing). It's living that is difficult.

Reality lies somewhere between this perspective and your own.

I'm struggling with the massive impact of what i see at work with my personal relationships, not what i do at work

But your work is spilling over into your personal life. I'd treat this as a wake up call. YANBU to have a sense of perspective, that's good, but not good if it's having a negative impact on your day to day life

Another vote for speaking to senior colleagues / management

It can be very wearing spending time with people who moan constantly. I'm coming at it from a different perspective - having depression I am trying to keep a positive mindset myself and can do without other people bringing me down. I've asked my husband to find someone else to moan to because I don't want to listen to it. Not sure it's worked but at least I said what I thought. Could you have a conversation like that - maybe explain a little of how you feel. At a suitable time and in a non - confrontational way - not as a response to the moaning!)
A lot of moaning is just habit I think. On the other hand people (esp children) can be genuinely distressed about what seem like small things and just need a chance to talk it through and be accepted. Sometimes it's knowing the difference.

What particularly frustrates me is when a person moans and moans and claims not to be able to do anything about a particular problem, when they could do something but it's hard, or they don't want to. They want to moan so you can reassure them that they're powerless and it's all just a game really. I get tired of that very fast. I'll listen to a certain amount of moaning and then after that I've had enough - my attitude is deal with it or shut up about it.

To be clear, I don't take that approach when someone is depressed or genuinely struggling, I'm talking more about situations where a person is perfectly capable but just won't do what needs to be done. For example my friend kept going on about how she really should go to see her very ill friend, but she was so busy, so tired, so broke etc etc. Eventually I just said 'if you don't want to go see her, that's understandable.' She was upset at first that I'd said it but realised that that's what was going on - she didn't want to see her friend ill and was making excuses. I offered to go with her and we visited her together (I'd never met her before). It was very hard - she died a couple of weeks later. But she appreciated the fact that I cut her moaning short -otherwise she never would have gone and she would really have regretted it. It's the same when people say 'I'd love to study X/start a business/go abroad but I can't.' Sometimes they genuinely can't but often people just want an excuse not to try something a bit scary. Again I'm not up for participating in that.

I think all sides of this are probably true- there are some negative Minnie Moaners about who do always see the bad side and don't appreciate what they've got. That said, if you find yourself finding pretty much everyone annoying and you lack sympathy for them (rather than just, say, your negative husband), then it does suggest you are finding it difficult to process the job that you have. This could be a phase though, I've been around terminally ill people and whilst it can make you appreciate what's lovely in the world (and I still do), it can make you feel distanced and unsettled at times from other people. This was a phase for me, and as I got used to it all, I found it easier to find interest in every day life/trivial/compassion for the smaller issues again.

Fundamentally, as someone up-thread said, people who are terminally ill are still just people, they'd probably love a bit more time to moan about their neighbour or work issues, but life hasn't given them that. They are not saints, just ordinary people. You can't live every day in a state of specialness and everything you do can't be #makingmemories (as one person suggested to me!)

There's a middle way here.

OP I work in a hospice and know exactly where you are coming from. In the nicest possible way you need to get past this thinking.

You have unique access to the most intimate and emotional times of a family's life. Many people will never see such a thing and have no comprehension of it. Seeing worse suffering doesn't diminish other suffering and people still deserve some level of compassion.

Try to develop some coping strategies to distance yourself from the emotions of the hospice. Otherwise you will burn out very fast, I've seen it a lot. I do a visualisation technique of doors shutting whenever I'm driving home after a shift. I also use our in house counselling whenever a situation has particularly affected me.

OP for your amazing and important work.

Some people are giving you a bit of a hard time on here but, of course, they are speaking from their own experience, which is also interesting.

I'd say many people love to moan and always mention negative things rather than sharing their good experiences. This is so cumbersome and boring to hear. I am very happy to listen to people's real problems and would always try to help where I can and be empathetic. But my goodness do some people mope about absolutely everything that doesn't quite go how they expect from how school assembly is organised to how shops are laying out their Christmas merchandise to how other people choose to live their lives, moan, mope, bitch over and over.

I have no tolerance with people like this anymore and actively disentangle myself from them now in order to avoid listening to their endless moping.

It has taken me 40 years to get here. I now seek out people who have some insight and self awareness and appreciate the good things in life without taking themselves and their egoistical whims so bloody seriously. A sI said I am happy to share my problems with others and listen to other people's problems to see what can be done or even to offload but some people never stop, they never show any happiness to joy even though they live very privileged lives. It's so tiresome.

I think that whatever someone's problems are there is someone worse off somewhere. So problems are the individual's and everyone has them. Having said that one of the ways I cope with my trivial problems is to try and keep them in perspective; take a step back and remember what I have and think rationally. So it works both ways really, the way that you react to trivial stuff and the way that they do. Some people really do get in a tizz about ridiculous stuff (y'know topically Christmas dinner being one when it is only a roast) and it can be annoying I think.

Before something bad happened to me I was always nervous that nothing had and why was I so lucky? What was going to come my way? So in a way that overactive part of my brain is gone, but replaced with a 'bad things DO happen to me' part.

OP I think you have had some valuable advice here.

You are probably a good person for this job as you are able to be compassionate...but you need excellent boundaries so that you don't become overwhelmed or burnt out.

That's where your professional supervision should be coming in, and what you should use it for. If you don't have professional supervision I would seek it out.

putputput has given an example of what works for her...visualising closing doors behind you as you transition from work to home.

I visualise myself as a castle; people can try to throw their "minor" troubles at the outer walls, but I remain intact inside. I ride out when I choose to, to give bits of myself (sounds corny...it works for me, and you have to find your own version).

What nobody wants for you is that you get to a point where, for self-protection, you shut off emotionally either at home or at work.

Seek out the people at your workplace, who have been there for many years, and who retain a strong sense of kindness. You will probably see strong boundaries in place. Ask them how they got there.

the thing is, little things add up to make a person's experience of life

if you've had a near death - or I found this - then that makes you even more aware that little things are important because some days a good day at work, enough energy to deal with it - are all you get.

I must admit I did used to have an insanely wealthy friend and I found it hard to listen to "they didn't have any of the £200 scarves I wanted" but I see that as a very different grumble than "I'm too tired to go to work".

too tired to go to work is a shit feeling. and if we don't enjoy life before our long boring prolonged death in a hospice....?! so yes, listen to people moan. I volunteer at a local homeless shelter, I don't response to friend's moans with " you have a roof over your head".