Getting Out of the Shit Hole

I blogged on my birthday, that I was/ am in a rough patch and shit hole.

Clinically depressed to the physician.

To my loved ones, it's mid-life crisis or midlife transition.

After I go through all of them... guess this shit hole phase will be over.

Carl Jung identified 5 main phases of midlife:

• Accommodation (meeting others' expectations - actually, this takes place in the first part of life, but is the context in which midlife processes take place)
• Separation (rejecting the accommodated self)
• Liminality (a period of uncertainty, where life seems directionless and meanders)
• Reintegration (working out 'who I am' and becoming comfortable with that identity)
• Individuation (facing up to and accepting the undesirable aspects of our own character)

From: http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/tt/t-articl/midlife2.htm

10 reasons for being a Nurse

Recalling hard... my 10 reasons to be a nurse.

Many years back, a doctor once told me to write it and keep them safe.

"They will come into good use when you start to wander away from nursing."

Such a wise man, which I only start to appreciate recently.

The paper with 10 reasons was lost.. my initial devotion or promise to that "Calling" was lost.

The reasons for being a nurse when my heart was still capable to love with much courage had been lost. Today I will try my best to recall:

1) It's a gift to be able to see blood, stools, urine, vomit, gastric juices as biochemistry materials.

No feeling of fear, disgust or disdain.

2) Nursing is a job that allows me to help people while getting paid.

3) Nursing is the job that makes me stay grounded to the pains of life and death, not materialistic, corporate ladder climbing.

4) When people are in pain, you see the "real" face. No hypocrisy, no pretense, the sincere side of every human being. This makes me feel safe.

5) Nursing is the job that my patients are my teachers of life lessons. I've seen examples of courage, love, persistence, among patients and families.

6) The thought of just doing something little is still significant to the one being sick helps my inferiority complex. Cos there's always something that is "good enough".

7) Uniforms are a blessing, it is a pain to think what to wear everyday.

8) Nursing keeps my heart alive. Most of the times painfully through grieving for my patients.

9) I couldn't really think of what else to do besides being a nurse.

10) Nursing is a job that allows me to seek God often. Question God.. The need for God as all things life, death and pain are not in our control.

Playing the Sick Role

Everybody falls sick once a while.

Some people fall sick more frequently than others.

When people fall sick, they need to play the sick role.

Sick role requires the person who has fallen sick to adhere to a certain lifestyle, new habits like eating medications, and other stuff which the professionals dictate. Which your main care-giver dictates.

Usually when you are in the sick role, you do not really make your own judgments until when you are better.

For healthcare professionals like nurses, it's harder to be in the sick role. Cos we've played the "professional role" almost everyday as out job scope. Thus, nurses are also the worst patients.

Now I am in the sick role.