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My Brain Hates Me
Oct. 6th, 2006 08:44 amI wish I could learn how not to panic.
It's strange, really. I'm fine during actual emergencies - I have a remarkable ability to shut down the panicky, second-guessing part of my brain and just act, and stay calm, and do whatever is possible to solve the problem and keep everyone around me from falling apart. Even after the fact, I tend not to worry about the actual emergency situation.
However, about once a week or so, something in my subconscious wakes me up between 5 and 6am, screaming, "OHMYGOD! That patient you saw three days ago, that you wrote a prescription for - did you write once a day, like you were supposed to, or did you write twice a day by mistake?!? Or that other patient yesterday - you know you told the nurse to change the fluid rate overnight, but did they do it? Did you even write it down? Or is that animal DYING OF CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE RIGHT NOW????? I bet it is, and it's all your fault, and it's going to die, die, die, and the owners will sue you, and you'll lose your license because you're an incompetent murdering loser, and you're going to hell!"
And no matter how hard I try, nothing will shut it up, or stop the images, and I can't fall back asleep, and the clinic isn't open for two more hours, so I can't do anything to find out. And I spend the hours trying to distract myself, and failing, and listening to my worry scream "Incompetent screw-up!"
And finally the clinics all open, and I call to double-check, and see how the patient is doing, and invariably, I did everything right. I wrote down the right orders, the treatments were given just fine, and I wasted all that panic for nothing. And I kick myself and my panic in the butt, and tell myself that I'm being silly by worrying so much when there's no reason for it, and I *still* spend the rest of the day in a vaguely anxious state. Wondering if there *is* a case that I screwed up that I've just forgotten about; worrying about a patient that's not doing well - even if there's nothing visible I did wrong, it might still be my fault anyway for not being even better, worrying that.... I don't know, that the sky is falling.
I need to stop thinking like this. The sky is not falling, I'm not losing my mind, and I'm doing just fine. I just need to learn how to believe it.
It's strange, really. I'm fine during actual emergencies - I have a remarkable ability to shut down the panicky, second-guessing part of my brain and just act, and stay calm, and do whatever is possible to solve the problem and keep everyone around me from falling apart. Even after the fact, I tend not to worry about the actual emergency situation.
However, about once a week or so, something in my subconscious wakes me up between 5 and 6am, screaming, "OHMYGOD! That patient you saw three days ago, that you wrote a prescription for - did you write once a day, like you were supposed to, or did you write twice a day by mistake?!? Or that other patient yesterday - you know you told the nurse to change the fluid rate overnight, but did they do it? Did you even write it down? Or is that animal DYING OF CONGESTIVE HEART FAILURE RIGHT NOW????? I bet it is, and it's all your fault, and it's going to die, die, die, and the owners will sue you, and you'll lose your license because you're an incompetent murdering loser, and you're going to hell!"
And no matter how hard I try, nothing will shut it up, or stop the images, and I can't fall back asleep, and the clinic isn't open for two more hours, so I can't do anything to find out. And I spend the hours trying to distract myself, and failing, and listening to my worry scream "Incompetent screw-up!"
And finally the clinics all open, and I call to double-check, and see how the patient is doing, and invariably, I did everything right. I wrote down the right orders, the treatments were given just fine, and I wasted all that panic for nothing. And I kick myself and my panic in the butt, and tell myself that I'm being silly by worrying so much when there's no reason for it, and I *still* spend the rest of the day in a vaguely anxious state. Wondering if there *is* a case that I screwed up that I've just forgotten about; worrying about a patient that's not doing well - even if there's nothing visible I did wrong, it might still be my fault anyway for not being even better, worrying that.... I don't know, that the sky is falling.
I need to stop thinking like this. The sky is not falling, I'm not losing my mind, and I'm doing just fine. I just need to learn how to believe it.
