Nurse/Bulimia/OCD
Question:
jFranca, i admire you for even getting through nursing school with bulimia. i could not handle it and got a D in anat and physiology part II. i could not handle the stress and like you said, perfectionism. my bulimia got so much worse. shell
Response:
I recently posted a response on aol to a nursing student struggling with an ED. Here is my (revised) response. I was wondering if anyone could relate to I am 30yo and have had an ed for 16years. I decided that in 1994 i was going to be bold and go to nursing school. i wanted to prove a point to my family, who sheltered me in a cocoon (physically and emotionally) my whole life, that i was capable of dealing with the real world, death, tragedies, emergencies, blood, sweat and tears. Nursing school definitely aggravated my bulimia and i also developed obsessive compulsive disorder from this experience. For example, when the nursing school admissions posted our year of entry on a bulletin board, i use to drive up to school 5 times a week to check my year of entry. I was staring at it, but didn’t believe that i actually got in!! i also demanded perfection of myself in the clinical world. I was obsessed with everything i did, since the room for error for a nurse in slim. It TOTALLY freaked me out. I graduated nursing school in 1996 #1 in my class. While that is a great accomplishment–it was a tribute to my rigid perfectionism. I worked in a hospital upon graduation. i kept promising myself that i wouldn’t binge and purge since it effected my concentration. it was scary taking care of sick people in a hypoglycemic daze while thinking constantly of what i was going to shove in my mouth next. I constantly obsessed about the little intricate details of my patients’ care. i demanded perfection and immediate attention from the doctors and other nursing staff. i would stay up all night wondering if i signed out a med, wrote a note, if my patients had clean pads, or if I had the right IV hanging. I would check the doctors orders in the charts constantly. When you are taking care of 8-10 patients this wastes a lot of time!!!!!! I was also very fearful of the unknown—–was there something i was suppose to do and forgot or didn’t know about? Every hour of my days were consumed by making sure everything was perfect with my work. It was wearing me out! I have since gone on to therapy and I am taking Prozac which has helped my OCD and made things more bearable at work. Last month, I was very fortunate to get a job with a major medical insurance company as a nurse doing medical review. It was an increase in money, benefits, no weekends or holidays. But, most importantly, i’m not obsessing over my work like I was. If i make a mistake, I can’t harm anyone and that is a load off my shoulders. It was sad to leave the clinical area because i needed my patients more than they needed me. I needed to care for others because i felt no one cared for me in my life. It has reminded me of Princess Di—–you hurt so much in your personal life that you reach out to others for love. Nursing has given me many GIFTS. It has almost been like a second parent to me—enabling me to grow up and learn about life. I proved to myself and my family that i am not this scared little girl afraid of her own shadow. I am a responsible person able to take care of the sick with professionalism and able to successfully handle emergencies with confidence. I’ll always be a nurse at heart even if hospital nursing is not for me. Franca
