Fuck!! Do Over - Workplace Violence.

[Rhian]

Good lord Dean, I am so sorry.

ER nurses are near and dear to my heart and I hate that in such a position of yours meant to save lives, that people feel that they can do that whether they are in their right mind or not.

I hope you can get some kind of retribution, and recover as you need.

[Dean from Australia]

I had an awful panic attack this morning. I was supposed to work at the same hospital tonight but I got to the end of my shift at the Children's Hospital this morning and thought about going to work tonight in the ICU where I got assaulted and I totally melted down.

This is not good.

[Dean from Australia]

Bless you indianprincess.

This is the one place where I've found it helpful to unpack things here and hope to get some perspective. Your experience makes mine seem insignificant by comparison and I can imagine that it was bloody awful at times.

It was good of you to post here.

[Dean from Australia]

So, it's a couple months on from the assault at work and I'm actually starting to unravel. Over the past couple of weeks I've been experiencing increasing amounts of insomnia, having flashbacks to the event including nightmares - many of which involve imagery of blood or drowning in blood. I've been getting anxiety attacks recently that have been so strong that I haven't been able to get out of bed. I jump at shadows and I am quick to react to situations which end up being overreactions.

The crunch came the other night during a shift when I had to throw down on an amphetamine user who became verbally abusive because he couldn't get a hit - despite having had major surgery a mere four hours before hand.

I had to physically restrain him but I choked and ended up walking out of the room, leaving him on the bed.

I'm still working with the psychologist and I'm being told that what is occurring is actually a natural process, that I have to ride the wave with the help of her and my family. But herein lies an additional problem. I'm feeling so alienated from them presently that I'm withdrawing from them.

Shit is getting shitty.

[Dean from Australia]

So, it's a couple months on from the assault at work and I'm actually starting to unravel. Over the past couple of weeks I've been experiencing increasing amounts of insomnia, having flashbacks to the event including nightmares - many of which involve imagery of blood or drowning in blood. I've been getting anxiety attacks recently that have been so strong that I haven't been able to get out of bed. I jump at shadows and I am quick to react to situations which end up being overreactions.

The crunch came the other night during a shift when I had to throw down on an amphetamine user who became verbally abusive because he couldn't get a hit - despite having had major surgery a mere four hours before hand.

I had to physically restrain him but I choked and ended up walking out of the room, leaving him on the bed.

I'm still working with the psychologist and I'm being told that what is occurring is actually a natural process, that I have to ride the wave with the help of her and my family. But herein lies an additional problem. I'm feeling so alienated from them presently that I'm withdrawing from them.

Shit is getting shitty.

[campy]

God Dean,
It sounds like you are going through some serious shit. What do you think you need from your family that you haven't asked for or that they don't know you need to help you through this? Do you think there is anything they can do to ease your worries in your off hours or is it something you need to work through? What do you think you are doing to stimulate the anxiety? Are you over thinking the event? Are you not think at all about the event so it's processing in your dreams etc?

I have experience with anxiety, I have suffered from several bouts of anxiety attacks that I wasn't able to control on my own. My family couldn't help me because both times I didn't know what was happening so I didn't clue them in. What I found was that the mind games I played were strong, I needed to consciously relax my mind the best I could. I needed meds to help me for a couple of months. The last bout was after our son, I was really freaked because I thought "this is it, I will never be able to shake this because the reason for my anxiety is laying over there in that crib and there's nothing I can do to change that now".

Eventually, over the process of talking to a councilor, taking anti anxiety meds for about 2 months and trying to disengage my brain from spinning off the rails, lead me back to my normal hyper, but in control, thought process.

Good luck, hopefully all you need is to get through it, hopefully there is an end. For me, each time there has been, I never returned to the anxiety that cause the initial attacks.

[Dean from Australia]

A lot of the time, the flashbacks are involuntary and they occur randomly. They almost always involve blood and I keep remwmberimg the blood that poured from the patient when he pulled his central line out. I find that the anxiety attacks are worse earlier in the week and they are most profound after nights of poor sleep and vivid nightmares.

I can't tolerate noise and I react badly if people around me make too much noise or yell or argue. I end up exacerbating the situation by losing my shit.

I'm struggling to find enjoyment in anything much and I feel guilty because I'm not 'up' or 'happy'. My serioso and I have argued a lot because of that point.

It was only when I started exploring these feelings with the psychologist the other day that my serioso started to inderstand what was going on. She'd had no idea that this was what was happening.

I'm resenting the medications I've been prescribed. They are heavy duty and they leave me feeling like shit, but they do numb the symptoms somewhat.

I fear not being able to do the job anymore.

[DWarrior]

Why are you not suing everybody? The dude who attacked you, the hospital, the hospital lunch lady, even Keith is probably responsible somehow. You and your lawyer should be stacking major cheese right now.

[campy]

Although I haven't gone through anything as rattling as your experience, what you're describing is familiar to me, albeit much more severe. For sleeping have you considered earplugs? I found that I would get more nightmares when I slept without them. The ambient back ground noise when I was trying to sleep caused me to fluctuate into REM sleep more often, resulting in nightmares. When I was in my anxiety mode sleeping was the first thing to go so I was taking ativan in extremely low doses to help me sleep. I could cope with the anxiety when I was rested.

It's good to fill the serioso in on what's going on when and if you can. It might not solve the issues you are having but it helps to have someone on your side who's watching you with that critical eye, gauging how you're doing from day to day, event to event.

Plus, if you do have to change jobs she'll will be effected by it and would want input no??

[Sparrow]

Silver Lining: your doctor says it's par for the course.

You feel crazy. You're gonna feel crazy. It's OK. You're in the thick of it and I imagine it sucks in a way that's like saying the sun is hot, but it always helps me to know it's what's supposed to happen. You are a normal human being reacting in a normal human way.

There's no sense in asking too many "what ifs." Stop. It is an absolute and literal process. You have to go through this right now. You are going through this right now. Focus on that and cross the future bridge when you get to it. When you feel right again. And you will. It's at the end of the process.

Funsies: You get to own and explore your recovery. It's a golden opportunity for serious introspection. If you gotta do it anyway, may as well bear fruit.