Happybrain101

Thank you for the kind words. Last year we had a completed suicide on one of the units, during the night shift the patient who was staying in the room, and completely unaware of what had happened in the room months prior, woke up and kept asking who was screaming in her room, we told her it was no one and she was safe in hospital, she asked so switch to another hallway. We switched her the next day and moved a gentleman into the room, the next morning he walked out of the room, looked tired as hell and asked who was screaming all night...

Why thank you!! I would have to say how mentally draining it is, the verbal and physical assaults are quite common but it's just constantly reminding yourself you are working with a mentally ill population who don't always have judgement and insight into what they do. Reminding yourself not to take things personally can be quite challenging!

I'd say I chose it, I initially wanted to major in psychology but was scared of not finding a career once graduating so I decided to do nursing. On my first mental health rotation it kind of just clicked that this was where I was supposed to be, never left it since!

Edit: I truly appreciate the thank you, it means a lot!

Most interesting, oh there has been so many, I had a young girl who would swallow anything and everything, on my one shift alone she swallowed 3 chopsticks, a tweezer and a battery! I've worked with the queen, God and even people who aren't alive.

Unfortunately a question I get asked too often, I'm not really sure if there is a right answer to this, he was deemed stable at the time and between the 15 minutes clinical monitoring he was able to successfully complete a suicide. He had planned this out very carefully.

But to add to this, I always am so interested how we try to destigmatize mental health but when a suicide occurs in hospital it is easy to point the fingers at the front line workers, I've never seen a nurse in cardiology be blamed for a heart attack. We have to understand that 2/3 of these patient have some risk of suicidal behaviours, and most of these people are here against their will, under a mental health act. The amount of people I have talked down and physically cut down from attempted suicide is tremendous, but unfortunately some people are very certain of this decision, and no amount of help will change this.

Sorry just my little rant, nothing against you just a point I like to share.