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Thank you for being a nurse - such a vital role.

What I've heard from my colleagues over the last few years it has been more challenging. Covid is just one of many issues with our health system. Our hospitals are more frequently at crisis points with lack of beds, which I'm sure you know puts more pressure on emergency ambulance services. Crews are over/worked and under-supported, which is increasing mental health issues in personnel. I haven't asked everyone in the service if they're experiencing PTSD, so can't speak for them, but I do know it’s massively underreported.

I've been in therapy for my PTSD, but it seems that 10 years of cumulative and insidious trauma takes a lot longer to work through than I realised.

I'm hoping to try EMDR soon to see if this works for me to make healing quicker and more effective. I've tried multiple antidepressant medication but they didn't work for me. Talking about my experiences has been helping me recently to consolidate what I've experienced and give me a different perspective. For example, I've begun to see the silver linings and I now can remember the better times!

Thank for your roll in midwifery :) I understand exactly what you mean with your question, because this is what it was like for me - it snuck up on me until my first ever panic attack. Earlier in my career I kept up my social circles and exercised to maintain my mental health. But over time I became exhausted and stopped participating in sports etc. It was a symptom that I was struggling but I only see that in hindsight.

It's different for everyone, some people I worked with were very detached and pragmatic, I think it protected them from the emotional toll. But, in my opinion, it made them less empathetic towards their patients. I say that because for me I think I maybe gave too much empathy and that contributed to my burnout. I have heard from long-term paramedics that everyone has a "black box" where they file away the trauma, and that box can only hold so much before it overflows. There are some paramedics who worked in this field for their entire working career, so maybe they had lots of space to file away the trauma. I don't know what I'm trying to say, but maybe you don't have anything to worry about. If you're asking yourself these questions, that's a good thing. Keep asking yourself and assess it regularly so you can make any changes you need to take care of yourself.

Both are traumatic experiences, I don't think the two can be compared by which is "more" traumatic. Without going into too much detail (for privacy reasons), I have seen accidents and ODs, as well as horrific violence perpetrated by one human to another (including threats and attempts of violence towards myself), and both "types" are difficult to process in their own way. I really don't want to compare traumas because in my healing I have learned that any perceived traumatic experience is valid full stop. It's something I advocate when talking to other survivors of traumas - if it's traumatic to you then it's valid regardless of what someone else has experienced or how trivial it may seem to someone else.

Sorry if this isn't the answer you were hoping for, but it's an important point to make in the bigger picture of the individual experience of PTSD.

1. I grew up in a home that supported and helped less fortunate members of the community. So for me it was a natural progression to continue helping others. As for paramedics over another medical profession - I was always interested in biology and the human body, but I really enjoy variety in my work, so thought paramedics would be even more suitable for me over emergency medicine in a hospital.
2. Oof - difficult one to answer, but the most simplistic way I can explain how I feel about it is that I signed up for anything and everything, to be there for people in their emergencies, but you’re never fully prepared to see as much as we do. If you know, you know!