Future psych nurse here, what do you want to tell me about suicidality?

[lucyna]

Hi all, hope you're doing well all things considered.

I used to be quite active here during my darkest moments and decided to study to be a psychiatric nurse, since personally I got a lot of help from them.
However, depending where you live, healthcare workers including nurses and doctors can be assholes and just simply suck. Believe me, I know and I definitely want to do my part on breaking that cycle. This is just for my personal professional growth so I help people in the same situation i used to be in as well as I can. Our situations as patients differ a lot so your input is really, really important to me.

You can write anything you like, you can vent about bad experiences and just give couple tips, here's also some questions to help you:
Do you have good or bad experiences in healthcare services?
What made them good or bad?
Where do nurses fail and what could they do better?
Can you describe your optimal, "dream" nurse? What makes them good in your eyes? Where do they differ from bad nurses?

Thank you in advance and keep going

 

[Rabbit&Blackberry]

an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

 

[WishfulNeanderthal]

I have had contact with psychiatry (we call it BUP in Sweden) for all my teenage years, later, after I turned 18, I was thrown out into the wild, I recently have had some successful contact with adult psychiatry (I'm now 25). My memory of my teenage years is blurry to say, since depression's inflammatory effect on the brain. I have autism, which plays a factor in how I mask depression and/or anxiety, so what I will say is this:

First off, its commendable that you are aiming for that kind of a job, I have a degree in psychology myself (but didnt go the therapist route due to the mental strain i have heard it causes) and it shows that you care about people, so thank you for that.

I'll base my answers on the aforementioned aspects:

1. Regarding good and bad experiences, I've had several good experiences with therapists where they adapted to the information I gave to them, they were non-judgmental, and I really feel that they listened. I also feel that their mental walls were down a bit (since healthcare workers go through a lot of painful experiences/patients telling them painful experiences, I have heard they create a kind of mental wall), which made it easier for me to connect with them.

When it comes to bad experiences, I'll two examples, one is where a doctor was hearing my struggles and told me "taking a walk and training will solve that" (spoiler: it did not, thankfully he was fired), so realizing that yes a healthy lifestyle can increase the chances of wellbeing, it isnt neccesarily causative. The other example was recently an experience of talking with a doctor, and as they read through my journal they decided to put me on the same medication that i was on before (and had no effect), so the important point to take from there is that before prescribing medication, if it hasnt been shown to work before, if there are legitimate causes behind that choice its good to be super clear on why its being done.

2. A good nurse (in my case, at least) is someone who realizes that some autistic people really do mask their depression to the point of it being difficult to diagnose when having meetings with them. The same goes for suicidality. A good nurse is also someone who not only cares for the patient, but for themselves as well. Nothing good can come from an individual being overloaded by a hectic schedule mixed in with people being in psychological or physical pain, so self-care is key to being a good nurse.

And lastly, it is important to keep oneself informed and open to alternatives when it comes to therapy and medication. Some medications can obviously make someone more suicidal, while some therapy methods just simply don't work on some individuals. But of course it's worth a try, while also being open to switching to another method if one isn't working.

I hope your studies go really well, as a fellow student (well soon to be ex student) remember to take breaks, aint no use getting straight A's if the mental health isn't well. And thank you :D