“Nurses eat their young”
“Sacred cow”
These are common sayings that
Describe the nursing profession. Nurses eating their young was coined in the 1980s. It speaks to toxic work environments and bullying in the workplace. Among nurses. Sacked cow speaks to “it’s how we have always done it” like not speaking up to doctors or continuing withan outdated practice that makes no sense.
Now, I’m relatively intermediate to nursing, only been working 8 years. But this seems to be symptoms of narcissistic trauma. Especially among siblings. The toxic family dynamics often involve narcissistic parents that foster favoritism, rivalry and emotional neglect. I want to be more focused on identifying these behaviors and tactics that l have seen through out my healthcare career which is roughly 12-13 years. It is common for nurses have a background of childhood trauma and or abuse. And exhibit moderate levels of codependency.
Now, it’s interesting to me as I’m disentangling myself from a narcissistic/codependent marriage (recovering codependent here 🙋♂️) that I’m noticing the parallels of how a hospital is run and its nurses and my marriage and my childhood family dynamics growing up. I bring this up, because I know I’m not the only nurse that has complained about work environment standards and its direct correlation to how healthcare is delivered, let alone the increased depression and emotional baggage that we as nurses carry and stuff down deep in us until we have a nervous breakdown, psychotic break, or just quit, as we have seen many times over post pandemic.
I’m not just shedding light on how we are treated as nurses, but I am shedding light on how we treat ourselves and each other because that also feeds this negative cycle that makes up healthcare. We as nurses are leaders, and we run it all, regardless what others may say, from the floor nurses to charge, to department manager, to house supervisor, to directors of nursing to Chief Nursing Executives. We orchestrate every facet in the hospital, not to mention post discharge in home health, skilled nursing facilities.
As we are seeing the injustice in our administrations and our colleagues, we need to look inside ourselves. A lot of this can be echoed into our personal lives as well as country or our global governments. We outnumber those that control, and I ask that we look inside ourselves and respond with love. Love for ourselves, love for our patients and colleagues and love the managers and directors that lead us.
This illumination needs to be the start of a conversation that needs to include all of us and the beginnings of building a stronger and happier future.
To my readership, do you see the same things? Do you have any thoughts?
This is a place to exchange ideas, provide possible solutions and build a positive community. Complaints are not conducive to change.
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