Haven’t posted in a while but I 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 need a place to vent about this away from my staff. Also, mega, mega trigger warnings for depression, suicide and…conspiracy I guess?
One of my staff members died by suicide in May. She’d been struggling with mental health issues, I’d been actively involved in getting her evaluations, taking her off the schedule, getting her on short term DBL, even called my psychiatrist to try and get her an earlier appointment (marginally successful, still a month wait). She seemed to be turning around, made the decision that ICU as a new grad on night shift with a variable schedule was not conducive to healing.
And then it happened. Sometimes it just hurts too much. I get it. It’s heartbreaking, it’s tragic, it’s worse because she was so young and bright and full of life. But depression is horrible and sometimes this is the only way out people can see.
Some of my staff can’t see that. The current rumor is that hubby killed her and that the FBI are involved. None of this is substantiated. None of this can be confirmed. I don’t even know where it’s stemming from (other than a place of pain and fear and grief). So all those of us familiar with mental illness only see discrediting of her pain and invalidation of her choice. I’m furious, sent essentially an “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed” cease and desist email. I just have a lot of impotent rage right now and need to get it out of my head. Blech.
This on top of a year in which my father got cancer, a partner nearly ended up intubated with pneumonia and then was discharged into a world on fire, a major housing change and, of course, all the normal stressors of managing an extraordinarily unruly ICU. I’m just saying maybe the Universe should not have picked up the “when it rains, it pours” baton quite so enthusiastically.
