Burnout/Frustration
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| Tue, 08-10-2004 - 11:15am |
I am a SAHM to an almost 6 yo, 2.5yo and 1.5yo. Have been for 6 years now. The first 3 years were great - I had my moments but for the most part was happy being at home. I did all sorts of fun activities with my ds. I tried to find balance in my life and was happy with the decision to sah.
I have pretty much burned out.
Now there is no option but to stay home or basically turn my entire paycheck over to daycare. I already have a BS, plus many other classes I have taken since for enrichment, so taking the opportunity to pursue my degree is done. I am not ready to undertake a Masters degree program. I feel like going back to school will be something I do shortly before I am ready to rejoin the workforce, and it will be for specialized training. Whether it is to finish the BSN program or do something else in healthcare, I don't know, but I do know it will incur daycare costs while I attend school and clinical externships so I had better be worth it when I do it.
Well I went off on a tangent there....
Anyway, I am trying to set up volunteer work one morning per week, plus the two little ones are enrolled in Moms Morning out one morning per week, and ds just started full day Kindergarten. But still I feel that burnout feeling. I recently spent 5 days away visiting my mom who was ill, and I did not want to return to my kids. I felt like I needed more time away. Then of course, I feel guilty for feeling that way. I just used to be so much more motivated about this. On top of it dh is leaving soon for a 4.5 mo deployment so I am really feeling stressed. I have requested that my dh's squadron start a spouse social group (at the very least) and apparently other spouses want one too. So hopefully that will help.
Its just a terrible feeling. If you saw that Baby Blues comic strip in the Sunday paper, its kind of that feeling.
I talked to dh about it last night, but its hard for him to understand - he loves his job and is away from home a LOT so he just can't imagine how I am tired of it all.
I hope someone has BTDT and can offer me some advice.
Thanks


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Also, this ALWAYS helped me out... think about how difficult it would be getting up every morning and getting those babies ready to take to daycare. You would be so tired by the time you got to work that it would be difficult to function all day... and then you would have to come home and make-up for all the time that you missed with your kids. All the things that you do during the day that you dont think about would be maddening... laundry(how many times do you put a load of laundry in during the day?)
It always helped me to think about all the things I do during the day that I would have to work in sometime at night or during the weekend. There are so many working women out there that would kill for the chance to be at home during the day.
I guess the biggest part that always kept me at home was the time I would be missing with my children. Yes, they drove me crazy some days but coming from a BTDT mom, you never get those precious moments back. I cant imagine missing even one of them!
i TOTALLY know the feeling of not wanting to go back home after some time away. but those feelings pass and usually disappear when i walk through the door and realize how much my babies need me. no matter how irritated i am at my son (oooh, he can get VERY irritating sometimes) or frustrated, when i ask him who his best friend is he always says, "you are, mama." try not to feel too guilty - they love you no matter what. ;)
stay strong! being a sahm is the toughest job in the world. find time for yourself, if it's to have lunch out, have a manicure, or a good cry where it's quiet. ;) i have even taken a "break" and taped my favorite daytime tv show to watch in my bedroom while dh watched the kids for 1 hour (we're on a tight tight budget so going out and spending $$ isn't that realistic for us).
so sorry to hear about your dh's deployment. i hope that social group works out so you have resources and support - oooh, cos when you're a sahm you need as much support as possible!!! :)
amanda
Edited 8/10/2004 11:23 pm ET ET by tankgurl
My name is Mel. I am a sahm of 4 years to my 2 beautiful boys, Andrew (5) and Dalton (8 months).
I am sorry you are feeling so runned down from being home.
Have you tried persuing a hobby or passion? Getting involved in a moms group?
I hope that you find something to give you a spark again about being home.
I know it gets boring, but so well worth it :)
Welcome to the group again, and hope to get to know you better.
Jill
Yesterday was a pretty rough day for me and things had just come to a head. There is a lot going on around here and I have a bad cold so my ability to cope with it all just went down the drain.
I guess sometimes it is very hard to be patient, even though I know in 4 years they will all be in school and if I want to go back to school, it will be cheaper then, and a lot easier.
Its also frustrating that the part of the job my dh likes occurs only when he is deployed or away, so not only does he not avail himself of opportunities to be here instead of away, he sometimes volunteers for trips. And believe me, we talk about it all of the time, and how hard it is on me and the kids to have him gone. I could give some serious details of the effect it has, but its not worth getting into right now.
The spinning wheels feeling just really got to me yesterday. I need to feel like I am working towards a goal, and the goal of raising productive, well adjusted children sometimes is just so far away and intangible.
Thanks again! I will try to make my next post a little more upbeat.
Time to go batten down the hatches, Bonnie and Charlie are expected around here the next two days.
Dolli
New and improved siggy coming soon (which could mean after Christmas)
I do have some questions for you. No, I am not an RN. I actually did 2 years of the prerequisite coursework for a BSN program back in college. I did really well and got too starry eyed and let some people convince me that I should go pre-med instead and either apply to med school or PA school when I was done my undergrad. It took hanging out in a study group with some premed students to realize that that was not the path I wanted. For some reason I did not go back to the BSN (shame at dropping it? feeling too far behind my friends in the program?). Anyway, I ended up with a general studies degree with a declared concentration of Health Sciences. A year later I tried the first professional quarter of an LPN program and dropped at the beginning of the 2nd because of cold feet at medsurg clinicals. Whoo what a long explanation. Sorry!
Anyway, at this point I know that while my kids are school aged (so for the next 17 years) I want to be in a career that is flexible enough to not have me in the office more than 40 hours per week and preferably with the option to flex my hours down to something more manageable like 3 days per week or half days or something.
I know I want to work in healthcare - still not 100% sure about nursing. The LPN program was discouraging because I was given the impression that as an LPN I would be spending pretty much all of our time in very direct patient care, to free up the RNs to do things like manage, write care plans, do the stuff the LPNs were not allowed to do, etc...Now I am not squeamish, I just don't want to spend 8 hours a day inserting urinary catheters, giving enemas, changing dressings, changing ostomy bags, cleaning up body fluids, getting pts in and out of bed, and so on. I know that's part of the job, whether RN or LPN, but I don't want it to be all of my job.
There is a BS to BSN program at my old college, and I would just have to retake 9 cr of my old science classes, and then the program is 15 straight months. If I do go into nursing, I really don't want to work med/surg - I'd rather work something like ambulatory care, or home health/hospice - I'm sure there is other stuff I would like too but I'd have to get more exposure/information to find out what it is! I just don't know if new grads can be that picky and the thought of med surg really turns me away. Its understaffed, overworked, and so on...I hear so much complaining. I know its a good way to get your skills really down pat, but....
I was thinking about the xray tech program at a different school, but also where we should be moving next year. The pay is close to the level of an RN, plus there is room to advance to doing CT, MRI or going back and getting certified as a nuclear med tech. I just find the technology of that very interesting. Another option I was considering was becoming a CMA for a while and then trying to get into PA school - but CMA salaries are so low. I just like the idea of outpatient office work(again the whole med/surg aversion). The xray program and the BSN program would both take the same amt of time and the CMA program would take about half of the time.
Whatever I do, I would love to find PRN work and not be beholden to a full time schedule.
What have you noticed in your field as far as work schedules and opportunties go? What areas have you worked in as a nurse and how did you like them?
Thanks!
New and improved siggy coming soon (which could mean after Christmas)
Now I work in an ER, which is not my favorite place to work because it is very stressful. I think you have to be some kind of adreneline junky to enjoy it, but it can be fun at times. I did do some med-surg nursing as well, God bless those nurses because that is hard work. I have some certifications I have to keep up like advanced life support, pediatric advanced life support and next month I am taking a trauma certification course. I love the more 'advanced' type of nursing because it's challenging to me. As far as where you can work, it literally can be anywhere. My sister works as an RN in the county jail, she's the medical administrator, another sister works as an RN in a cardiology clinic and runs cardiac testing, my mom works in an OB/GYN office (an LPN) and my husband is a nurse anesthetist (he loves his job). If you were considering premed, maybe you'd be interested in anesthesia, he does exactly the same thing as an anesthesiologist, but he has a master's in nurse anesthesia. With so many baby boomers, the healthcare field is desparate for help! It doesn't seem to matter if you are a new grad or not! Another note about LPN vs RN is that in our hospital LPN's can hardly do anything and I think they prefer to hire RN"s anymore. But offices in my town hire mostly LPN's because they pay them less. A CMA job would scare me because I think they get handed some tasks by busy nurses that are beyond what they should be doing, at least from the stories I have heard.
With a BSN you won't get paid any more than someone with an ADN, so as a staff nurse it doesn't help much. I would recommend a BSN if you are interested in managing a department or if you wanted to get your Master's to teach or be a practitioner. I plan to do that someday when my kids are in school. Pretty much any hospital hires for PRN work, but you may want to get at least a year of experience somewhere first. At my PRN job I don't have to do weekends or holidays, which is so awesome. Office jobs have the best hours if you are interested in full time or even part time.
I would suggest job shadowing someone to see what you think. Just contact a local hospital and they can get you set up. You can see different aspects of nursing or even radiology.
Good luck and please feel free to ask more questions if you need to!
Jill