Stop! Rally time!

Monday we had a gun rights rally on the Capitol. It brought back memories…

Bad ones.

I was charge nurse the night of the Charlottesville riot. Some of the people that were hit by the maniac that drove through the crowd were on our unit. Knowing that hatred could drive someone to kill, knowing that an innocent woman died because of hatred, it killed me inside. As a black woman, I know all too well what hatred can do.

I just didn’t want to see it all happen again.

Luckily, the state was prepared this time and declared a “state of emergency” before the rally. This led to increased security and a ban on weapons on Capitol grounds. So far, the rally has not resulted in any injuries. Weapons were out and people were walking around in full tactical gear. That nut job Alex Jones even made an appearance.

No one has been hurt.

That’s what I care about most of all. No one was hurt. Everyone gets to go home and back to whatever “normal” life they have.

As a nurse, rallies, protests, hell even large gatherings have a different meaning to me. I see potential mass casualty. I see potential chaos. I see potential patients.

That day in Charlottesville fundamentally changed me.

Breaking point

It happened.

Grad school pushed me to my breaking point.

I’m talking full on emotional breakdown, anxiety attacks, re-emergence of repetitive behaviors…

It got bad.

For some reason I hit a wall and could not move past it.

I went to work and functioned as if I was ok, however mentally I was losing it!

It all started with one class… Pathopharmacology. Now let’s remember, I’m in school for my masters in nursing education. I was not prepared to cross paths with this class. It hit me like a ton of bricks. The grading rubric was 5 pages long with part “A” consisting of like, 3 of those pages. I hated it. It’s not a class I have ever wanted to take. It did not interest me. I couldn’t retain the information. The paper I turned in was basically a pompous regurgitation of information that no one wants to read.

It sucked.

The sheer weight of the paper that was due gave me anxiety so I procrastinated. The procrastination made me anxious. The anxiety made me procrastinate more. The procrastination gave me anxiety.

It was the feedback loop from Hell.

I almost broke. Quitting actually started to look like a viable option. I was literally in tears thinking about the paper.

It was the beast I could not defeat… or so I thought.

I had to have friends and family really rally around me and offer support to help pull me back from the edge. They managed to get me to take a step back, breathe, and break the monster down into manageable pieces.

I have a great support system, something I don’t acknowledge enough.

After hours of research, coming up with an outline of what was needed, and taking the paper in small chunks, I completed it. I turned in 36 pages of absolutely glorious regurgitated information. It’s what they wanted, so it’s what they got.

I passed the paper and the class.

It was if a 10-ton Boulder was removed from my shoulders. I could finally breathe. I celebrated by drinking wine and playing Final Fantasy Online with my cousin. It was amazing.

I’m now in Health Assessments. It’s at least something I have some familiarity with. I know the advanced practitioner health assessment is far more involved but it’s something I can learn and retain. It’s useful information, I mean I’ll have to teach that to nursing students one day (hopefully). So, I’m nervous about the assessment I have to record. I’m nervous but not panicking. I’m learning to breathe and take things one step at a time. I finally have a plan to move forward. It’s doable.