CaiteeBug - thank you :) and wow that sounds like an awesome job!!
Liar. - thanks for your reply, it's nice to know that someone else is in a similar situation. I actually get told that a lot of people go into mental health work with prior personal experience, but I have yet to meet a nurse who has, or even admits it.
Luckily here in the UK, most MH nurses do not wear uniform so I can get away with covering my arms, though it is torture in the summer, especially when colleagues are like, 'aren't you hot in that?'.
That's brilliant that you are doing a mental health support work qualification, I think it's always an asset to have someone working in mental health with their own previous experience, though it is a fine line and for some I expect it can be more damaging to themselves and to the patients.
Luckily I have not found that to be the case for me, I can completely split off work from my personal life and never find myself 'triggered' by my patients self harm or suicide attempts etc (I work on an adolescent in-patient unit), it's like I'm a completely different person at work..... And then I go home and back to feeling depressed!
I know a few mental health support workers who suffer from mental health issues and they have been able to disclose this to their managers without any issue and actually get lots of support, but I just feel it's different for nurses, I feel judged more as a nurse, especially being a charge nurse (clinical nurse specialist for those of you outside of the UK that aren't familiar with the term 'charge nurse').
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