 | I sat down with my mom, who works at a Psychiatric unit in Berkeley, and asked her about the effect that working in mental health has outside of work. -Bella Coles |
I have grown up in a family with an abundant amount of psychologists, therapists, and other mental health professions. It’s always been intriguing to me, the correlation between working with mental health all day, and the effect that it would potentially have on one’s personal mood. I sat down with my mom, who works at a Psychiatric unit in Berkeley, and asked her about the effect that working in mental health has outside of work.
Bella Coles: How long have you been working at Herrick Hospital?
Melissa Coles: I’ve worked there for 8 years, but not all in a row. Over the last 15 years. Most recently for 4.
BC: Do you like your job?
MC: I do like my job, yeah, it provides me a way to be of service, and also to stay interested in the human mind. You know, continue learning about it, helping people, I do like it.
BC: What are the top 3 most stressful things about your job?
MC: Sometimes people get violent, or they threaten violence, and we have to you know, contain them physically, and that gets scary. When people are really paranoid, or angry or both. But mostly because they're afraid. They feel desperate and can really hurt people, or hurt themselves. They’ll do really violent things and that's really stressful. I think kind of thinking bigger picture, that often times you're just faced with how broken the system is. What’s most frustrating is people who need help, can’t get it paid for, people need longer term care. Our patients should at least be able to stay for a month, and health insurances want them out after 5 days. So we see a revolving door, people go in and out and in and out. It takes a long time, it takes weeks, and insurance companies will only pay for days worth of treatment. And I guess sadness, the third thing is just metabolizing some of the tragedies that we hear about. Not even that we see, things that we hear about. When patients are recounting their childhood, or patients are having children, people who can't even take care of themselves. There's just a lot, a lot of sadness to hold and witness.
BC: How does working with mental health affect your own, outside of work?
MC: I definitely notice various periods where my anxiety level is super high. It kinda depends, when I’m at work I literally have to be vigilant, I have to be looking all around. I have to know where workers are, our team members, if something happens violent it happens quickly. We have to work quickly, call the office. There's a level of stress where I get hyper vigilant, where I carry it on through the rest of my day after I leave work. It can get depressing definitely, if I don't keep healthy boundaries on how much I allow myself to think about work stress, when I'm not at work. How much i can let go of.
BC: How do you manage that?
MC: I get acupuncture, for general energetic balancing, right, for stress. Helps me with my sleep. Exercise, and making sure I feel connected and grounded with my friends and you guys, obviously. Making sure my sleep is taken care of, protect my sleep. I try to stay present, it does really force me to try to be more mindful, keep practicing meditation, that helps.
BC: What time do you wake up?
MC: I wake up at 5:30, because I have to be able to sit and have a cup of coffee before I can do anything, I have to be at work at 7, I leave at 6:30.
BC: Do you think working with mental health affects your perception of people in your life? The way they operate?
MC: I mean, if I was, lets say a dermatologist, I would notice various skin disorders on people that I know, knowing what I know. So in that vein, I don't think it really impacts the way I interact with the world and my friends, but I do know some people who are definitely bipolar that would never admit to that, they’re so in denial and would never seek treatment. I can recognize that, there are hallmark signs. We all know someone who's super energetic and engaged but teters on the edge of chaos, I'm better at recognizing people who have various psychiatric disorders, but I don't go around diagnosing people. Yeah no, I don't think it affects me, it keeps me humble, definitely. I think we're all a hair's breadth away from having some sort of hardship like mental illness or substance abuse, there are a lot of people that need more support so, I try to help.
BC: Yeah definitely, do you think it lends a better understanding for your own thoughts? Like the way you work?
MC: It has helped me recognize in myself, my own need to stay connected to healthy people, you know connected to myself. I guess it's helped me to take better care of myself, definitely kept me in touch with greater need for compassion in the world, I think it helps foster that heart of compassion. I´m grateful for that. I try to keep my focus on that. There’s a lots of suffering out there. It's a pretty broken system.
BC: Yeah. do you see it affecting people you work with, like their levels of stress?
MC: Yeah, I definitely have seen people crack. If you don't take care of yourself it's easy to get burnt out. I’ve seen people just react more angry and short tempered. I try to recognize it, I can get like that too, I have to be honest. There was a period where i worked a lot of double shifts, it really took a toll. It’s hard to be around psychotic energy 16 hours at a time, kind of really learned my limits in a way. Too many double shifts, not enough sleep. A brutal combo.
BC: What are the units you work on, and what's the easiest to deal with?
MC: So there are 4 units at the hospital, one is the adolescent unit, you have to be 12 and it goes until you’re 18, once you’re 18 you come up to the adult floor. The adult floor has 2 units. 4 East N, where I work, and 4 East A is the other unit. That's depressed people, people with personality disorders like Borderline Personality Disorder, people who attempt suicide and fail, and an adult eating disorder program. Essentially 4 East A is mood disorders, and 4 East B is thought disorders, where I work. 4 East B is thought disorders, they’re either schizophrenic, or bipolar and in their manic state where they are literally psychotic with delusions of grandeur. Which is a classic symptom, people really do think they're Jesus, or that they could heal the world, and I love those people when they come in, who want to heal the world. They really do, but most people when they are manic are distressed, they stop sleeping for 5-6 days, they start hallucinating, it's really scary for them. The geriatric unit is where people with dementia and alzheimer's is. It’s sad and depressing to see, people with no family to take care of them. People are constantly waiting for a bed to open up, or a bed at a nursing home.
BC: Thats intense stuff, but you like your unit?
MC: I do, I like my unit the best because it has the most interesting perspectives, like the way people's delusions manifest in the stories, they carry or believe. Really fascinating to me, I tend to have common things with them, which is interesting to tie together. I get to know the patients and their families over the year. They're people, I connect with them, I feel connected to them. I get to know the mentally ill community, because they come in and out through the years. It’s nice to see how people are doing, how people learn to stay out of the hospital more. I like my unit, it's interesting, I see people potentially grow up, and get old. Yeah, I like my job very much. The kids unit is hard for me, especially having teens now. I think too it's just emotionally difficult too because these kids have such little control in their lives, in such terrible situations or trauma, it's heartbreaking to be around that.
BC: Anything else you feel needs to be said about psych nursing?
MC:I think we’re really lucky in california because of the California Nurses Association, which is one of the strongest unions in the country. Also that we have the staffing ratios that we do, overall it's become a very dangerous deal, nationwide. Overall psych nursing has become a very dangerous field worldwide, hospitals are not stuffed enough, people get terribly hurt or killed, there’s not enough staff to keep people safe. Thats scary. I wouldn't attempt to do it anywhere else, it has a dangerous component that has to be taken seriously, it has to be accounted for having enough people to manage it, it’s really amazing, it's amazing stuff.
Bella Coles: How long have you been working at Herrick Hospital?
Melissa Coles: I’ve worked there for 8 years, but not all in a row. Over the last 15 years. Most recently for 4.
BC: Do you like your job?
MC: I do like my job, yeah, it provides me a way to be of service, and also to stay interested in the human mind. You know, continue learning about it, helping people, I do like it.
BC: What are the top 3 most stressful things about your job?
MC: Sometimes people get violent, or they threaten violence, and we have to you know, contain them physically, and that gets scary. When people are really paranoid, or angry or both. But mostly because they're afraid. They feel desperate and can really hurt people, or hurt themselves. They’ll do really violent things and that's really stressful. I think kind of thinking bigger picture, that often times you're just faced with how broken the system is. What’s most frustrating is people who need help, can’t get it paid for, people need longer term care. Our patients should at least be able to stay for a month, and health insurances want them out after 5 days. So we see a revolving door, people go in and out and in and out. It takes a long time, it takes weeks, and insurance companies will only pay for days worth of treatment. And I guess sadness, the third thing is just metabolizing some of the tragedies that we hear about. Not even that we see, things that we hear about. When patients are recounting their childhood, or patients are having children, people who can't even take care of themselves. There's just a lot, a lot of sadness to hold and witness.
BC: How does working with mental health affect your own, outside of work?
MC: I definitely notice various periods where my anxiety level is super high. It kinda depends, when I’m at work I literally have to be vigilant, I have to be looking all around. I have to know where workers are, our team members, if something happens violent it happens quickly. We have to work quickly, call the office. There's a level of stress where I get hyper vigilant, where I carry it on through the rest of my day after I leave work. It can get depressing definitely, if I don't keep healthy boundaries on how much I allow myself to think about work stress, when I'm not at work. How much i can let go of.
BC: How do you manage that?
MC: I get acupuncture, for general energetic balancing, right, for stress. Helps me with my sleep. Exercise, and making sure I feel connected and grounded with my friends and you guys, obviously. Making sure my sleep is taken care of, protect my sleep. I try to stay present, it does really force me to try to be more mindful, keep practicing meditation, that helps.
BC: What time do you wake up?
MC: I wake up at 5:30, because I have to be able to sit and have a cup of coffee before I can do anything, I have to be at work at 7, I leave at 6:30.
BC: Do you think working with mental health affects your perception of people in your life? The way they operate?
MC: I mean, if I was, lets say a dermatologist, I would notice various skin disorders on people that I know, knowing what I know. So in that vein, I don't think it really impacts the way I interact with the world and my friends, but I do know some people who are definitely bipolar that would never admit to that, they’re so in denial and would never seek treatment. I can recognize that, there are hallmark signs. We all know someone who's super energetic and engaged but teters on the edge of chaos, I'm better at recognizing people who have various psychiatric disorders, but I don't go around diagnosing people. Yeah no, I don't think it affects me, it keeps me humble, definitely. I think we're all a hair's breadth away from having some sort of hardship like mental illness or substance abuse, there are a lot of people that need more support so, I try to help.
BC: Yeah definitely, do you think it lends a better understanding for your own thoughts? Like the way you work?
MC: It has helped me recognize in myself, my own need to stay connected to healthy people, you know connected to myself. I guess it's helped me to take better care of myself, definitely kept me in touch with greater need for compassion in the world, I think it helps foster that heart of compassion. I´m grateful for that. I try to keep my focus on that. There’s a lots of suffering out there. It's a pretty broken system.
BC: Yeah. do you see it affecting people you work with, like their levels of stress?
MC: Yeah, I definitely have seen people crack. If you don't take care of yourself it's easy to get burnt out. I’ve seen people just react more angry and short tempered. I try to recognize it, I can get like that too, I have to be honest. There was a period where i worked a lot of double shifts, it really took a toll. It’s hard to be around psychotic energy 16 hours at a time, kind of really learned my limits in a way. Too many double shifts, not enough sleep. A brutal combo.
BC: What are the units you work on, and what's the easiest to deal with?
MC: So there are 4 units at the hospital, one is the adolescent unit, you have to be 12 and it goes until you’re 18, once you’re 18 you come up to the adult floor. The adult floor has 2 units. 4 East N, where I work, and 4 East A is the other unit. That's depressed people, people with personality disorders like Borderline Personality Disorder, people who attempt suicide and fail, and an adult eating disorder program. Essentially 4 East A is mood disorders, and 4 East B is thought disorders, where I work. 4 East B is thought disorders, they’re either schizophrenic, or bipolar and in their manic state where they are literally psychotic with delusions of grandeur. Which is a classic symptom, people really do think they're Jesus, or that they could heal the world, and I love those people when they come in, who want to heal the world. They really do, but most people when they are manic are distressed, they stop sleeping for 5-6 days, they start hallucinating, it's really scary for them. The geriatric unit is where people with dementia and alzheimer's is. It’s sad and depressing to see, people with no family to take care of them. People are constantly waiting for a bed to open up, or a bed at a nursing home.
BC: Thats intense stuff, but you like your unit?
MC: I do, I like my unit the best because it has the most interesting perspectives, like the way people's delusions manifest in the stories, they carry or believe. Really fascinating to me, I tend to have common things with them, which is interesting to tie together. I get to know the patients and their families over the year. They're people, I connect with them, I feel connected to them. I get to know the mentally ill community, because they come in and out through the years. It’s nice to see how people are doing, how people learn to stay out of the hospital more. I like my unit, it's interesting, I see people potentially grow up, and get old. Yeah, I like my job very much. The kids unit is hard for me, especially having teens now. I think too it's just emotionally difficult too because these kids have such little control in their lives, in such terrible situations or trauma, it's heartbreaking to be around that.
BC: Anything else you feel needs to be said about psych nursing?
MC:I think we’re really lucky in california because of the California Nurses Association, which is one of the strongest unions in the country. Also that we have the staffing ratios that we do, overall it's become a very dangerous deal, nationwide. Overall psych nursing has become a very dangerous field worldwide, hospitals are not stuffed enough, people get terribly hurt or killed, there’s not enough staff to keep people safe. Thats scary. I wouldn't attempt to do it anywhere else, it has a dangerous component that has to be taken seriously, it has to be accounted for having enough people to manage it, it’s really amazing, it's amazing stuff.
