Maybe It’s Not the Job I Hate

Maybe the burnout starts at home

If anyone asks me right this second if I’m okay, I might start bawling. Maybe.
In reality, I’ll just say, “I’m fine.”
Maybe a little less animated than usual, but still—fine.

I do have an easier assignment today compared to last night, yet I feel more anxious. I don’t know if it’s my meds on an empty stomach or just… being here. Period.

I don’t want patients to call. I don’t want them to need anything. I don’t want them acting sicker than they are just because I’m nice and they want to feel nurtured. I don’t want to cater to the emotional and psychological needs that come with being hospitalized.

And it’s not because I don’t want to work. If I had to walk around this unit nonstop until my feet hurt, the way they ache now, but not speak to a single patient or family member, I’d do it. I would do it until my feet bled. Gladly. It’s the interaction I dread.

I’ve been struggling—truly struggling—for about three years now. I feel lost. I’ve gone from feeling deflated to outright disgusted. My stomach knots up every time I drive into the parking lot.

Sometimes, if I happen to get a decent shift and all my personal “happy meds” are on board, I feel a flicker of hope—maybe I can keep doing this. But it’s fleeting. That hope disappears before I even notice it’s gone.

The baseline emotion is always the same: I want to run. I want to run from this institution and never look back.

When I’m out in public, just being a regular person—a customer, a consumer—I watch other people at their jobs. The cashier. The hairstylist. The receptionist laughing behind the front desk. And I wonder: do they hate their jobs too, deep down? Are they just better at hiding it?

I think the answer is yes. Sometimes I’ve been on the receiving end of cold customer service, met with eye-rolls and sighs for asking a simple question. So maybe no job is safe from dissatisfaction. Maybe everyone burns out eventually. After all, if we are in the workforce, we are all serving someone.

But still—every day I walk onto the hospital floor, get report, and start my shift. It feels like my soul dies just a little bit more.

I used to think people were joking when they said that—"my soul dies a little bit more each day"
Now I think the people who truly feel it, like I do, don’t say it with humor. Or if they do, it doesn’t sound like a joke. You can hear the truth underneath it.

I did love nursing once. My first job.
Thinking about it brings such a heavy sadness that even writing this is hard. I was there for over seven years. Then a new manager came in—just two months in, she fired me.

It still hurts. I carry such disdain for her that, at times, I fantasize about finding her and doing something painful. And probably illegal.

But if I’m being really honest... the reason I clashed with her, the reason I finally cracked, was because I had started to feel irritated by everyone. My patience was gone. My fuse was short. Much like it is now. But I never hated that job. I never wanted to leave.

And here’s the thing I just realized today:

What if I don’t actually hate this job either?

What if what I can’t stand... is my life outside of work?

Because when I had that job I loved, I also loved my life. I had friends, purpose, rhythm. But now I don’t know which came first—the loss of the job, or the loss of love for my life.

Getting fired was a low blow I don’t think I’ve recovered from. And maybe I haven’t been able to experience anything—this job, this life—without that ache coloring it all.

Maybe I’ve been looking through the lens of that pain ever since. And maybe that’s what I truly can’t stand. Not the job. Not the hospital. But the hollow that followed.

So much of my identity was tied to that job. So much growth. So many lessons—some earned, some repeated.

It still hurts.

Lately I’ve been wondering… what if the harder task isn’t finding a new job or changing careers?
What if the real work is organizing my life—the parts I love, the parts I don’t—and figuring out what kind of life I even want?

And what if that work is bigger than I have capacity for right now?

Nothing feels complete. I need to regroup.
But I don’t want to do it the hard way, the way life sometimes insists—with chaos and breakdowns and survival-mode lessons.

I want to regroup gently.
Softly.