Hi everyone,

I'm not really sure how to start but I'll just get started anyway.

Lately, I've been having pretty bad anxiety about work. I'm a nurse and I'm finding nursing exhausting lately, not just with what's happening with covid but just everything in general. I find my team and my coworkers exhausting to be around. The work, I find, is meaningless (difficult patients and families, short-staffed, unconfident). And I keep thinking that all the mistakes I've made in the past (a med error, forgetting to document things etc.) will someday just catch up with me and I'll get disciplined and fired or something. It feels like everything I do could be a mistake. I don't entirely feel comfortable talking to my managers about how I am feeling because things go around and I don't want to be a topic of conversation. I'm friendly and I do like a lot of the people I work with. I'd say I'm pretty well-received but still I don't fit in?

My dream is to do something creative so I'm writing and singing lots and it's helping me relax but at the end of the day, I'd wake up at 3am and just go over all the crap I'm afraid of.

I'm usually pretty optimistic and a generally happy person but I can't imagine how anyone wakes up everyday and just heads off into the grind to a place where they don't want to be.

How do people in high stress jobs manage it? To have this weight all the time on their shoulders? I'm so blown away. Nothing is worth my peace of mind right now but I have bills to pay and I need to work.

What gives me peace is knowing that I am just a small speck in this universe and that when I die, and hundreds of years later, there'd be no trace of me. I know it sounds bleak but that's how I feel.

Is it because I'm not a strong person emotionally and mentally? I'm probably in the wrong career, but I know writing stories won't put food on the table unless I become the next JK Rowling. If I could have it my way, I'd stay home and sing and write all day.

When I try to talk to people about this, the general reaction is, "you gotta just do it" or they'll empathize and then just shrug it off. I often wonder about what the point of life is and that I feel that I'm meant to do something more. I look at peoples' faces and just wonder: "what are they actually thinking?" and "is this what they actually want to do?"

Can anyone else relate? I can definitely keep going but I won't!

Thank you so much for listening (or reading). Stay safe.