Taking a break

Nursing school has been a more stressful experience than I had ever imagined. I did very well ( always scored higher than the class average) on tests in my lecture classes, did great in lab and had some wonderful experiences in our "clinical" portion of school, and some horrifying ones. "Clinical" is when we actually go to a local hospital 2 days a week and work as nurses. There is an old saying " Nurses eat their young" that turns out to sometimes be true. My OB rotation turned into a feast for my instructor and the main course was me. I couldn't take it. The day she looked me in the face and said "Would you want someone like you taking care of your mother or your child?" I lost it. She almost had me convinced that I am incapable of being a nurse and I know I can do it. One morning while driving to the hospital, someone swerved toward me and I had to swerve to keep them from hitting me. When I actually thought to myself "I should have let them hit me then I wouldn't have to go to clinical today" I knew I had a serious problem.That day, I was a nervous wreck, I could do nothing right with this woman and that made me more nervous. The more she cut me down, the more nervous I got and the more I couldn't concentrate and the more she complained and cut me down the more nervous I got. As I was sobbing on my way home that day, fearing failure, i was thinking about how failing OB would mean that I would have to retake it in the spring and finish my schooling a year later than planned. Then it hit me, thinking about having to take a year off, I began to relax, to feel normal again, to feel happy and I knew what I had to do. I never went back to clinical. I quit, for the time being. I will go back but be a year behind. Although I am 99.9% at peace with my decision, I am 1% ticked off that I was pushed into it. A simple " You can do it" was all it would have taken to help me through but my instructor was so nasty that she just couldn't bring herself to be encouraging or even kind. I didn't deal with that very well. I don't treat people that way and don't see any reason for her to treat me that way. So, I will have some time off. I have my life back. I can work, spend time with my family, see Ellie and Brenna more than once a week for an hour, do stuff with my mom, visit Mamie and have a marriage. The money and insurance I would have been providing will have to wait. I'm taking a break. Next time someone tries to eat me for lunch, I'll at least be better rested and better able to fight off the attack.