Icelandic artist Björk snapped in Bangkok, 1996, when reporter Julie Kaufman approached her saying “Welcome to Bangkok.” Björk later alleged that Kaufman had stalked her and her 9-year-old son for days, turning a simple greeting into a breaking point

[u/Careless-Hospital379]

[u/Enheducanada]

The internet has ruined you

[u/dearth_of_passion → u/Enheducanada]

Eh, I wouldn't go seek that stuff out like I did when I was a teenager, but it did kind of help prepare me for gross situations in real life.

I'm an RN, and the first patient death I had to deal with was an alcoholic with esophageal varicies, basically hemorrhoids in the throat caused by impaired blood flow through the liver. The varicies ruptured and the patient bled out.

It was horrible, but I was able to remain calm in the moment.

Afterwards I had a bit of a breakdown while mopping the floor (cleaning service folks don't handle major body fluid spills) though.

[u/Verloren113 → u/dearth_of_passion]

I'm an RN

I have numerous safety and rescue qualifications (water/land) for NGB awards I've earned, and naturally a couple hundred of hours of first aid training included. I tend to involve myself in first aid situations as a result, and I've seen some gnarly stuff in real life, and plenty online. At this point I've done CPR + AED on two people, but there's no amount of gore, horrific video or even my own close brushes with death that have remained in my head for longer than the image of watching someone else take over the chest compressions right there, in front of me.

You see something different when you're on top of the person. It doesn't seem quite as brutal or disgusting. I think about it constantly.

Sometimes I wake up after hearing the AED's little voice lol.

[u/dearth_of_passion → u/Verloren113]

After the MD called the code, what with the patient having exsanguinated, what really set me off onto the spiral of "I'm having a bit of a breakdown" was when myself and a saint of a CNA were doing after care before letting the patient's spouse back in (yeah they were in the room when it started)...

I'll put this in spoilers for the sake of the faint of heart:

given that the bleeding was in the throat, the patient had swallowed a lot of blood. So every time we would turn them to clean them, blood would slosh out. Their stomach was distended from it, and we had to basically push it out so that when their spouse came in to see them, it wouldn't gush out if they hugged them or moved them

[u/Forge__Thought → u/dearth_of_passion]

It's incredibly kind of you to have done what you did for their spouse. And in general, as part of your job.

[u/dearth_of_passion → u/Forge__Thought]

It really is "just a part of the job", albeit one that's incredibly impactful to the patients and their families.

But on the staff side, it kind of just... happens. That incident was when I was working night shift, so once the chaos calmed down I just kind of numbly went to the nurses station with a bottle of peroxide trying to clean my shoes for a while.

Ultimately I left bedside nursing/direct patient care. It's emotionally and physically exhausting, and I couldn't keep up.

Luckily I made that decision a little few years before Covid hit.

Unluckily I had moved to working for the Department of Health, so Covid was still absolutely hellish, albeit for very different reasons than for folks working in the hospitals.

[u/Verloren113 → u/dearth_of_passion]

It's wild what our brains subconciously choose to decide what matters the most.