Night Addict

Hi, I’m Ruby and in my spare time I stay up all night, listening to rock and roll, truly going wild on LSD. Okay, now swap out ‘rock and roll’ for ‘hospital trolley’s’ and ‘LSD’ for ‘coffee and unresolved trauma’.

The truth is a recent study has shown: 

a high prevalence of anxiety, depression, trauma-related, and sleep disorders among caregivers in practice during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Healthcare workers are additionally,

exposed to potentially traumatic or stress factors: unpredictability of daily caseloads, having to frequently manage patients and their families’ expectations in unexpected situations, the making-decision burden, high daily fatality rates, and constant updates of hospital procedures.

And if these people opened a club, tis a membership I would use. Throughout the pandemic, we all fell into routine in one way or another, whether it’s working from home, walking our dogs six times a day, becoming a newfound fitness guru or my personal fav, the non-stop Netflix binge. Whilst the latter become my night-time ritual, my daily routine consisted predominantly of work, non-stop work. As much as we all unknowing dove into the Covid-19 lifestyle, I dove headfirst, fresh from the Uni world of tequila shots and Oompa Loompa costumes into AP chests, PPE  and body bags. I saw staff deal daily with things, with such strength and professionalism whilst I fought the need to both pee and cry once dressed in my covid armour, inevitably knowing I would have to learn to do the same.

Following a cascade of unfortunate events/being in the wrong place in the wrong time/doing my job, I had managed to experience the following in one week:

  • 3 x Cardiac Arrests.

  • 5 x Attempted Suicides.

  • 3 x Heart-breaking Family Goodbyes.

  • 1 x Telling Of “Please put your mask back on” To  A Crying Girl in Order to Hold Back My Own Tears.

  • 1 x Bumping into A Row of Body Bags.

  • 1 x 5 Minute ‘Conversation’ with The Deceased (Unknowingly Of Course).

  • 2 x Being the Instigating Factor of a Tumbling Yoghurt Tower in the (Very Packed) Canteen.

To put it sweetly, I felt like a bird learning how to fly. To put it truthfully , I felt like I was being shoved from a 40ft tree, blindfolded into the world with ‘see one, do one, teach one’ being put into full swing. And in response, I well, responded. Badly. I sucked it up so to speak and continued to over work to supress how I was really feeling, resulting in limited time for reflection and the avoiding of what my brain viewed as potential weakness. Eventually my reluctance to mention how I was feeling regarding what I had experienced during the midst of the pandemic resulted in a very social isolation and a reoccurring bad dream:

I walk into the Covid Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU) dragging the mechanical beast that is the portable Xray machine. I would be situated in the middle of the floor with a conveyer belt of body bags passing me as I listen to the orchestrated beeping coming from those who are still holding on. I watch nurses pull screens around a bed whilst the team rush in to performing Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). I run over to assist and realise; I am the patient. They continue compressions until I wake up … and go to work.

SO, as we are all aware, nightmares aren’t fun and when you’re living through one, being able to escape each night should just be common courtesy, right? Right. So, I did what any sane person would do. I sacked off sleep. I became a night owl, a night addict if you will, surviving on minimal sleep to maintain a functioning brain whilst continuing to work 6 or 7 days a week.

It was only through normalising seeing loved ones lost and increased understanding of the ever so frequent bed swapping which enabled the best care to be provided without truly jeopardizing what was left of my sanity. Eventually , these horrid, heart breaking realities felt ‘normal’ and only then did the dream frequency reduce.

And in the meantime, I did what we as a society do best, I put on my metaphorical mask, and my literal one of course and joked my way through. Pulling faces and making peace signs. Like I’m sorry but when did sticking our tongues out and pulling hand gestures become a coping mechanism for our shitty thoughts and feelings? And when exactly did this coping mechanism work its way into my everyday life without my consent?

When I eventually opened up, it turned out a colleague was experiencing similar dreams, which in all honesty and as awful as it sounds, sent a tiny wave of relief over my existence. Who am I kidding, it sent a god damn tsunami my way. And that was enough, to push me through a little longer, to continue, knowing I wasn’t alone in the way I was feeling or what I was going through inside my own head.

Only now do I feel semi comfortable unleashing the beast, letting my long-term built-up internal breakdown fly free from its cage. Not exactly like a bevy of doves on a wedding day but more resembling the monster dramatically standing up from inside that man’s chest in predator. But why do we feel this way? Why do we feel like we have to deal with things alone? To not be sad about SAD situations?

Looking back now, it’s clear how much I feared being viewed as weird or worse, weak, by colleagues, by those who were ‘handling it’ better than I was. As well as feeling as if I did not have the right to feel sad or scared or anything really, because after all, aren’t we lucky enough to have escaped covid’s claws? To be going home each night to healthy family members whose biggest issue is boredom … oh, and me dragging home a deadly disease, technically making me the world’s worst Santa Claus. That aside, just because we do not physically witness the emotional effect situations have on others, it does not mean we are not permitted to feel how we feel, nor does it mean others aren’t having the same battles behind closed doors (especially when it comes to staff within the NHS). So, this is me, learning, sometimes sleeping, sometimes on strike, sometimes ready to remove my mask and share.

Who knows, maybe one day I’ll go to therapy, really put that 1% to good use.

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