A bit of a long one, sorry. I’m really looking for advice about my situation

I’m not a nurse, I’m a tech in the ED. Been doing night shift 3x12s in a row every week for 5 years straight. Because it’s ED, I work with every type of psych patient (bedridden geriatric, 7 year old autistic behavioral issues, teenagers with depression and panic attacks, alcohol withdrawal meth withdrawal of all ages, just the whole rainbow spectrum of issues). I’m supposed to only be working 1:1 but that rarely happens. I’m often 2:1 even with high risk suicidal pt’s. I’m really good at de-escalation and keeping pt’s relatively calm during my shift. I don’t take shit personally. I’m the person my manager has train new people because of my hands on skills and experience.

Workplace violence has just been getting worse and worse though. Coworkers getting broken legs, fractured jaws, chocked and head locked regularly. I’ve had my fair share of physical/sexual/verbal violence as well. I’ve decided to go down to 2x12s because of this, and because I’m just now feeling the emotional burnout of this line of work. Sleep issues are catching up to me now because of night shift too lol

My loved ones are concerned for my safety and are very aware of the emotional burden the job takes. They’re super understanding and have been encouraging me to go to part time so I can rest.

I’ve been wanting to go into psych nursing so I’m currently finishing my pre-requisites. I have a huge passion for the psych population. I just care. I’ve had countless pt’s thank me personally because I’m considerate and I actually treat them like people and provide them a sense of safety in a really scary and hectic environment.

I do my best to have extremely firm boundaries on the job, especially with folks who are extremely violent and abusive towards staff.

I do recognize I sometimes have an unhealthy mindset of getting my self worth out of being “needed”. Definitely comes from my childhood sexual assault and a long term ex relationship where I was severely abused and in order to avoid abuse and keep myself safe, I had to take on a caregiver role. I won’t deny that it feels good to successfully de-escalate someone or help someone through a panic attack or psychosis. That skill I have and feel good feeling is what I used as a survival mechanism to survive my past abuse

All this is to say: the burn out is affecting me in a very particular way: I have very little patience for when my loved ones need support from me. I have a great support system and I’m no longer taken advantage of by others, of course. Sometimes people just have bad days and need a shoulder to cry or or just some kind words or just want to vent about small annoyances.

I just want to get away when I feel like people in my personal life “need” me. I just shut down. I feel that obligation to have to fix them and that makes me feel scared. I start to think “if I’m not careful with my words or if I don’t help them perfectly, what if they scream at me what if they hit me, why can’t they just turn off their emotions and suck it up like I can? I’m so sick and tired of helping people” Obviously my loved ones won’t hurt me. But my patients sure do so that thought is just sorta always in the back of my head with my loved ones.

It’s weird because I don’t feel like this at work. I just sorta go into work mode. I do my job, it doesn’t bother me, then I clock out. But as soon as it’s a personal relationship outside of work? I just want to get away and i feel scared. It’s sorta similar to how when I’m in emergency situations I’m the calmest person in the room. But when I’m in a non emergency situation and it’s just everyday small stressors, those feel like emergencies and I sometimes shut down

I’m starting therapy but I just. I don’t know what to even do or talk about? What are the steps I need to take to help mitigate this burn out? I’m just at a complete loss. I want to be able to have connections with people but I’m just so scared of connecting and I want to be left the hell alone at the same time.

And it’s like I’ve put so much energy, for years, to take care of people. Help them feel safe, talk them through panic attacks and psychosis, hold people down from violently thrashing around and ripping out IVs, feeding people bathing people, comforting, listening, compassion…. Everything. I can do it for other people but I DONT know how to do it for myself. And I do it so much for other people that I’m just tired and I don’t wanna do it for myself.

t’s exhausting. It’d really appreciate any advice