I believe that I have jumped the final hurdle in my transition to a full-fledged community mental health nurse. I have been working at this job for a year and 3 months. Today, I was fired by my first client. The other case managers have told stories about being fired by their clients but I have sat, sadly, on the sidelines, wondering if I should congratulate myself for having escaped this event or should I consider that I have not yet been fully embraced into the fold of my field.
To be honest, I was not at all surprised that this client fired me. She has been unhappy since the day we met and I have been unable to do anything good in her eyes since that day. She finds fault with everything I do...I'm not on time, even if I call to say that I am behind schedule. She gets paranoid about her medications and makes phone call after phone call putting everyone in a panic about it. I have walked out of every visit feeling like I must be an absolute idiot who is completely inept at my job.
Yesterday, I was scheduled to see her at 3pm but one of my early appointments needed a lot of time to talk things through. She suffers from Post-traumatic Stress Disorder and is hitting an anniversary of her trauma. This lead to a back up into my next appointment and then into the appointment with this client who fired me. I called to tell her I would be about half an hour late. Apparently, I was 5 minutes too late from that because by the time I got to her apartment, she refused to answer the door.
When I got to work this morning, she left me a harsh message telling me that it was now past 3:30, her daughter set up her meds and there would be no need for me to come out ever again. Or in other words, I was fired. I called her case manager who was not surprised and felt she was probably next in line to be fired too. That made me feel better. And I really was not feeling all that bad.
I told my supervisor about it and she said, "Well, how do you feel about that?" And I told her that I felt OK. I didn't take it personally because she had never been happy with me and it was bound to happen sooner or later. Then I said, "Now this means I am really a part of the team. I'm not sitting on the bench."
There is a part of me that does struggle a bit because I want to be liked. I want my clients to like me and to have a good relationship with them. I don't want them to feel annoyed with me or end the therapeutic relationship on a sour note. However, from a personal standpoint, I have come a long way because I have thickened up my skin and I don't feel like it was a real personal thing. It happens. It's part of the job. I can't and won't make everyone happy all of the time.
Later in the day, another client of mine "paid" me with a mini Snicker's and a diet Coke. Clearly, I am not a bad nurse to all my clients.
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