The Morning I called my colleagues fuckers (and why it was only the beginning)

I'm just not sure where to start.

I want to be known as the nurse who called her colleagues fuckers one morning. Not exactly the legacy I planned during nursing school, but here we are.

The pressure had been building for some time. I'd hurt my back and wasn't able to work for six months. I was almost done with treatment but still in pain. But I desperately didn't want to go on disability. To me, disability means not being able to function independently and riding the system, taking every handout available. I used to work at Elks Rehab and saw paraplegics and quadriplegics find employment or start businesses and take care of their families—it was so amazing. But I also saw the jackasses who felt like the world owed them everything. I wasn't going to be that person.

So I took a job as a Virtual RN to make my goal of working happen.

From the start, I should have known better.

The virtual nurse hub was the unused old ICU. The place was messy, dirty, and had flies we couldn't get rid of. There were smells. I tried not to touch anything at times. It was gross. And somehow, this felt like a metaphor for everything that was about to unfold.

The floor nurses didn't like us. I worked super hard to collaborate with them, asking frequently—both in person and in chat—what more I could do to help. The response was usually crickets.

Very discouraging, but I persisted because I believed in the idea. I kept thinking I would have loved having one of me helping on the floor, doing admissions and discharges. Apparently, I was alone in this belief.

We eventually had a nurse come from the ED to manage us. He received no training in what we did and kept trying to implement policies without bothering to learn our jobs first. It was ineffectual healthcare management.

It got to where I would leave right on time and didn't bother covering for the floor nurses because they wouldn't talk to me anyway. Several of us felt the same way.

Finally, we were told that if we continued this behavior, we'd be brought up on charges of patient abandonment.

That freaked me out and made me furious. Several of us argued with him about it—to no avail.

My heart felt like it was slowly being torn from my chest. How could anyone ever accuse me of abandonment? I'm a hoverer by nature. I argue with DONs about moving confused patients who keep falling because staff couldn’t hear the alarms. I've watched a demented little old lady—fresh from hip surgery, stuck in a reverse airflow room after her COVID treatment was done—fall repeatedly because no one would listen when I said she needed to be moved to another room. My requests were ignored. The DON would agree to my face and then not do anything, because it was too difficult to deep clean the room.

But sure, I'm the one abandoning patients.

I resolved to try to last another year. I'd just passed my one-year mark and hoped to stick it out for better financial footing before leaving.

I was walking into the hospital one morning, telling myself to just chill, keep my peace, and ride it out. I kept repeating that mantra.

So I walked into the building, got situated, and went to report with the nurses I'd be working with. When I got there, I saw a window post-it with "What can we do better?" across the top. Across the bottom was written: "Please re-evaluate the Virtual Nurses—they are useless."

Across from me sat an LPN celebrating that she was going to help with a team nursing model with an RN and wouldn't have to work with us anymore. She was giddy, stating it wasn't about me personally while being visibly excited about not having to work with us anymore. The unit manager sat beside me, saying nothing.

I went back to the hub with my feelings crushed and anger blistering into my soul. I reported the incident to my manager, who said he'd take care of it. When I wanted to file a complaint, he said no—this was against the group, not me specifically.

We'd had problems with this group being hostile before. I'd wanted to file reports and been shot down. Several of us had been shut down for making the request.

So there's the background.

Now here is what actually happened.

I was still assigned to that particular unit. Fine.

I went to huddle, sitting there when someone cracked an inappropriate joke. I turned my head and said, "You all are a bunch of fuckers." Under my breath.

That action opened the floodgates. Every single piece of anger I'd stored for the last 18 years started pouring out.

I stood up and yelled, "Yeah, y'all are a bunch of fuckers! You're a fucker, you're a fucker, I like you, you're a fucker!"

It was a truly snot-and-tear-purging episode to behold. I stormed out, went back to my unit, and reported it to my manager. Shortly after, I was told I could leave early with a day's pay.

I was fired a few days later.

I choose not to go back to work.

This was just the peak of the anger that had been building for some time. It wasn't just that job—I'd left several positions thinking the same thing.

There were episodes at the rehab facility where I'd worked before: the doctor who got mad as hell about what was happening to the patients and quit, the truck driver I helped after his night nurse stated flat-out that he was "a pussy" and refused to medicate him for pain, the physicians who got pissy with me for doing my job and dressed me down in front of God and country.

I'm still very angry. Nurses just aren't respected.

We're told in nursing school that one of our values is collegiality—working together with medical staff to create cohesive care plans that treat the whole patient. But most doctors treated me like an extension of themselves, giving me no say in care implementation.

Standing up for patient rights gets you chastisement and ridicule. And that's on a good day.

So why should I ever go back after that?

It's been eleven months of learning how to breathe again. I'm desperately broke, but I can't be paid enough to return to that toxicity. I get to plan my days my way. I get to do deep self-care. I quit drinking. I've realized I have a voice that matters, and my story needs to be heard.

Because here's what I've learned: I should have seen the warning signs within myself. I was tired of feeling tired and emptied out after every shift. It got worse during COVID, and since nurses did such a "glorious job" during the pandemic, we're expected to do more—care for more people with fewer resources. Acute rehab nurses now take 10 patients instead of 6-7. Med-surg nurses handle 5-6. LTACH nurses manage 7-9. It's way too much.

We're not allowed to report to HR what we're seeing or how we're being treated because "the provider was just having a bad day" or "that patient is just being difficult today—it'll be fine tomorrow."

Nurses are falling apart. We need mental health care and managers who can recognize the signs and march us to therapists. Often, when burnout is severe, we're so wrapped up in it that we can't see what's happening within ourselves. We need help so our anger and hurt don't spill over into self-harm—or worse, harming a patient.

This is the first in a series about recognizing those internal warning signs and learning healthier ways to cope before you reach your own "fuckers" moment. Because trust me, that breaking point isn't sustainable—for you or your patients.

Next time, I'll share the specific episodes that triggered my cascade and how to handle that internal noise before it handles you.