u/PiorkoZCzapkiJaskra

I feel like over the last few years I've made incredible progress; I've really fixed up myself and my life, and I can't say I'm doing badly - but ever so often, I just feel such regret and sadness over missed experiences and wasted years.

I feel like the good things in my life now really make me realise how awful things were once upon a time, and I regret wasting time and taking so long to get myself out of bad situations and bad mental health. I regret how small and narrow my world used to be, and how I think in some ways I still carry this with me. I'm not as free and open and secure as I could be - still. I haven't achieved a lot of the things I really wanted to, and maybe some things I never will. I'm still afraid of wanting anything, I still have a degree of mistrust towards people who love me, and I still am not trying to enjoy life often. I often feel like I need to do things alone, and achieve things alone - and I find myself torn between feeling like I need to drop everything and escape somewhere far away, and actually finally having a lot of things and people that I really don't want to lose.

Hearing people talk about big achievements, adventures, exciting plans, quality family time, great friends, and so on sometimes just makes me feel so sad. I'm really happy for them - and I'm so grateful for what I have - but I hate that everything just came so late, and how much I had to work to get it. How I still don't feel fully comfortable in myself and people around me, and how I still often feel just so far away from everything and everyone.

How can I let the past be, and stop comparing my experiences to that of others? How can I feel like I've got value to what I say and do? I've gone such a long way, but I struggle to be happy with it. I'm resentful that I had to go so far, only to still feel so behind - just in new ways that I haven't even considered before.

Would be interesting to see what career progression people have experienced and how they did it!

Preferably no self help/pop-psychology. Albeit there are some good ones out there, I feel like I really exhausted the genre for now.

I'd enjoy reading about something new - maybe physics, chemistry, the environment, politics. I would prefer if it was reasonably accessible to someone with minimal background knowledge in it!

I also enjoy history, but I'm currently struggling to power through the historical books I've been picking up (Concise history of Poland, and Spain.)

For context, I'm based around Manchester.

I've done 2 years working on surgical cardiology, 1 year as staff nurse in an EMI nursing home, 6 months as clinical lead - then my role was made redundant and I found a job as a staff nurse in a different nursing home on nights.

I don't find my current job interesting or fulfilling.

I would love to get back into hospital nursing, but I keep getting rejections. There's also mostly listings for higher positions than I could realistically apply for.

If I *can't* have a fulfilling job, I'd at least like to work more sociable hours. I'm currently on nights.

I've looked into things like ANP and the independent prescriber courses - but they seem like things you apply for through your employer when your role requires it.

If I was in this position back in my country, I'd be considering doing a masters in cardiology (as a nurse specialisation) but I'm aware that this isn't really how you become a specialist nurse in the UK.

I don't know if I'm ready to sell my soul for a PIP assessment job.

I'd really appreciate any advice! I know I need to keep looking and applying, I've polished up my CV; but I'd love to know what more recently graduated nurses are doing to develop.

I'm strongly starting to consider moving back to Poland (for studies) or moving to Australia (for quality of life). But neither will be an option for the next 2 years for me.

I've just had a disagreement with management at work in a nursing home because of different interpretations of insulin prescriptions for a resident.

I'll omit complaining about how I was essentially belittled for asking questions and for asking clarification from the diabetes team (which I initially got the go ahead for from them.)

Resident A has the same fast acting insulin prescribed as regular doses with meals, and as PRN. The PRN prescription simply states "if blood glucose is 15-18 give X units, if it's 18.1-20 give Y units" etc. It is not explicitly stated that PRN and regular doses can be given together, and I've never before seen it done.

In my experience, if a regular & PRN (given separately, after a 4 hour gap) regime was not sufficient, it would be reviewed and amended, OR a variable regular dose prescribed (based on the blood sugar and food intake.) Not in hospital, and not in my previous nursing home job did I ever stack a PRN and regular dose.

My manager told me to do some research, so - I could find some paediatric NNUHFT source which did clearly state that the 2 can be given together, and a HDFT source which mentions a corrective dose given with the regular dose at mealtimes.

I couldn't find any local policy, or any national policy.

Am I in the wrong? I refused to sign for it when asked, because it's something I've never seen before - I refused out of worry for my own PIN. Even when I worked in hospital, it's just not something that was ever done. The prescription would be amended. And I've never worked on principle of "it doesn't say you can't do it." Am I just being really awkward?