Student nurse who is struggling immensely.

Hello, please excuse the length of this but I feel I am at a loss.

So a bit of back story about my nursing degree: I began it in ’21 at the age of 23, and struggled a lot in my first year causing me to have quite a bit of time off placements - a close family member died during my first placement, and my second placement was a mix of me suffering a lot with anxiety and depression, and not feeling welcomed by the staff most of the time, again causing me to have a lot of time off and having to make up hours at the end of the year.

Once I began my second year in ’22, the academic side wasn’t bad, however as soon as I started my first placement of 2nd year, I had a huge mental shut down (only thing I can think to call it), and could only attend one day of placement before I just could not make myself go. I spent a lot of time in bed, and crying, going home for a while and contemplating why I was doing this degree. Consulting with the uni, I decided to take a year out of placement, and only focus on the theory side for the year, and spend the year after doing both the placements (essentially, my 2nd year was split into 2 years).

And fast forward to the present, I am now in that second part of year 2, and at the beginning of my altogether ‘3rd’ placement. It’s not a bad placement, however I have entered into the same mindset again and experiencing a mental shutdown where I mentally and physically cannot make myself go. I believe a lot of this is to do with my debilitating anxiety I suffer from, and my inability to want to put myself in any place I may feel anxiety (avoidance as a method of self protection).

I do not want to drop out of this degree and the thought makes me feel like a complete failure, however I worry so much that due to my mental health capacity, which I have greatly suffered from since I was a teenager and has led to me dropping out of a lot of things including a previous degree, I’m not cut out for a job with such a high stress level and responsibility. It’s not like I don’t enjoy some of the things I do, e.g. taking blood, talking to patients, and I have had good days at this placement, however I do make a lot of mistakes and a lot of the time think I really lack the empathy needed to go above and beyond for patients. Maybe this is because I am so wrapped up in my anxiety, but I spend most of my shifts counting down the hours and my anxiety just completely overrules me.

I honestly do not know what to do, and feel like a complete failure at life being almost 26 and still living at home.