Crying Is Not Allowed

Nursing school taught me not to get attached to patients and never to grieve openly on shift, because that reads as unprofessional. What that lesson missed is that the training never made us stoic. It only taught us to hide how much a loss actually shakes us, which is why nurses learn to swallow their tears when a patient dies unexpectedly.

The grief is real, and it often comes out as frustration. We are trained to save lives, so watching one slip away beyond our control cuts against everything the work is supposed to be. In those moments we feel useless, like we were never enough, and that is worth crying over. When the physician tells the family the worst has happened, the weight lands on us too. Veterans feel it as much as new grads, but we hold it down, because the people left behind need us steady first. Our own grief has to wait.

The Fear of Being Unprofessional

Nurses see more death than most people will in a lifetime, and some of it leaves scars. We carry it home and empty our hearts out in private, because there is rarely a healthy outlet in the moment we actually need one.

Nurses are moved every single day, yet we carry this fear that weeping makes us unprofessional.

A tear slips out at what a patient confides, or at the sight of an infant tangled in tubes and wires. Patients are sometimes startled to see a member of the medical team lose composure, and it gets read as being too soft for a job that supposedly demands a thick skin. Worse, crying can draw bullying from other nurses. So we hide it. The public starts to believe nurses are emotionless, and that quiet pressure is pushing experienced nurses to quit. You are handling four or ten patients at once with someone calling from the next room. There is no time to grieve, so the grief goes under the sleeve.

Becoming Human Again

Healers need a timeout like everyone else. I want a culture where nurses, especially the new ones, are allowed to be vulnerable, where crying is not mistaken for weakness. Nurses get sad. We have hearts.

Crying is a good way of sharing the pain of the people the patient left behind.

Tears share the loss with grieving families, mark how much a patient touched us in the short time we knew them, and ease our own frustration at the limits of what we can do. Drop the idea that getting attached is a failure. This profession runs on human connection, and showing emotion comforts patients and nurses alike. So do not trivialize a nurse's tears. Let them cry in front of you. It means they gave everything they had.