Healing PTSD in Nursing with Jill Brandl
Jill Brandl was an RN who worked to become a Holistic Psych Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. Despite her education in mental health, Jill needed help with her own burnout from her years in healthcare, as well as dealing with trauma outside of her job. After what she describes as “total burnout”, Jill decided it was time to put herself first and begin the journey to a more healthy life. She stepped away from her job to focus on helping herself so she could continue to help others.
Jill says that the mental health of nurses is her passion now. She says that step one to healing is admitting that things have to change and not allowing shame to get in the way of asking for help. Nurses have been taught to think that burnout just goes with the territory and we should just suck it up and move through the exhaustion and difficulty of caring for others. Jill tells us that we must set boundaries, know our worth as people, and not get wrapped up in how we may be perceived if we put ourselves first.
Jill now offers help to nurses who are going through burnout or mental health issues. She utilizes evidence-based modalities to help others begin to heal themselves. Jill helps others by using mind-body healing and neuroscience-based flow-state coaching. She also focuses on the root cause of mental health, so that clients can make lasting changes.
ABOUT JILL
Jill Brandl is a holistic psychiatric nurse practitioner, breathwork facilitator, yoga instructor, and hypnotherapist who supports healthcare professionals in healing from chronic stress, overwhelm, and burnout to create a life of peace and joy. Having navigated her own severe burnout and recovery, she now offers the same evidence-based and highly impactful modalities that helped her on her own healing journey. She offers group healing immersions and private healing sessions and delights in supporting other healthcare professionals.
LINKS
Get in touch with Jill at https://www.jillbrandl.com/.
Follow Jill's journey on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
-
Beth Quaas: Hello everyone and welcome back to Don't Eat Your Young. I'm your host, Beth Quass. Today
we have Jill Brandl on the show. She's been an RN for many years, working mainly in psych
mental health, which took her to move her career into a different path. So I'm excited
to have her today to talk about some of the things she's used to help herself get through
some tough times and hopefully maybe help out you as well. I'd like to welcome Jill to the show.
Hi, Jill. I'm so happy to have you on the show today.
Jill Brandl: Hi, Beth. I'm so glad to be here. Tell
us a little bit about yourself and your nursing journey. Absolutely. So my name is Jill Brandle.
I'm a holistic psychiatric nurse practitioner, and my nursing journey started out. I worked 15
years as a psychiatric nurse in a major medical center as a registered nurse. After doing that
for about 15 years, I had gone back to school and became a psychiatric nurse practitioner,
and from there I worked in a outpatient clinic for about seven years. And then what happened
was the most spectacular burnout that can ever happen, and I had a burnout. So I had a really
serious burnout that I think started in around 2020 and culminated in 2021 with me actually
leaving my job and then starting up a private practice.
Beth Quaas: And I can so relate to everything that you've gone through because I've been there myself, and I think a lot of people that listen
to the show can also relate. What do you think brought you to that point? Was it a culmination
of all those years? Was it the job? Was it the population?
Yeah, I think looking back,
Jill Brandl: it was a lot of factors. I know that when I was in it, I really wanted to place all of the blame
on the medical system. And there are definitely so many problems with the medical system. And
I do not dispute that. That is very real, and that is something that nurses are dealing with
every day, all of the time that they're spending working. So that is very real, and I can speak
to some of that too. But I think in retrospect, and after I was able to step away from that,
what I was actually able to see was that all of my own stress and all of my own trauma,
which started back in childhood really, was part of the underlying factor as well. And so
what I've come to understand is that when people have this combination of childhood trauma or
other traumas, even workplace traumas as a nurse, and then we're also dealing on top of that
with the stressors of the profession, it really can create kind of the perfect recipe for
experiencing severe burnout.
Beth Quaas: I agree. And I think we've probably both seen it. Well,
we've seen it in ourselves. We see it in our colleagues. I see it in students coming in.
This stress happens way before you get out and start working as a licensed nurse anywhere.
What do you think? Is there anything we can do earlier on, do you think, to help nurses
set themselves up for success?
Jill Brandl: Absolutely. I think that anybody who's going into some kind
of healthcare role, healthcare profession, or even a caregiving role, it would be very healthy and very valuable to take some time to examine why we are going into these professions or why we are
maybe choosing to do the work that we do, because it's important work. It's needed work. It's good
work in the sense that I know that the people who go into these professions, including you and I,
Beth, are very often very caring and loving people. However, a lot of times people, including myself,
initially are drawn to those professions sometimes for subconscious reasons in that we are maybe
looking to find validation in that job, in that profession. For example, a feeling of being needed,
a feeling of achievement, a feeling of self-worth. And some of those things can be tied to childhood
traumas where we are then subconsciously going into our work looking to get those needs met.
And so doing that work, doing some of the healing work beforehand so that we have the opportunity
to regulate our nervous systems and go into work knowing how to set boundaries, knowing our worth,
knowing that we are worthy of being treated well and having safety and having a voice and those
things can go such a long way. There is so much to talk about here and I know you've created
a way to help people through all of this. When we talk about nurses needing an identity, and I know
that's true, people identify with their profession oftentimes. Talk a little bit more about that. I
know you've touched on it. Talk a little bit more about how do we get there?
That is so good, Beth. I mean, when I think back about how I felt and how I was even working in
the major medical center, both as an RN and then for years as an outpatient psychiatric nurse
practitioner, I really look back and I feel like, wow, a lot of that was my identity.
And because of that, I would tell myself stories like, well, this is the profession I chose,
this is the work I do, so of course I'm going to come home and be exhausted and not feel like I
have energy or time to spend with my family, with my loved ones. Of course, it's just sort of like,
it just goes with the territory. I'm a nurse, therefore, yes, I'm going to be exhausted,
traumatized, potentially on the verge of burnout off and on over the years, and sort of like,
this is just what it is. This is just how it is, part of my identity. And I think that we can,
as nurses and as healthcare professionals, just get very wrapped up in like, this is my identity,
this is what gives me worth, this is what gives me a sense of value and importance in the world.
And then because of that, all of the ways that it affects us in the rest of our life,
we sort of just take it like, well, this is how it's got to be.
Oh, you hit the nail on that. If I could have all those evenings of exhaustion back and
we sit and you're right, we think that's just how it is and you trudge through each day,
you trudge through each day. Tell us how it could be, how it should be.
Oh, how it could be, how it should be. So I had to learn this, what I will call the hard way.
I did not just somehow flip a switch in my head and say, you know what, I'm tired of living this
way. I'm going to choose a different way because I want to feel good. It took me getting totally
burned out and basically unable to function anymore before I was then able to look inside
and do the inner work of saying, wait a minute, is this really all there is to life as a health
care worker? And now it's been about a year and a half since I left that role. I want to say the
research shows it takes on average three years to recover from burnout. And so I would say for me,
that's been, it has taken a while and now truly I feel better than I ever have in my life.
I have so much joy. I have so much peace. My nervous system is regulated. I love myself.
I know my worth and I just feel so amazing most days that if somebody would have told me a year
and a half ago that I could feel as good as I do now, I would not have believed them.
That is so fantastic. I'm so glad you've gotten to that point. And I know you said it wasn't like
flipping a switch. I think for me, I would look at the reaction from my coworkers on what I was
saying and how they were reacting. And I felt them pulling back because I was so cynical,
so angry. So I just didn't want to be there anymore. And I could watch them
pull away from me. And that's when I thought, this isn't me. This isn't who I am or who I want to be.
So that's how I think I got to where I needed to make the switch.
Absolutely. And talking about mental health, the mental health of nurses has become a tremendous
passion of mine now. It's one of those turn your pain into your purpose things.
And I know I too felt that way when I was in burnout. I felt so irritated and angry and
frustrated with the medical system. And I just wanted to be like, I am just a cog in a wheel.
And this system is just destroying my life and all of this stuff. And while some of that
can be true and is true in the sense that the system is very dysfunctional and broken
and causes harm to nurses. And I believe that what I also know now is there was a big level
of personal responsibility that at the time I wasn't able to or willing to face.
It is a hard realization to come to because you know it's going to change your whole life.
Yeah, it has to. You can't continue doing the same thing and think that it's going to get better
if you don't make some choices to change as well. So what do you think is step one?
Yeah, step one is just what you were saying, Beth. It's so true. It's like we have to actually just
stop and take stock of where we are and say, you know what, obviously waiting it out isn't working.
Obviously taking a few extra days off here and there isn't working. Clearly repeating my same
old habits of going home after work and eating frozen pizza and laying on the couch until bedtime
watching Netflix isn't working. But boy is that fun some days. Some days it's fun and it's okay.
It's fun and it's okay. Yeah and you know I think even one of the biggest points I
think was like just blaming everything and everybody else for the way I was living my life
also wasn't working. And so the first step is getting real and getting honest with ourselves
and that's what I had to do. I had to get real. I had to get honest and I had to say to myself
if it's meant to be it's up to me and I'm the only one who can change my life and I have to choose.
That is so important for people to know it's a choice. You can do it or you can stay and then
you have to deal with that as well. Have you ever had anybody ask you, so I'm going to ask you,
as a psych mental health nurse couldn't you heal yourself?
Yeah that's such a good question because that's what I told myself. I thought well I know this.
Like I have a master's degree in psychiatric nursing. I have all of the clinical knowledge.
I have clinical experience. I'm great at my job but the thing was that knowing it wasn't the same
as living it and there was so much shame there. I just really want to talk about for a moment the
shame that goes on when it comes to us as nurses discussing our mental health or even just
speaking about it to somebody else and I feel like that is also one of the first steps is to be okay
with admitting that we too even though we are in a caregiving profession we too need and deserve
support and there is absolutely nothing shameful about that.
So well said. I'm hoping that the more we talk about it the easier it will get for people to
talk but boy when you're in a busy shift and you're dealing with patients dying and almost
dying and not doing well and you're making some real big decisions to help them and then you have
to go into the next room and pretend that didn't happen. That has to take a toll on people.
It absolutely does. There is a tremendous amount of secondary trauma, vicarious trauma that goes on
in the nursing profession and I think you know and I had kind of this mindset as well for years of
like well shoot I can handle anything. I've seen it all. I've done it all. Like when I was would
work as the charge nurse and we would have these violent patients and all of these serious
situations going on the other nurses would just say to me like Jill you are just unflappable.
You're so calm and it's like yes we do have to kind of shut it off when we are at work but the
problem was I never turned it back on and processed the emotion. I never felt the emotion. I never
went in and allowed myself to release the stress and the trauma and to heal from those experiences
that I had and you know a 10-minute little conference in the bedroom after one of those
incidents isn't enough to process the enormous emotional and psychological toll that these
experiences have on our nervous systems.
I want to hear more about that because I'm kind of a science geek but the violence is just escalating
all across health care and it seems like nurses and nurses aides and those in the rooms the most
often are the ones that are really taking the brunt of that. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I really want
to talk for a moment about PTSD about post-traumatic stress disorder because there is no doubt in my
mind that nurses are suffering from that. In fact there is research to show that health care workers
have rates of PTSD equal to people who have been in combat military because here's the thing when
we are in those environments and we are fearful for our safety, we are fearful for our lives,
we are worried that we may get attacked, killed, you know even just getting yelled at, spit on,
bodily fluids thrown like all of these things and then you know there is the double the
adding insult to injury because unfortunately what I hear from so many nurses and what I experienced
as well in my career is that whenever something goes wrong whenever a patient hurts us then we are
asked what we could have done differently to prevent that from happening and we don't have
the safeguards in place as far as having enough staff, as far as having enough protection to
keep ourselves safe. So our nervous systems are truly in a state where we are fearing for our safety
almost every time we go to work and we don't just turn that off when we go home.
That hypervigilance, that being easily startled, trouble sleeping, nightmares, flashbacks,
we feel it in our bodies. I am so glad you said that and I'm sure people listening will
think the same thing. Yeah we do go through that, that is real. It is not something made up,
it's not on a tv show that is real and I have been as a manager in a facility where HR,
we do a root cause analysis for whatever happened and HR would come in and the first question that
was asked of that nurse was what could you have done differently? That places blame on someone
that was the victim in my mind. Absolutely, it absolutely does and so here's the thing too,
when these kind of experiences happen not only as nurses are we dealing with the trauma and the
acute stress response of what's just happened but then we are also dealing with all of our
childhood trauma getting activated from previous experiences we may have had growing up where we
felt potentially like our needs don't matter, we aren't worthy, we are a burden to people,
we should just keep quiet, you know all of those kind of things that can be childhood trauma from
the way that the adults in our lives treated us or behaved around us and so those traumas and
triggers are getting activated on top of the current stressor and then we are just sort of like
well we just go home and you know like it's just another day at the office so to speak.
Yeah well and I know you've told us what step one is, now what are you doing? What have you
done to heal yourself and what are you doing to help other people? That's such a good question
and I love to talk about this. One of the reasons I really love to talk about this of how I've
managed to be able to heal myself and by heal myself I don't mean to say that I did it alone
because to heal myself I asked for help, I received support, I went to therapy and I'll speak about
that. The first thing I did was you know getting real with myself and then the second thing was
that I started going to therapy, I allowed myself to receive support, I allowed myself to be human,
I allowed myself to be witnessed in my experiences and receive support and I do believe that it's
important to seek out somebody who can provide trauma specific support and to look at things
that are considered mind body modalities that are evidence-based for trauma treatment.
So I would say a couple of the things that have helped me quite a bit are there's a therapy
modality called accelerated resolution therapy which uses eye movements to help release trauma
from the body that has been tremendously helpful to me. In fact I trained in it and I now offer it
to people and then just things like hypnotherapy, breath work, getting into the physical body
because we talked about this earlier Beth that as nurses we can be so good at just shutting it all
off and in order to access all of that kind of trapped emotional energy we need to go into the
body. Oftentimes just talking about it isn't enough, we need to move that emotional energy
out of the body so that we can release it and restore ourselves to a healthy balanced nervous
system. How does that work on the nervous system? Yeah so what it does is it allows us to so the
eye movements they're bilateral movements moving the eyes left and right and what that does is it
creates a sense of calm and nervous system regulation in the brain by accessing different
parts of the brain than talk therapy alone will access. And so as we are recalling the potentially
the traumatic memories the incidents that have contributed to the trauma response in the body
we can move those eyes back and forth and follow a sequence of processing that helps calm the brain
and calm the body and the nervous system as we are recalling the event so that at the end of
the session we are able to then recall the event in a factual way without that nervous system
response going over the top. That's incredible to me the body's an amazing thing. I give drugs for
a living so I know what drugs do to the body and we talked about this before you can change the
chemistry in your brain and in your body without the use of drugs talk a little bit about that.
Yes you absolutely can so you know I will say that when I was in the midst of my burnout
Beth and I know I shared this with you that at one point I was on five different medications to
help my mental health. I was on antidepressant medication, ADHD medication, anxiety meds, sleep
meds when I was really in the thick of my burnout and those did not do anything to
heal what was going on underneath. They did not do anything to heal the underlying trauma. Now I
am not saying that there's anything wrong with medications. Certainly medications can help people
when they are really needing that extra layer of support and on top of that we've got to be willing
to do the deeper work to heal these things at the root cause so that they don't keep showing up as
symptoms over the years because it just can keep coming back if we don't deal with the root cause.
So creating safety in the body and creating safety in the nervous system by dealing with the traumas
at the root cause is really what we want to do in order to change the way the nervous system is
functioning and essentially to shut down all of those alarm bells that are going off in our
fight or flight, in our fear centers, the amygdala, all of the cortisol release, like all of the
hormonal things that go on in a flood when we feel triggered into a trauma response.
That will be so good for people to hear because I did not know any of this until I started this
podcast and meeting people like you, that was even a thing. You know, you tradition, you go in,
you tell them you are depressed or you're having anxiety and the first thing most people think of
is you're going to be put on a medication. How's that going to affect me? But by healing without
but by healing without those medications and taming those hormones that are not good in
and of themselves if they're in high levels in the body is amazing to me. So what you're doing
is just, I think something so many people need to learn about.
Absolutely and I feel that I want to keep talking about this and I will keep talking about this
because when I was going through it, I was Googling and searching online and looking for
help and support and Googling things like nurse burnout and nurse mental health issues and all of
this stuff and I really wasn't finding anything that was made just for nurses who are going through
this. And so because of that, I created that community and I'm so excited. I'd love to share
that with you, Beth, and tell you what I'm creating here. Go ahead, I want to hear about it.
Yeah, so it's called Bodacious Radiance Academy and it's a six-month mind-body healing immersion
specifically for nurses and so during this six-month healing immersion, we'll be meeting
virtually and I'll be leading the participants through a process to help them heal themselves
from whatever it is that's going on in their lives. We'll be doing things like hypnotherapy,
breath work, guided meditations, yoga. I will also be offering individual healing sessions with each
participant as part of that package deal and I think one of the biggest benefits of doing this
in community, so it'll be a private virtual community that we'll meet on Zoom, is that other
people can share their stories with one another and shame cannot live when we speak our truth
and it is going to be so powerful to witness the healing of the other nurses in the group
in this community because oftentimes when one heals, we all heal. When one tells her story
and works on healing that, everyone else almost always goes, oh my gosh, me too, I can so relate
to what's going on and by letting ourselves be seen and held in community, there is tremendous
healing power in that and I'm just so excited to launch that. It'll be starting
at the start of the year. Enrollment is opening in a couple of weeks and it is going to be truly
life-changing. I cannot wait to hear more about it because I think so many people need it and
what I would love to see in the future is hospitals covering those costs and paying for that or
insurance, it doesn't matter. Do you think that will ever happen? I would love to see that happen.
I would love to see that happen because nurses deserve that. Nurses deserve to work in environments
where they feel safe, where they feel like they're getting their medical needs met, including their
mental health needs because there is still such a stigma and such a disconnect when it comes to
seeking out and receiving mental health support and it feels like one of my life's work projects
to speak about this and to continue to normalize that our brain is part of the body just like every
other part and it too needs support and needs to receive care in order to function in a healthy way.
That brings me to a question. Do you ever have someone or have you had or
that says I really love my job? I love the unit I work on. It's toxic but I love what I do.
Can people heal and learn to take care of themselves while still working in that space?
Yeah, so what I find is that as we can heal our trauma, regardless of how much we do or don't like
our job and I think sometimes it can be we feel pretty okay about it for a while and then for a
while it's like oh this is just awful and then it kind of ebbs and flows. At least that was my
experience over the years but even for somebody who feels largely that they enjoy their job,
we want to prevent burnout. We want to teach all of these skills so that people can truly
take care of themselves and have a deeper understanding of how their life experiences
even before becoming a nurse may impact the way that their mental health journey goes over time.
Journey goes over time and so even being proactive before disaster strikes, before people
hopefully never get as burned out as I was, although I know that they're out there,
we don't have to wait until we can barely get out of bed and barely function before we allow
ourselves to receive some support. So whether people identify with being deeply burned out
as I was or maybe just identifying that they're living in chronic stress, receiving support is
useful. What you're doing is I think going to benefit so many people and it's good to hear that
people don't have to change everything to start healing themselves. Yeah absolutely I mean because
I know there are a lot of nurses out there who do love the profession and love the work
and it's the environment, it's the challenges of the environment that are taking their toll and so
I think one of the biggest benefits and takeaways from doing a program like the one that I'm offering
is getting a sense of clarity because when we are in chronic stress it's very hard to be clear
about our goals and dreams in life, about you know where we're going in life because truly often we
are simply in survival mode and when we're just in survival mode day to day and all we're looking at
is how can I get through this shift or how can I get through this week so I can get to my days off,
that's survival mode and I look back I was in that for decades, I really was and what I want
to empower people to do is go beyond survival mode and from just surviving to thriving.
I love that. Is there a time frame, is everyone individual in how they heal and move on?
Yeah I would say so. I think some people like, well I guess like me, I waited to
seek help until I just couldn't go anymore. I waited until the burnout really just kind of took me
down to the bottom of the depths of despair and hopelessness and shame and misery
and that will be some people, some of the listeners may identify with feeling that way.
If you are that person I just want to tell you there is hope to be had, this is not your fault,
you can heal from this and you have to choose, okay you've got to choose. Sending those people
so much love because that's such a painful place to be. Other people may realize maybe they see
their co-workers kind of thrashing and sinking and realize like oh gosh like maybe I don't want to
kind of let it get to that point. I think I'll reach out and get some support and
and get some clarity on how I can live my fullest life before it gets to the point where I can't
function and that takes a certain boldness and bravery. The name I chose for this
program that I'm releasing, the Bodacious Radiance Academy, so bodacious meaning just
boldly audacious. I think it takes a certain audacity to kind of say like hey I love myself,
I am worth it, I am going to speak out, I am going to be true to me, I'm going to kind of go
against the grain in some way and boldly go after joy in my life and so that's why the name bodacious
and it's also a little bit of a nod to like the mind-body connection because I think
sometimes when we think of bodacious we think of like the body you know and really when we do the
mind-body healing that's where those deep benefits come from. So yeah, there will be all types of
people, all people on different paths and different steps on their journey and I feel that anyone and
everyone can benefit from coming into that space to heal. I would like to see every nurse everywhere
have you know the ability to go through that and take care of themselves from the beginning
all the way through their careers. Absolutely, I think the thing that I want to say to the listeners
is you are so much more than your profession, you are so much more than your profession,
you can have so much joy in your life, you can have fun, you can be in love with life,
you can be healthy mind, body and spirit and even if you're not hating your job and you're
thinking well what's the big deal? Yeah, nursing's hard but like I'm doing okay.
Here's the thing, sometimes we can fool ourselves, we can think we're doing okay and we may be
doing amazing at work. I mean many nurses it's like you can go and do amazing work and crush it
during your shift but what is the rest of your life looking like? What are your relationships
looking like? What is your physical health looking like? What are the goals that you
keep telling yourself you're going to go after because you know they will bring you joy
and fulfillment but it's just not happening because you don't have the energy. So those
are some of the things that we can also look at because I want to see nurses loving their life
as a whole, not just leaving the rest of their life with kind of the scraps of their energy
which is what I did for decades. Yeah at the end of the day if there's nothing left it's hard to
take care of yourself and the important people around you. I totally agree with that.
So where can people find you? Yes so my website is jillbrandl.com that's j-i-l-l-b-r-a-n-d-l.com.
My Instagram is jillbrandl.aprn and my Facebook as well. So I have a Facebook, I have Instagram,
I have my website and I just want to create a sense of connection and community out there
for those who are looking for it. I think that is incredible. I'm going to find that myself so I can
start listening to you more. I think what you're doing is just amazing and I hope so many people
come and find you that are that need help, that want to change, that want to feel better because
I think you are the real deal. Thank you Beth. I appreciate that. It really is again one of those
my pain became my purpose and I wanted to mention too that I also do individual sessions with people.
I do individual one-on-one therapy healing and trauma healing and other and even coaching and
things like that for people who are looking for that as well as this group container that I
described and I'm so excited to bring my combination of my lived experience and that those
hard-earned lived experiences through my own severe burnout and combine that with my clinical
expertise as a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I really feel that it's the best of both worlds
also combined with a good sense of humor. That's important too. I know laughing is good.
Yes. As sad as I am that you had to go through all that I really think you will
help others because of that. I feel that too. I feel that I would have never said this a year
or two ago when I was in it but I truly am grateful for the lessons I have learned through
this experience. It was very hard. It was one of the hardest periods I have ever gone through in
my life and it lasted a long time but now that I am on the other side of it I truly am grateful
for those lessons because I would not be who I am today without it and I am absolutely loving life.
It actually shook me awake. It awakened me. It opened my eyes. It expanded my heart. It made me
see that life does not have to be that way and I can promise you Beth I will never go back to that
way of life again and I'm grateful for those lessons. I'm excited for the people that can
find you and after they talk to you they can say the same thing you know however long it takes.
Absolutely. Jill thank you so much for coming on today. I want to have you back after you start
doing this for a while and bringing these communities together and I want you to tell us
how it's going. I would absolutely love that. I'm so excited to share. Thank you. Thanks for
being here today. Thanks for having me Beth. I just want to say thanks again to Jill for being
on the show. The recognition that she brings to the mental health issues going on in nursing right
now especially talking about PTSD that I think we know a lot of people are going through in our
current state in our profession so I appreciate her coming on and bringing that up and if you want
to find Jill please look in the show notes and you'll find all of her contact information there.
I hope all of you are doing well and be safe out there.
Beth Quaas: Hello everyone and welcome back to Don't Eat Your Young. I'm your host, Beth Quass. Today
we have Jill Brandl on the show. She's been an RN for many years, working mainly in psych
mental health, which took her to move her career into a different path. So I'm excited
to have her today to talk about some of the things she's used to help herself get through
some tough times and hopefully maybe help out you as well. I'd like to welcome Jill to the show.
Hi, Jill. I'm so happy to have you on the show today.
Jill Brandl: Hi, Beth. I'm so glad to be here. Tell
us a little bit about yourself and your nursing journey. Absolutely. So my name is Jill Brandle.
I'm a holistic psychiatric nurse practitioner, and my nursing journey started out. I worked 15
years as a psychiatric nurse in a major medical center as a registered nurse. After doing that
for about 15 years, I had gone back to school and became a psychiatric nurse practitioner,
and from there I worked in a outpatient clinic for about seven years. And then what happened
was the most spectacular burnout that can ever happen, and I had a burnout. So I had a really
serious burnout that I think started in around 2020 and culminated in 2021 with me actually
leaving my job and then starting up a private practice.
Beth Quaas: And I can so relate to everything that you've gone through because I've been there myself, and I think a lot of people that listen
to the show can also relate. What do you think brought you to that point? Was it a culmination
of all those years? Was it the job? Was it the population?
Yeah, I think looking back,
Jill Brandl: it was a lot of factors. I know that when I was in it, I really wanted to place all of the blame
on the medical system. And there are definitely so many problems with the medical system. And
I do not dispute that. That is very real, and that is something that nurses are dealing with
every day, all of the time that they're spending working. So that is very real, and I can speak
to some of that too. But I think in retrospect, and after I was able to step away from that,
what I was actually able to see was that all of my own stress and all of my own trauma,
which started back in childhood really, was part of the underlying factor as well. And so
what I've come to understand is that when people have this combination of childhood trauma or
other traumas, even workplace traumas as a nurse, and then we're also dealing on top of that
with the stressors of the profession, it really can create kind of the perfect recipe for
experiencing severe burnout.
Beth Quaas: I agree. And I think we've probably both seen it. Well,
we've seen it in ourselves. We see it in our colleagues. I see it in students coming in.
This stress happens way before you get out and start working as a licensed nurse anywhere.
What do you think? Is there anything we can do earlier on, do you think, to help nurses
set themselves up for success?
Jill Brandl: Absolutely. I think that anybody who's going into some kind
of healthcare role, healthcare profession, or even a caregiving role, it would be very healthy and very valuable to take some time to examine why we are going into these professions or why we are
maybe choosing to do the work that we do, because it's important work. It's needed work. It's good
work in the sense that I know that the people who go into these professions, including you and I,
Beth, are very often very caring and loving people. However, a lot of times people, including myself,
initially are drawn to those professions sometimes for subconscious reasons in that we are maybe
looking to find validation in that job, in that profession. For example, a feeling of being needed,
a feeling of achievement, a feeling of self-worth. And some of those things can be tied to childhood
traumas where we are then subconsciously going into our work looking to get those needs met.
And so doing that work, doing some of the healing work beforehand so that we have the opportunity
to regulate our nervous systems and go into work knowing how to set boundaries, knowing our worth,
knowing that we are worthy of being treated well and having safety and having a voice and those
things can go such a long way. There is so much to talk about here and I know you've created
a way to help people through all of this. When we talk about nurses needing an identity, and I know
that's true, people identify with their profession oftentimes. Talk a little bit more about that. I
know you've touched on it. Talk a little bit more about how do we get there?
That is so good, Beth. I mean, when I think back about how I felt and how I was even working in
the major medical center, both as an RN and then for years as an outpatient psychiatric nurse
practitioner, I really look back and I feel like, wow, a lot of that was my identity.
And because of that, I would tell myself stories like, well, this is the profession I chose,
this is the work I do, so of course I'm going to come home and be exhausted and not feel like I
have energy or time to spend with my family, with my loved ones. Of course, it's just sort of like,
it just goes with the territory. I'm a nurse, therefore, yes, I'm going to be exhausted,
traumatized, potentially on the verge of burnout off and on over the years, and sort of like,
this is just what it is. This is just how it is, part of my identity. And I think that we can,
as nurses and as healthcare professionals, just get very wrapped up in like, this is my identity,
this is what gives me worth, this is what gives me a sense of value and importance in the world.
And then because of that, all of the ways that it affects us in the rest of our life,
we sort of just take it like, well, this is how it's got to be.
Oh, you hit the nail on that. If I could have all those evenings of exhaustion back and
we sit and you're right, we think that's just how it is and you trudge through each day,
you trudge through each day. Tell us how it could be, how it should be.
Oh, how it could be, how it should be. So I had to learn this, what I will call the hard way.
I did not just somehow flip a switch in my head and say, you know what, I'm tired of living this
way. I'm going to choose a different way because I want to feel good. It took me getting totally
burned out and basically unable to function anymore before I was then able to look inside
and do the inner work of saying, wait a minute, is this really all there is to life as a health
care worker? And now it's been about a year and a half since I left that role. I want to say the
research shows it takes on average three years to recover from burnout. And so I would say for me,
that's been, it has taken a while and now truly I feel better than I ever have in my life.
I have so much joy. I have so much peace. My nervous system is regulated. I love myself.
I know my worth and I just feel so amazing most days that if somebody would have told me a year
and a half ago that I could feel as good as I do now, I would not have believed them.
That is so fantastic. I'm so glad you've gotten to that point. And I know you said it wasn't like
flipping a switch. I think for me, I would look at the reaction from my coworkers on what I was
saying and how they were reacting. And I felt them pulling back because I was so cynical,
so angry. So I just didn't want to be there anymore. And I could watch them
pull away from me. And that's when I thought, this isn't me. This isn't who I am or who I want to be.
So that's how I think I got to where I needed to make the switch.
Absolutely. And talking about mental health, the mental health of nurses has become a tremendous
passion of mine now. It's one of those turn your pain into your purpose things.
And I know I too felt that way when I was in burnout. I felt so irritated and angry and
frustrated with the medical system. And I just wanted to be like, I am just a cog in a wheel.
And this system is just destroying my life and all of this stuff. And while some of that
can be true and is true in the sense that the system is very dysfunctional and broken
and causes harm to nurses. And I believe that what I also know now is there was a big level
of personal responsibility that at the time I wasn't able to or willing to face.
It is a hard realization to come to because you know it's going to change your whole life.
Yeah, it has to. You can't continue doing the same thing and think that it's going to get better
if you don't make some choices to change as well. So what do you think is step one?
Yeah, step one is just what you were saying, Beth. It's so true. It's like we have to actually just
stop and take stock of where we are and say, you know what, obviously waiting it out isn't working.
Obviously taking a few extra days off here and there isn't working. Clearly repeating my same
old habits of going home after work and eating frozen pizza and laying on the couch until bedtime
watching Netflix isn't working. But boy is that fun some days. Some days it's fun and it's okay.
It's fun and it's okay. Yeah and you know I think even one of the biggest points I
think was like just blaming everything and everybody else for the way I was living my life
also wasn't working. And so the first step is getting real and getting honest with ourselves
and that's what I had to do. I had to get real. I had to get honest and I had to say to myself
if it's meant to be it's up to me and I'm the only one who can change my life and I have to choose.
That is so important for people to know it's a choice. You can do it or you can stay and then
you have to deal with that as well. Have you ever had anybody ask you, so I'm going to ask you,
as a psych mental health nurse couldn't you heal yourself?
Yeah that's such a good question because that's what I told myself. I thought well I know this.
Like I have a master's degree in psychiatric nursing. I have all of the clinical knowledge.
I have clinical experience. I'm great at my job but the thing was that knowing it wasn't the same
as living it and there was so much shame there. I just really want to talk about for a moment the
shame that goes on when it comes to us as nurses discussing our mental health or even just
speaking about it to somebody else and I feel like that is also one of the first steps is to be okay
with admitting that we too even though we are in a caregiving profession we too need and deserve
support and there is absolutely nothing shameful about that.
So well said. I'm hoping that the more we talk about it the easier it will get for people to
talk but boy when you're in a busy shift and you're dealing with patients dying and almost
dying and not doing well and you're making some real big decisions to help them and then you have
to go into the next room and pretend that didn't happen. That has to take a toll on people.
It absolutely does. There is a tremendous amount of secondary trauma, vicarious trauma that goes on
in the nursing profession and I think you know and I had kind of this mindset as well for years of
like well shoot I can handle anything. I've seen it all. I've done it all. Like when I was would
work as the charge nurse and we would have these violent patients and all of these serious
situations going on the other nurses would just say to me like Jill you are just unflappable.
You're so calm and it's like yes we do have to kind of shut it off when we are at work but the
problem was I never turned it back on and processed the emotion. I never felt the emotion. I never
went in and allowed myself to release the stress and the trauma and to heal from those experiences
that I had and you know a 10-minute little conference in the bedroom after one of those
incidents isn't enough to process the enormous emotional and psychological toll that these
experiences have on our nervous systems.
I want to hear more about that because I'm kind of a science geek but the violence is just escalating
all across health care and it seems like nurses and nurses aides and those in the rooms the most
often are the ones that are really taking the brunt of that. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I really want
to talk for a moment about PTSD about post-traumatic stress disorder because there is no doubt in my
mind that nurses are suffering from that. In fact there is research to show that health care workers
have rates of PTSD equal to people who have been in combat military because here's the thing when
we are in those environments and we are fearful for our safety, we are fearful for our lives,
we are worried that we may get attacked, killed, you know even just getting yelled at, spit on,
bodily fluids thrown like all of these things and then you know there is the double the
adding insult to injury because unfortunately what I hear from so many nurses and what I experienced
as well in my career is that whenever something goes wrong whenever a patient hurts us then we are
asked what we could have done differently to prevent that from happening and we don't have
the safeguards in place as far as having enough staff, as far as having enough protection to
keep ourselves safe. So our nervous systems are truly in a state where we are fearing for our safety
almost every time we go to work and we don't just turn that off when we go home.
That hypervigilance, that being easily startled, trouble sleeping, nightmares, flashbacks,
we feel it in our bodies. I am so glad you said that and I'm sure people listening will
think the same thing. Yeah we do go through that, that is real. It is not something made up,
it's not on a tv show that is real and I have been as a manager in a facility where HR,
we do a root cause analysis for whatever happened and HR would come in and the first question that
was asked of that nurse was what could you have done differently? That places blame on someone
that was the victim in my mind. Absolutely, it absolutely does and so here's the thing too,
when these kind of experiences happen not only as nurses are we dealing with the trauma and the
acute stress response of what's just happened but then we are also dealing with all of our
childhood trauma getting activated from previous experiences we may have had growing up where we
felt potentially like our needs don't matter, we aren't worthy, we are a burden to people,
we should just keep quiet, you know all of those kind of things that can be childhood trauma from
the way that the adults in our lives treated us or behaved around us and so those traumas and
triggers are getting activated on top of the current stressor and then we are just sort of like
well we just go home and you know like it's just another day at the office so to speak.
Yeah well and I know you've told us what step one is, now what are you doing? What have you
done to heal yourself and what are you doing to help other people? That's such a good question
and I love to talk about this. One of the reasons I really love to talk about this of how I've
managed to be able to heal myself and by heal myself I don't mean to say that I did it alone
because to heal myself I asked for help, I received support, I went to therapy and I'll speak about
that. The first thing I did was you know getting real with myself and then the second thing was
that I started going to therapy, I allowed myself to receive support, I allowed myself to be human,
I allowed myself to be witnessed in my experiences and receive support and I do believe that it's
important to seek out somebody who can provide trauma specific support and to look at things
that are considered mind body modalities that are evidence-based for trauma treatment.
So I would say a couple of the things that have helped me quite a bit are there's a therapy
modality called accelerated resolution therapy which uses eye movements to help release trauma
from the body that has been tremendously helpful to me. In fact I trained in it and I now offer it
to people and then just things like hypnotherapy, breath work, getting into the physical body
because we talked about this earlier Beth that as nurses we can be so good at just shutting it all
off and in order to access all of that kind of trapped emotional energy we need to go into the
body. Oftentimes just talking about it isn't enough, we need to move that emotional energy
out of the body so that we can release it and restore ourselves to a healthy balanced nervous
system. How does that work on the nervous system? Yeah so what it does is it allows us to so the
eye movements they're bilateral movements moving the eyes left and right and what that does is it
creates a sense of calm and nervous system regulation in the brain by accessing different
parts of the brain than talk therapy alone will access. And so as we are recalling the potentially
the traumatic memories the incidents that have contributed to the trauma response in the body
we can move those eyes back and forth and follow a sequence of processing that helps calm the brain
and calm the body and the nervous system as we are recalling the event so that at the end of
the session we are able to then recall the event in a factual way without that nervous system
response going over the top. That's incredible to me the body's an amazing thing. I give drugs for
a living so I know what drugs do to the body and we talked about this before you can change the
chemistry in your brain and in your body without the use of drugs talk a little bit about that.
Yes you absolutely can so you know I will say that when I was in the midst of my burnout
Beth and I know I shared this with you that at one point I was on five different medications to
help my mental health. I was on antidepressant medication, ADHD medication, anxiety meds, sleep
meds when I was really in the thick of my burnout and those did not do anything to
heal what was going on underneath. They did not do anything to heal the underlying trauma. Now I
am not saying that there's anything wrong with medications. Certainly medications can help people
when they are really needing that extra layer of support and on top of that we've got to be willing
to do the deeper work to heal these things at the root cause so that they don't keep showing up as
symptoms over the years because it just can keep coming back if we don't deal with the root cause.
So creating safety in the body and creating safety in the nervous system by dealing with the traumas
at the root cause is really what we want to do in order to change the way the nervous system is
functioning and essentially to shut down all of those alarm bells that are going off in our
fight or flight, in our fear centers, the amygdala, all of the cortisol release, like all of the
hormonal things that go on in a flood when we feel triggered into a trauma response.
That will be so good for people to hear because I did not know any of this until I started this
podcast and meeting people like you, that was even a thing. You know, you tradition, you go in,
you tell them you are depressed or you're having anxiety and the first thing most people think of
is you're going to be put on a medication. How's that going to affect me? But by healing without
but by healing without those medications and taming those hormones that are not good in
and of themselves if they're in high levels in the body is amazing to me. So what you're doing
is just, I think something so many people need to learn about.
Absolutely and I feel that I want to keep talking about this and I will keep talking about this
because when I was going through it, I was Googling and searching online and looking for
help and support and Googling things like nurse burnout and nurse mental health issues and all of
this stuff and I really wasn't finding anything that was made just for nurses who are going through
this. And so because of that, I created that community and I'm so excited. I'd love to share
that with you, Beth, and tell you what I'm creating here. Go ahead, I want to hear about it.
Yeah, so it's called Bodacious Radiance Academy and it's a six-month mind-body healing immersion
specifically for nurses and so during this six-month healing immersion, we'll be meeting
virtually and I'll be leading the participants through a process to help them heal themselves
from whatever it is that's going on in their lives. We'll be doing things like hypnotherapy,
breath work, guided meditations, yoga. I will also be offering individual healing sessions with each
participant as part of that package deal and I think one of the biggest benefits of doing this
in community, so it'll be a private virtual community that we'll meet on Zoom, is that other
people can share their stories with one another and shame cannot live when we speak our truth
and it is going to be so powerful to witness the healing of the other nurses in the group
in this community because oftentimes when one heals, we all heal. When one tells her story
and works on healing that, everyone else almost always goes, oh my gosh, me too, I can so relate
to what's going on and by letting ourselves be seen and held in community, there is tremendous
healing power in that and I'm just so excited to launch that. It'll be starting
at the start of the year. Enrollment is opening in a couple of weeks and it is going to be truly
life-changing. I cannot wait to hear more about it because I think so many people need it and
what I would love to see in the future is hospitals covering those costs and paying for that or
insurance, it doesn't matter. Do you think that will ever happen? I would love to see that happen.
I would love to see that happen because nurses deserve that. Nurses deserve to work in environments
where they feel safe, where they feel like they're getting their medical needs met, including their
mental health needs because there is still such a stigma and such a disconnect when it comes to
seeking out and receiving mental health support and it feels like one of my life's work projects
to speak about this and to continue to normalize that our brain is part of the body just like every
other part and it too needs support and needs to receive care in order to function in a healthy way.
That brings me to a question. Do you ever have someone or have you had or
that says I really love my job? I love the unit I work on. It's toxic but I love what I do.
Can people heal and learn to take care of themselves while still working in that space?
Yeah, so what I find is that as we can heal our trauma, regardless of how much we do or don't like
our job and I think sometimes it can be we feel pretty okay about it for a while and then for a
while it's like oh this is just awful and then it kind of ebbs and flows. At least that was my
experience over the years but even for somebody who feels largely that they enjoy their job,
we want to prevent burnout. We want to teach all of these skills so that people can truly
take care of themselves and have a deeper understanding of how their life experiences
even before becoming a nurse may impact the way that their mental health journey goes over time.
Journey goes over time and so even being proactive before disaster strikes, before people
hopefully never get as burned out as I was, although I know that they're out there,
we don't have to wait until we can barely get out of bed and barely function before we allow
ourselves to receive some support. So whether people identify with being deeply burned out
as I was or maybe just identifying that they're living in chronic stress, receiving support is
useful. What you're doing is I think going to benefit so many people and it's good to hear that
people don't have to change everything to start healing themselves. Yeah absolutely I mean because
I know there are a lot of nurses out there who do love the profession and love the work
and it's the environment, it's the challenges of the environment that are taking their toll and so
I think one of the biggest benefits and takeaways from doing a program like the one that I'm offering
is getting a sense of clarity because when we are in chronic stress it's very hard to be clear
about our goals and dreams in life, about you know where we're going in life because truly often we
are simply in survival mode and when we're just in survival mode day to day and all we're looking at
is how can I get through this shift or how can I get through this week so I can get to my days off,
that's survival mode and I look back I was in that for decades, I really was and what I want
to empower people to do is go beyond survival mode and from just surviving to thriving.
I love that. Is there a time frame, is everyone individual in how they heal and move on?
Yeah I would say so. I think some people like, well I guess like me, I waited to
seek help until I just couldn't go anymore. I waited until the burnout really just kind of took me
down to the bottom of the depths of despair and hopelessness and shame and misery
and that will be some people, some of the listeners may identify with feeling that way.
If you are that person I just want to tell you there is hope to be had, this is not your fault,
you can heal from this and you have to choose, okay you've got to choose. Sending those people
so much love because that's such a painful place to be. Other people may realize maybe they see
their co-workers kind of thrashing and sinking and realize like oh gosh like maybe I don't want to
kind of let it get to that point. I think I'll reach out and get some support and
and get some clarity on how I can live my fullest life before it gets to the point where I can't
function and that takes a certain boldness and bravery. The name I chose for this
program that I'm releasing, the Bodacious Radiance Academy, so bodacious meaning just
boldly audacious. I think it takes a certain audacity to kind of say like hey I love myself,
I am worth it, I am going to speak out, I am going to be true to me, I'm going to kind of go
against the grain in some way and boldly go after joy in my life and so that's why the name bodacious
and it's also a little bit of a nod to like the mind-body connection because I think
sometimes when we think of bodacious we think of like the body you know and really when we do the
mind-body healing that's where those deep benefits come from. So yeah, there will be all types of
people, all people on different paths and different steps on their journey and I feel that anyone and
everyone can benefit from coming into that space to heal. I would like to see every nurse everywhere
have you know the ability to go through that and take care of themselves from the beginning
all the way through their careers. Absolutely, I think the thing that I want to say to the listeners
is you are so much more than your profession, you are so much more than your profession,
you can have so much joy in your life, you can have fun, you can be in love with life,
you can be healthy mind, body and spirit and even if you're not hating your job and you're
thinking well what's the big deal? Yeah, nursing's hard but like I'm doing okay.
Here's the thing, sometimes we can fool ourselves, we can think we're doing okay and we may be
doing amazing at work. I mean many nurses it's like you can go and do amazing work and crush it
during your shift but what is the rest of your life looking like? What are your relationships
looking like? What is your physical health looking like? What are the goals that you
keep telling yourself you're going to go after because you know they will bring you joy
and fulfillment but it's just not happening because you don't have the energy. So those
are some of the things that we can also look at because I want to see nurses loving their life
as a whole, not just leaving the rest of their life with kind of the scraps of their energy
which is what I did for decades. Yeah at the end of the day if there's nothing left it's hard to
take care of yourself and the important people around you. I totally agree with that.
So where can people find you? Yes so my website is jillbrandl.com that's j-i-l-l-b-r-a-n-d-l.com.
My Instagram is jillbrandl.aprn and my Facebook as well. So I have a Facebook, I have Instagram,
I have my website and I just want to create a sense of connection and community out there
for those who are looking for it. I think that is incredible. I'm going to find that myself so I can
start listening to you more. I think what you're doing is just amazing and I hope so many people
come and find you that are that need help, that want to change, that want to feel better because
I think you are the real deal. Thank you Beth. I appreciate that. It really is again one of those
my pain became my purpose and I wanted to mention too that I also do individual sessions with people.
I do individual one-on-one therapy healing and trauma healing and other and even coaching and
things like that for people who are looking for that as well as this group container that I
described and I'm so excited to bring my combination of my lived experience and that those
hard-earned lived experiences through my own severe burnout and combine that with my clinical
expertise as a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I really feel that it's the best of both worlds
also combined with a good sense of humor. That's important too. I know laughing is good.
Yes. As sad as I am that you had to go through all that I really think you will
help others because of that. I feel that too. I feel that I would have never said this a year
or two ago when I was in it but I truly am grateful for the lessons I have learned through
this experience. It was very hard. It was one of the hardest periods I have ever gone through in
my life and it lasted a long time but now that I am on the other side of it I truly am grateful
for those lessons because I would not be who I am today without it and I am absolutely loving life.
It actually shook me awake. It awakened me. It opened my eyes. It expanded my heart. It made me
see that life does not have to be that way and I can promise you Beth I will never go back to that
way of life again and I'm grateful for those lessons. I'm excited for the people that can
find you and after they talk to you they can say the same thing you know however long it takes.
Absolutely. Jill thank you so much for coming on today. I want to have you back after you start
doing this for a while and bringing these communities together and I want you to tell us
how it's going. I would absolutely love that. I'm so excited to share. Thank you. Thanks for
being here today. Thanks for having me Beth. I just want to say thanks again to Jill for being
on the show. The recognition that she brings to the mental health issues going on in nursing right
now especially talking about PTSD that I think we know a lot of people are going through in our
current state in our profession so I appreciate her coming on and bringing that up and if you want
to find Jill please look in the show notes and you'll find all of her contact information there.
I hope all of you are doing well and be safe out there.