00:01
When I was in nursing school and then later
NP school, my teachers started orientation
with essentially the same, just, very
welcoming speech.
00:09
They all must have gone to the same, like,
Academy of Motivation.
00:11
They stood up there and they said: "This
will be the hardest thing you have ever done.
00:14
And if you are in a relationship, I hope you
are ready to break up or get divorced."
Literally, I was like, wow, I truly have no
idea.
00:24
Like what?
Like I said, motivational speaking course
that these people were watching when they
decided to go into this.
00:30
But they are all the same and they're
absolutely awful.
00:33
And I wanted to put this section in here in
case you needed a little bit of cheering up.
00:37
If you've had a similar introduction,
because your relationships, whether they be
romantic or otherwise, can survive nursing
school.
00:45
And here's a few tips to help make that,
hopefully, a slightly smoother
process. So, whether you realized it or not
when you enrolled
in nursing school, you introduced a third
person into every
relationship that you have.
01:01
The third person here is nursing school.
01:03
And this person is, they're very assertive,
quite needy.
01:07
And therefore, you are going to need to have
some conversations with your friends, your
partners, your children, whoever, to help
figure out the dynamics of your new
relationship now that there's a new player
in the game.
01:21
Do not be me and just think that all of these
things will magically work out for
themselves. This results in a lot more
stress.
01:28
And remember, we are avoiding the bear.
01:31
We're avoiding the nursing school bear of
stress.
01:34
So don't do that.
01:35
So, the key here to actually fix that is
communication.
01:39
Like, I'm talking a lot of communication and
a lot of check-ins to see what is working and
what isn't. And you're going to need to be
really honest.
01:47
Let your partner know what you can and
cannot do and give them realistic
expectations of how much time you have to be
with them and also how much time
you have to get things done.
01:58
Have honest conversations about what chores
you can reasonably get done, or how much
you can actually help with making the kids'
lunches.
02:05
And on and on.
02:06
Communicating up front will make this so
much easier because the expectation
is already there.
02:12
So there's going to be a lot less
disappointment when you can't show up and do
those things because school is taking over.
02:19
And, I just want to put out there, I am not
a relationship expert, but I have been
through nursing school and then NP school
with a...
02:27
Started with the boyfriend who is now the
husband.
02:29
And, then, in NP school we even upgraded to
dad mode.
02:33
And I promise you that figuring this out and
trying to do it
without communication is really, really
hard.
02:41
There's a lot of pain that happens when you
don't set realistic expectations, and it's a
lot easier when you tell them, you know, you
want to tell them, like, what they want to
hear, right? But that's going to make it so
much harder.
02:53
It leads to disappointment.
02:54
And disappointment in relationships is
poison, particularly for partners.
03:00
Same with friends, though.
03:01
Family, parents, whoever.
03:03
Disappointment is going to be poison in that
relationship.
03:06
Part of them loving you is acknowledging
that you have an insane commitment right now
and rolling with you to help juggle that.
03:13
If people can't respect that, it's maybe
time to just reevaluate how important
that relationship needs to be to you right
now.
03:21
You should feel super supported by the people
that are closest to you.
03:24
Not carried completely, obviously, I'm not
saying that, but you should feel supported.
03:29
Now, how many of you are thinking, "That's
really nice, Liz, but my partner doesn't even
know how to do what I do.
03:35
So I can't communicate all of those tasks to
them because they're not going to do it the
right way, right?" This is, this is 100% me.
03:43
So I am just going to tell you something
that took me a really long time to learn.
03:46
A lot of relationship poison happening before
I learned this.
03:50
Your partner, and this is mostly for
partners, but maybe for friends sometimes
too, they might not do things like you do,
but it will get
done. And that's the important part.
04:01
And having it done exactly your way needs to
be something that maybe we let go
of until school is done, which is really
hard.
04:08
I totally know. I seriously thought I would
have an aneurysm sometimes looking at the
lunches that my daughter got packed for
school.
04:14
But you know what? It was totally fine.
04:17
I didn't need to do it.
04:19
My husband did it, and she is still, she's
fine.
04:21
You know, she was totally fine.
04:22
And, in the end, my nitpicking at how much
my husband chose to pack or how
he chose to pack a lunch, or how many fruit
snacks were in there, it wasn't helpful.
04:32
So eventually I learned, and I stopped, and
things got a lot better.
04:35
Learn sooner than I did.
04:36
Communicate realistic expectations,
prioritize what is actually
important, and just let the rest go.
04:43
Oh, and adjust. Each semester will look
totally different, right?
Just when you get the hang of things, it'll
change.
04:47
Each week will look different.
04:49
Communicate that, particularly the really
crappy weeks.
04:52
Always communicate those.
04:54
I would write in the family calendar,
literally, "there will be tears this week."
Or just the emoji because I'm dramatic.
05:00
But it was helpful because then at least my
husband knew.
05:04
He knew what to expect. He knew there would
be a lot of tears.
05:06
And then there were. And again, expectation,
reality.
05:09
And remember that this is not forever.
05:11
You are not alone. Your relationships really
can survive.
05:14
You can do the hard things.
05:15
You can relinquish control of the grocery
shopping or the grass mowing.
05:19
You can do the hard things.
05:22
But how do you keep doing the hard things?
That is our last tip here in this section of
preparing for nursing school.
05:28
Let's look at how you keep going.