If you had asked me to write a nursing research paper using APA or present a PowerPoint presentation filled with evidence-based research in school, I’d have been entirely too eager. But when I joined a nurse writing group to reflect on being a nurse during the COVID-19 pandemic, I realized I’d never truly paused to think about myself as a new nurse.
Key takeaways
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My writing at first felt like a battle between my clinical and creative sides. The latter, I realized, had been dormant for far too long. When I read my writing back for the first time, I thought, “This doesn’t really sound like me.”
My documentation writing had been my familiar voice. Writing, in the way this was asked of me, felt different. Slower. More exposed. There’s a kind of vulnerability in stepping outside of the structured language of charting facts and stats into something that asks you to be contemplative.
Seeing as how it was a nurse writing group with seasoned specialty nurses, I was worried about still being too green — whether my experiences were “superficial,” whether I would say something basic, or miss the mark altogether. Empathy is always given. Nurses hold space for others, but not always for ourselves.
I was amazed at how each nurse wrote their own unique yet shared experience. The more I sat with it, the more I realized that nursing, at all levels and within every specialty, is nothing but stories. Writing, in its purest form, is about telling the heart’s story. A nurse’s shift is filled with minutes that don’t fit neatly into tables and graphs — small wins, tiny heartbreaks, first and last breaths, human connection.
The emotional weight we carry
The weight that comes with nursing is hard to explain unless you’ve lived it. It’s an unspoken load we all carry, and it’s noticeable when others are carrying more than they can bear. But it often goes undetected when it’s on our own shoulders.
We’re present for some of the most raw and definitive moments in people’s lives. The good, the bad, all of it — all the time. We witness indifference, grief, procrastination, fear, resilience, joy, hope, and loss — all within a single shift. In a rinse-and-repeat manner.
Added together, that exposure builds. It doesn’t just disappear when you clock out. My first inclination of how much working night shift was wearing me down was when my blood pressure started getting dangerously high. I’d never had an issue before. But that’s the thing with hypertension, it can also go undetected and build up with no noticeable symptoms. Then, suddenly, I was getting palpitations before each shift.
Nurses won’t share this with their patients or even their families, but nurse to nurse, it’s understood. It shows up as exhaustion that sleep won’t fix, as moments you replay in your head, as questions you don’t always have answers to. Compassion fatigue and burnout aren’t abstract concepts. They’re lived realities.
And yet, there aren’t always built-in spaces to process it. We move from patient to patient, task to task, expected to keep going even after a code that ends up in a loss of life. That unspoken expectation can leave a lot sitting beneath the surface.
Writing as a form of healing
Writing, for me, wasn't how I thought it would start. I’d heard of journaling and always wanted to try it, but I was never disciplined enough to get it going. When I saw the opportunity, I went for it even though I knew it would end in a public reading.
Luckily, that part didn’t scare me…it was the writing part that threw me for a loop. Just thoughts on paper, unfiltered, unpolished. Just an attempt to make sense of the life-changing weight I didn’t know I was carrying.
Putting experiences into words helped to visually process them. The writing was a visual documentation of my feelings in my own handwriting. The ink gave structural evidence of my emotions. Something that couldn't be erased, forgotten, or miscommunicated. This felt overwhelming at times because my feelings and emotions had gone unnamed for so long. Until now.
As nurses, we’re taught reflection, but nurse writing deepened that practice. It gave me clarity to understand not just what happened, but how it affected me. Like when I wrote about how I was still wearing a mask long after the COVID mandate had been lifted. It was an emotional release that felt therapeutic, both grounding and clarifying. Over time, I noticed a shift: more awareness, a bit more steadiness. It didn’t erase the hard parts, but it made them more livable.
The power of storytelling for nurses
Storytelling has its foundations in health practices. Tales as old as time for keeping people safe. Sharing stories builds connections and confidence.
Nurses are natural storytellers, weaving between the patient and the healthcare system of today. We witness the in-between moments that often go unseen — the conversations, the subtle changes, the humanity behind the diagnoses. I see this a lot whenever I help a family with their newborn.
No matter the setbacks or the circumstances, the rooms are filled with birth stories and breastfeeding journeys across generations, ending in how they made it through. Storytelling has a way of bringing those moments forward. Imprints of understanding that make challenging times bearable by building community.
From private journaling to public sharing
Even though my first venture into nurse writing was in a group setting, and I expected that it would be shared, I was surprised by how long it took me to open up to myself. There’s a different level of vulnerability in knowing others will hear your words, but there’s a certain bravery to reading your thoughts to yourself.
Because I was a new nurse during COVID, I had to think carefully about what experiences were the most impactful because there was so much going on at that time. While I thought my writing would be about my patient experiences and how to share them, respecting privacy and honoring experiences without overexposing them, it was the toll COVID took on my parenting that most affected me.
In storytelling, we first need to find our voice, and that part was hard for me because I was a new nurse with younger children at the start of the pandemic. So reliving that former, fearful version of myself was uncomfortable.
The first time sharing felt uncertain, but it also felt honest. After a while, I found myself feeling slightly more comfortable with digging deeper, and then I saw my creative side come out, which was unexpected.
The ripple effect of sharing your story
What surprised me most was how liberating sharing can be. The stories resonated with other nurses, family, and community members. Something that feels personal and specific can connect with someone else in a completely unexpected way. The outpouring of understanding of how I was feeling when I was feeling it was touching.
My writing about wearing a mask reminded me that we’re not alone in our processing. It’s opened the door for reflection, for conversation, for others to begin sharing, too.
What has formed in a kind of quiet way has been a cognizance of community — one built on a subtle nod of shared understanding. Knowing that if someone were to hear your story, whether nurse or not, they could feel you. And for the nursing profession, which can sometimes feel isolating despite being so people-oriented, that connection is powerful.
What nurse writing has given me
Looking back, writing gave me confidence. The confidence to review challenging moments as well as face my fears and more. It’s helped me build resilience, not by scrutinizing myself to death, but by allowing me to process and move through what I experienced.
It’s given me clarity. A better understanding of my own reactions, my growth, and the kind of nurse, mom, wife, family, friend, etc. I’m becoming.
It’s given me self-care. Writing has become an outlet that sustains me to continue caring for others with presence and intention.
Most of all, it has given me grace. I am still and will always be learning, every day, for the rest of my life. Writing reminds me that my story isn’t done because of my past experiences. It’s the exact opposite since there is still so much more to write about, and for that, I'm humbled and so grateful.
