Tristin Kate Smith, a 28-year-old Ohio nurse, wrote a scathing letter to her “abuser” five months ahead of her August 2023 suicide.

Tristin Kate Smith, a 28-year-old Ohio nurse, wrote a scathing letter to her “abuser” five months ahead of her August 2023 suicide.

    • HonkyTonkWoman@lemm.ee
      160·
      1 year ago

      Here it is:

      Ever since I was young. I expressed interest in healthcare and becoming a nurse, so I began my study I gave my heart, my body, and my mind to you My long days and hours dedicated and giving you my all. There were times that working in the emergency room were extremely difficult, but also extremely rewarding. I have cried with my patients, with their families, and for them. They have even been there for me, and emotionally supported me during my hard times. The hands of all the patients and families that I have held, hold mine with me everyday of my nursing career encouraging me and showing me why I do what I do. I thought that would be all I needed to be able to care for them, and I know I had told you I would be with you to the end.

      Told you I would be there through the good and the bad but you have taken my heart and slowly crushed the goodness it had.

      You love bombed me with affection, because I knew I was going into something that matters. You made me feel comfortable, despite the rumors of your abusive past that I didn’t want to believe. The compliments, pizzas, and thank you letters began to slowly have less meaning. The staff I had to help began to go away. They were unnecessary, in your eyes but so necessary for the patients and nurses to provide what you advertise as “quality care”. When I thought it couldn’t get worse you proved me very wrong when you started gaslighting and manipulating us.

      You go around asking my colleagues and I what we need to help patients and improve satisfaction scores but when we tell you the truth you instead send us online courses saying we need to smile more and be friendlier. I remember the first time I heard about nurses getting hit and how you asked them what they did to get hurt or didn’t do to prevent someone else from hurting them. Remember, you cant try to protect yourself by fighting back just lay there with your hands over your head during the minutes it takes for security to come. You started blaming us for things out of our control. Started criminally charging my colleagues, for things that were from what you are doing. As you know, the law doesn’t care for the Swiss Cheese Model." I no longer feel like you care about me or the people you say you serve. I sit at my front desk just waiting for someone to come in and shoot my patients and I, just because of your lack of care for our protection You haven’t even given us metal detectors or proper security to promptly keep us safe. You are only using and exploiting us to line your pocket with the common citizen’s money for overcharged healthcare You don’t care about anyone because you have a narcissistic personality.

      If you say you cared, why don’t you listen while we beg on our hands and knees. You say that we do so much and that we put up with so much When we think we are finally going to get the love and support we deserve, we only walk in to get free pizza and pens for the “healthcare heroes”. Truth is you only care about your personal greed.

      I want so desperately to continue to help people, but I cannot stay in this abusive relationship. You have asked me to do more with less every day, beating me to the point that my body and mind feel like they are black, bruised, and bleeding out. I’m only sorry to my colleagues and patients, you deserve so much better.

      But my abusive partner is relentless, and if I stay, I will only lose my sanity and possibly my life forever.

      • Zoolander@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Thank you. I just copied it from the article without realizing that. I’ll update. I appreciate you!

      • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee
        492·
        1 year ago

        I’m in the medical field. Capitalism and quality healthcare are incompatible. Any capitalist country with good healthcare only has good healthcare because they keep capitalism out of it. It gets immediately worse when capitalism is reintroduced to the field. Look at the UK and Canada for reference. Not to mention, her suicide note explicitly says profit is the reason that her and her co-workers are suffering. Educate yourself on the issues or shut the fuck up

        • PolarisFx@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          23·
          1 year ago

          Our politicians are pushing hard for an American system in Canada, the provincial Conservative (Republican) governments are underfunding healthcare so they can turn around and say “See!? This is why we need a two tier system.” it’s bullshit.

        • Asafum@feddit.nl
          9·
          1 year ago

          But but but WiAtInG TiMeS! I cAn’T gEt InStAnT aPpOiNtMeNtS wItH SoCiAlIsM HeAlThCaRe!!

          Oh, the first available appointment I can make in the current capitalist system is two weeks out? Teehee… Shhhh. I want to fight for the owners. Teehee 🤭

      • Zoolander@lemmy.worldEnglish
        291·
        1 year ago

        What else would you call it? She literally says that they put her in this terrible situation with no help so that they could squeeze a few extra dollars in profit. So, yeah… that’s her point.

        “You are only using and exploiting us to line your pocket with the common citizen’s money for overcharged healthcare. You don’t care about anyone because you have a narcissistic personality.”

        • SupraMario@lemmy.world
          134·
          1 year ago

          You do realize that capitalism isn’t the only economic system that works people to the bone right? She’s calling out the people who run the hospital. How you came to the conclusion that her suicide was an anti-capitalist cry is beyond me.

          • Zoolander@lemmy.worldEnglish
            26·
            1 year ago

            Did you not read the quote? She didn’t work under another system. She worked for a private healthcare provider and explicitly called out their profit motive. Don’t be ignorant.

          • ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world
            10·
            1 year ago

            Every corporate run health care institution is like this. Every corporate institution in America is like this. Time to get your head out of your ass.

          • SeedyOne@lemm.ee
            24·
            1 year ago

            No, I actually agree with it in general. It’s that there is so much more going on and comments like that encourage people to gloss over details or skip the article entirely.

            I’m as upset as anyone about our late stage capitalism but damn, I’d hoped it’d be longer before the Lemmy was overrun with cynics trying to sum everything up into a neat little package.

        • Zoolander@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          1 year ago

          What tone should I have used other than the deceased’s own?

          “You are only using and exploiting us to line your pocket with the common citizen’s money for overcharged healthcare. You don’t care about anyone because you have a narcissistic personality.”

          • SeedyOne@lemm.ee
            0·
            1 year ago

            OP edited post with letter terrible article was lacking and tonal change, but hey keep pitchforking

            Perhaps one that isnt so dismissive of the entire situation. Or at least doesn’t package it in such a way as to make it easy to sweep under the rug.

            You may not see it that way but many will, never reading this far. Be an ally, not a hindrance.

    • Aviandelight @mander.xyz
      521·
      1 year ago

      I dare say that anyone working in healthcare knows a coworker who’s committed suicide because of the job. I know I do and it still haunts me even though I managed to get out.

      • BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee
        471·
        1 year ago

        2 suicides, 5 COVID deaths, 2 of car accidents from sleep deprivation after getting off. Not to mention the miles long list of those suffering from mental illness, burn out, drug abuse, severe stress, and injuries from work

        • boeman@lemmy.world
          3·
          1 year ago

          It pains me to read that you went through this. I really hope you can find something that keeps you happy so you can make it through the losses.

      • BOMBS@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Luckily, I don’t know of anyone for certain, though I know of some medical providers that openly shared their suicidality. It was A LOT of providers, way more than most would expect. They looked like defeated remnants of previously joyful people with aspirations and hope. Many of them said that they continued to work just to pay off their loans and help their kids avoid the situation they were in.

        When I quit, I left the medical system entirely. For unrelated matters, I happen to learn a lot about the patterns that abusers use on their victims, and I saw a lot of overlap with that and how the medical system I worked in treated the employees, especially the use of fear, obligation, and guilt (ie FOG). I’m convinced that healthcare managers/administrators are soulless robots without empathy that find positions of power in medical settings because they can manipulate the system, especially the providers’ innate desire to care for patients and the patients’ desperate medical situation and lack of knowledge. It really is troubling.

  • quindraco@lemm.ee
    335·
    1 year ago

    It is very nearly against the rules to post links from this site (it’s on the non-preferred list) because it is so awful. Please do better source-finding.

  • Feirdro@lemmy.world
    233·
    1 year ago

    This is being published in FOX and NY Post, the antechamber to the right wing echosphere. Does this mean the right wing is turning against the healthcare industry?

    Not saying the industry isn’t evil, but it’s also keeping a lot of people alive.

    • Seraph@kbin.social
      471·
      1 year ago

      Even if they are, they aren’t going to fix it in the way you want. They’ll convince people it needs to be more privatized, that if they spent more money they would get better care.

      • Feirdro@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 year ago

        That’s my point, if they are turning against it, it’s just to destroy another “drain on the system”.

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
      271·
      1 year ago

      No, the right isn’t posting her anti capitalist letter about how she was abused by her employer through overwork and lack of support for the nurses.

      Right wing news is covering this because they know their audience doesn’t dig into stories. They cover outrage and the things that make people mad with the understanding that the right wing media doesn’t want follow up actions or questions. Just anger.

      If you’re mad, you’re probably watching right wing media. If you’re sad, that’s the left.

      Righties don’t like being sad because they lack the emotional fluency to deal with sadness. Can’t punch a loved one because we’re sad. Anger though, is depression with energy and will fuel people to action. Most don’t know what do to so they turn back to the media that angered them to know what to do, which is how we got Jan 6.

      • Patches@sh.itjust.works
        9·
        1 year ago

        We already have actual death panels.

        What exactly do you think happens when Meemaw gets denied by her insurance company to get her cancer removed?

      • SuiXi3D@kbin.social
        331·
        1 year ago

        She killed herself because, for her, there was no way out. There was no way out because of a system that abuses those that exist within it.

            • remus989@sh.itjust.works
              111·
              1 year ago

              This is the second time today I’ve run into this person spouting the same shit about suicide. They’re either a troll or someone who lacks all humanity or maybe both?

            • Touching_Grass@lemmy.world
              75·
              1 year ago

              Probably lost a loved one to suicide. I knew a guy who walked in on his dads brains blown all over the wall. I always see people act like suicide is heroic or brave. But the hurt they leave behind is hard to separate from. Suicide is a pretty selfish act because you hand off all the pain to everyone else. The friend of mine will suffer the rest of their life among the rest of the family who were left with cleaning up after that mess

              • Zoolander@lemmy.worldEnglish
                7·
                1 year ago

                I’m not disagreeing with the entirety of your sentiment but there’s a not-insignificant portion of people that commit suicide because they are in daily pain and anguish. Wouldn’t it be just as selfish to force this person to continue living simply so that those people don’t have to deal with the fact that they failed their loved one?

                Sure… get help and all but why didn’t they help, then?

                • ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world
                  3·
                  1 year ago

                  Honestly, not everyone has the means or is mentally healthy enough (because they’re being abused and psychological deformation is a symptom of abuse) to get help when their problems are so all-consuming. When health insurance is tied to employment above the $20/hour subsistence level that most people are stuck at in this economy, TONS of otherwise normal and healthy people are at risk of slipping through the cracks of despair.

              • iHUNTcriminals@lemm.ee
                42·
                1 year ago

                You’re not wrong, but the issue can be more broad.

                The ones they leave behind are usually arrogant towards the people with depression. Ime.

                If they legalized painless suicide no one would have to clean brains up and the passing could be a ceremonious celebration of free will.

          • prole@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            151·
            1 year ago

            You sound bitter. Could it be possible that you’re projecting your own past and your own issues with suicide onto other people whom you’ve never met in your life? Because, you know, you don’t know anything about them? Because before today you didn’t even know they existed?

            But yeah, im sure the article was enough to go on, in your mind, to call them “a pathetic waste of life.”

            It seems like you could benefit from seeing a therapist.

          • SeedyOne@lemm.ee
            13·
            1 year ago

            Some day you’ll realize the world isn’t so black and white and you don’t always know what people have or haven’t been through. You sound like the type that tells depressed people to just "“get therapy” or worse yet “just think happier”, not realizing the hurdles both can have. With any luck, when you grow up you’ll look back and realize what a heartless ass you were.

              • SeedyOne@lemm.ee
                21·
                1 year ago

                I think what you’re missing is that in general we agree, it’s that you don’t have experience (or tolerance) enough to realize that “never” really isn’t never. You and others act as if anyone that succeeded is a coward, that they didn’t try…but many have tried so hard, for many years and still get there. From system failures to abusive caretakers or just plain old ignorance.

                So when you and others label everyone who succeeds cowardly, you show us how little you know about the real world. In fact, I’m almost envious because you probably haven’t had to truly live yet, to make heartbreaking decisions with those “always options” disappearing one by one. Watching a loved one suffer, unable to help. Just remember this thread when (if) you get there, will ya?

      • Zoolander@lemmy.worldEnglish
        18·
        1 year ago

        You have zero sympathy for the person who was in so much pain that they decided ending their life was preferable and the only way out and sympathy for the people around her that didn’t help her?

        Weird. I think there’s a more nuanced take on this situation but probably not… You’re probably right and she was just a selfish person who killed herself on a whim with no thought about her loved ones. 🙄

      • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
        32·
        1 year ago

        you shouldnt belittle someone elses mental anguish as nothing. we cant understand her experience and she was obviously blind to the illogical nature of her decision.

  • originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com
    23·
    1 year ago

    painful, but absolutely true.

    we as a society in the united states have collectively decided people dont matter. guns matter. profits matter. ‘markets’ matter.
    …humans are a renewable resource, think green.

    i cant see how voting is going to solve for it. our choices are ‘conservatives’, where lack of empathy for fellow humans is encouraged and ‘democrats’ who want to do absolutely nothing but conserve the status quo.

    maybe if we can inject rank choice