Bearing Witness: Embracing Our Humanity in Forensic Nursing

“…I had come to think I was different. And now, as I was wracked with sobs, I was forced to recognize too late, much too late, that I too had loved, that I could suffer, and that, after all, I was human” (Harpman, 1997, p. 9). I have heard incredulous responses for as long as I’ve shared with someone that I am a forensic nurse, and that my patients have all recently experienced an act of violence: “How do you do that job?” “Isn’t it so difficult?” “I could never do what you do.” Over the years, my typical response to their awe and accolades has been relatively dismissive: “It’s just like any specialty of nursing; you find you are really good at it, and well, you also know you wouldn’t be a great [fill in the blank] nurse.” I usually point out a specialty like pediatric oncology nursing, perhaps in an effort to affirm that, like forensic nursing, it is a challenging area of nursing not for everyone, and most certainly not for me. I chose forensic nursing as strongly as I didn’t choose being a nurse, working hard to support kiddos who are fighting cancer one day and dying with it the next. I respect the affinity every person has to their nursing specialty. I respect the organic and often inexplicable ways in which we find our nursing niches, often through our lived experiences or the experiences of those we have loved, raised, cared for, or lost. And, I wonder if I do myself and my fellow nurses a disservice when I explain away or try to minimize the tough aspects of our nursing specialty. Perhaps in those moments, I am avoiding others’ morbid fascination with my specialty; their responses are most certainly in part the result of broader societal draws toward crime and forensics media (e.g., movies, shows, podcasts, and books). I admit my draw toward crime solving media favorites including the Root of Evil podcast (Pecoraro & Gentile, 2019) exploring a possible family member having been the black dahlia serial killer in California, and Mindhunter, a multi-season series featuring a character based on the one and only Dr. Ann Burgess, and the origin story of naming and profiling serial killers in an effort to catch them (Chaffin et al., 2017–2019). But perhaps in those moments, I am also diverting, because to linger even briefly on the hard parts of forensic nursing would most definitely result in a visceral response in my mind and body, reminding me of the tucked-away and forgotten experiences that I have been entrusted with and that never leave. Reminding me that I, too, am human. That I grieve. That I fear. That I compartmentalize. I shouldn’t be surprised. I hold within me not only my own pain and sorrow, but also the pain and sorrow experienced by those I love, and the pain and sorrow experienced by those I have met and cared for only once. I choose to bear witness, perhaps, because when I do, I recognize just how human I am. I do so knowing it will cost me. It will shape me. This, too, is part of my life journey—discovering and rediscovering my ability to trust, my sense of security, my capacity for softness, my draw toward or away from intimacy, and my capacity to hold space for gut-wrenching lived experiences. It’s been over 25 years since I first cared for someone who had experienced sexual violence; many, many, many patients later, I am who I am, largely molded by those I have borne witness to as their forensic nurse. I don’t know who I would be today if I had not been a forensic nurse, if I had not been a nurse at all. I wonder if I would recognize that person. However, even if I could revisit those early life decisions, I would not choose differently. I would possibly try to recognize more quickly the full spectrum of impacts being a forensic nurse would have on me and those I am closest to. But I, like all of you, can only go forward with reflection, awareness, and intentional steps. This year, I invite my fellow forensic nurses to join me in celebrating and seeing our humanity, and in providing ourselves with the same care, space, rest, grace, and love we so fiercely give to others.