It’s been a pretty rough week. Generally, I try not to mull things over too much and dwell on the uncertainties brought by last year – but this week, I am, hands-up, being a bit self-indulgent and letting myself be upset and emotional about a few things. I’m tired of ‘looking on the bright side’ and ‘being grateful’ and ‘not dwelling on things I can’t change’. This week, I’m waving a white flag to disappointment, just for a little while.
The reason for this is that I start my application for my first doctoring job next month. Without explaining the ridiculously complicated and oh-so-pointless system in depth, we get a score out of 100 which is broken into a mark on where we rank in our year academically, plus a mark from answering various questions aiming to show that we won’t stab patients or steal from the hospital etc. Based on your score, you then find out which area of the country you’ve been allocated to, and from there, which group of placements you can apply for. Popular areas, and popular jobs, therefore need a higher score.
I found out this week that after spending five years achieving in the top 15% (roughly), last year knocked my marks off enough that my ranking dropped enough to lost me points. Every point counts. Literally. I’m feeling a bit self-pitying to be honest. I’ve worked so hard from day one – and one bad year has reduced the chance of getting a job I really want to do. Small sad man playing small, sad violin, you know where I am.
There is however another way to get a foundation doctor’s job, which is what I’d always intended on doing. The ‘academic foundation’ jobs are for people who want to do clinical research and who are academically sound. You get a much better choice of jobs, time for research, and are always in professorial units, which are usually the best ones in the hospitals. After being ill and having my research project take more wrong turns than a blind person navigating, I couldn’t really apply anymore – I had too much on my plate thanks to a hefty dose of depression. Something had to go. It was upsetting enough at the time letting it go, after so long thinking that it would be the path I would be on. A bitter change of plans.
Today is the day a lot of my friends found out whether they’d got academic jobs, or not. Some of the are excellent students. Others, I realistically was working either on a par, or above them, easily, till last year. Looking at the successes, I think it’s fair to say that I’d have stood a relatively good chance of getting one too, had I applied. I’m jealous. There is no other word for it. Between scoring lower on the academic ranking, and feeling annoyed that the academic jobs are out of my reach, I’m grumpy. Depression sucks. It really does.
I know it’s ugly, I know it’s wrong, but sometimes, sometimes I get so bloody fed up of all of this. I’m fed up of finding excuses every single week to a different consultant as to why I need time off. I’m fed up of having to constantly evaluate myself and my performance and measure it against a scale, and find myself wanting. I’m in mourning that not only did I lose last year to it, it’s still impacting me now. It’s changed my future. It’s still got me, tethered. I know that ‘poor little me-ing’ does no one any favours – but today, I’m upset and annoyed. Today, I’m just wishing that depression never happened to me. Today, I’m just wishing it would bugger off and let me be. I’m sick of struggling to breathe against it. I’m sick of living with it. I just want it gone. I just want to move on.
Magic bullets, this way please!
Boy Char . . .I wish I had wonderful words. sigh. I got nothin’. Praying for you, because He knows about all of this and how bad it hurts. Sending you a long distance hug too . . .
thanks Debbie, feeling slightly less blazingly angry now…..not a good week! Thanks for your thoughts, as always, xxchar
Char, I’ve been down that “if not for depression” train of thinking many times. If not for my depression, I wouldn’t have taken the first job offered to me out of law school and would now be a successful appellate attorney. If not for my depression, I wouldn’t have been taking 5HTP during my second pregnancy, which likely contributed to my miscarriage. If not for depression, I would be a different person in a different place. Would it have been better? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. But when I start down that “if not for depression” road (and it was at least an 8 year road for me, so sometimes I let the violin player play for a long time on my behalf), I remember this verse:
“But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13:14.
Hang in there. Peace, Linda