This week did really not get off to the best start – after being fed-up last week over my application scores, there’s been further issues in that my parents may have lost my first degree certificate, which I need to have a scan of in order to get more ‘points’ on it when I apply for my job. I definitely left it at home – there’s no point dragging ‘important’ things from flat to flat as a student. It’s stressing me out quite a bit, and my parents are being fairly difficult about looking for it for me. I’ve also had a lot of problems with the student loan company as they don’t really understand (or so it seems!) that medical degrees can take six years – queue a lot of being ‘on-hold’, which when I’m spending long days at the hospital with few breaks, doesn’t go down well – it’s taking ages to get sorted so I’m getting really quite nervy about finances. Not fun. Then, I’ve been given a pretty rubbish paediatric placement for Nov-Dec which is a shame as it’s the rotation I’ve most been looking forward to for the last three years. I’m with the community team, which yes, in interesting, but it’s a lot of learning disability stuff, and as I’ve done more than enough summers working in that field to not really need any more time allocated to it, I’m a bit disappointed when I could have been at the children’s hospital doing something that would be more new and interesting. I love volunteering in LD – but I was so looking forward to paeds surgery or paeds neurology. Cue a case of the grumps.
I’m also just quite, well, emotional at the moment. Whether it’s because the last few weeks have, by all accounts, been stressful, but I actually missed not having counselling this week (L was away). Whether it’s just because I’m on week 11 of term already, have been doing lots of long days, and am tired, I’m not sure. I sort of just need to vent somewhere. I’m just a little fragile. Next week will be the one-year marker for me going to the GP’s and officially being put on the mental health bandwagon. Next week marks the start (well, in terms of defining the problem as opposed to running from it) of the long way down. A whole year on, I’m still not back to where I was. Sometimes, I don’t think I’ll ever get back. Sometimes I think the rest of my life is going to be a mix of falling apart for a time, and then trying to catch up for a time, then repeating. I kind of feel like I’ve missed a boat and will never get back to the pace I was at. I’m feeling so impatient with it. I’m fed up, as always, of depression and its sequelae. I just want to be past it. I have a feeling I’ll be neck and neck with it for a while yet. Major case of hitting head against wall.
I think part of it is that I’ve overdone things a bit in the last week or two. I really love it when people lower down the medschool get in touch and ask if we can meet for a chat to go over things like examination techniques, or what they need to be thinking about for the coming year of their training, but by the same token, I realised that in the last fortnight I’ve spent five evenings and three afternoons meeting people to give them a hand, a soundboard or a shoulder, and it’s worn me down. I love that people see me as approachable, and I really do love teaching – but it’s worn me out. I did too much. So much for pacing.
However, there have been some things today to pick me up. I did the lecture on ‘life as a medic’ to the new first years – all 240 of them – this morning, and despite being pretty nervous about it (I’ve never had such a big audience for so long as I spoke for an hour), it went well. They laughed in the right places, were interactive, and gave me applause at the end. I feel quite proud of myself. I’ve also found out that I’ll be listed as an author on another academic paper, which is brilliant – the supervisor I did my neuroscience project with is brilliant at acknowledging contributors, and it will hopefully really help me in a few years when I apply for training posts. My choir had it’s first social, and lots of new people came, and its first rehearsal, and I really have missed it over the summer. My student charity has had over two hundred people sign up, and that’s a lot of potential man power. It’s things like this that remind me that I’m still who I am – I may not be quite as accurate as God at the whole ‘I AM THAT I AM’ thing – but I’ve not completely lost myself.
I’m hoping that all the stuff that’s massively stressing me out is going to sort itself out in the next few days and weeks. I’m just a bit fragile at the moment. Let the weak say, I am strong.
Praying with you for the stuff that needs sorted to be sorted, the stuff that needs to be found, found and for the parts that are fragile to be protected under the shadow of His wing.
God bless you Char! You are doing enough for 10 people! Take care dear one.
Hi,
Very Nice Blog. Your posts are very informative.
Thanks
friend