And I Need Your Help To Move On

"And sometimes I don't have the energy
to prove everybody wrong.
And I try my best to be strong,
but you know it's so hard...so hard.

It's so hard when it doesn't come easy,
It's so hard when it doesn't come fast."
-The Dixie Chicks



Oh, it's that time again. The time when I get grades that should be higher, that are expected by my program directors to be higher. That's right, the time when I have pulled out all the stops and worked my ass off and something didn't click. Or a lot of somethings didn't click. Or I studied the wrong stuff and neglected the wrong stuff. Or the thing I thought would be tested wasn't. Oh yes, it's that time.

These situations are still fairly novel to me. I'm not saying I never did poorly on a test at the big EC [I did], but I was never consistently below average. And when I did poorly, it was usually due to a lack of effort and not to a lack of understanding. Sometimes [a lot of times?] medical school feels like hitting a big brick wall.

I get into bad traps of thinking. Remembering how sharp my [fragmented] mind felt when I was untreated. How brilliant it made me feel. How perfect it made me feel. How infallible and how clever. I thought I could take on the entire damn world with my oh-so-intelligent self, my sharp [broken] mind, my mind that was constantly telling me to forget its flaws.

Sometimes, now, as healthy as my mind feels, it also feels slower. More apt to forget, less apt to call up those things I know I should know. My tongue slips. I forget words. I feel, sometimes, like I am thinking in quicksand.

I'm not in any danger of stopping my medication. I love how it makes me feel, how [generally] stable, how loving and capable. I know that I can handle the heartbreak and disappointment that medical school throws at me. I know I can handle the anxiety. I know that the pressure won't break me. I know that I can turn to people who love me, and they will help. I know that nothing is lost.

But I am weary. I am tired of being jealous of the people who can breeze through medical school without a second thought. The ones who can study all hours of the night, who can push themselves past their limits without worrying that their mind will shatter. Those blessed sleepless ones who will know sleepiness, in time, but whose fall will be cushioned by the hard-won successes.


I am jealous of the ones who love without the memory of heartbreak, who have support that has never been questioned. I am jealous of the ones who believe themselves to have navigated stormy seas, who may have done so safely in cruise ships, while I plunged over them in a shittily-made raft [my own mind]. I'm jealous of those who have had my tough experiences, the ones who have survived life tragedy, the ones who have waited forever to be where I am.

Then I question my jealousy.

Each test block, it becomes harder and harder to prove everyone wrong. Successes are buried under failures and perceived failures and mediocrity in a place where mediocrity is not tolerated [my program]. My biggest success is that I am still here, that I am still sane, that my mental health is sound. That medical school hasn't made me crack. This is my success--and still, I am told, I am assured, I am constantly reminded that this isn't good enough.

And sometimes. Today, right now, hopefully not tomorrow. I don't have the energy to prove everybody wrong. Today. Right now. Hopefully not tomorrow.