Looking Forward. Looking Back. Where am I?
Where am I? I am coming to terms with the limitations of my training in being able to manage the mental health crises that walk through my doors every day.
Where am I? I am actively seeking out different psychiatric education and mentorship that better reflect my own experiences in the mental health field and align better with my values of being a care provider. I am owning my experiences and no longer blaming myself for the inadequacies and inequities in patient care that are out of my control.
Where am I? I know myself better. I know what I do well and what I stand for when it comes to my job. I also know my limitations and where I can waste valuable emotional resources unnecessarily.
Where am I? I am looking at other options. I am looking to provide mental health care based on what I know to be good care. I am realizing how important it is that I surround myself with other clinicians and with patients who have values and expectations that align with mine.
Where am I? I have been on a journey of sorts to fill the holes that were present both in my professional and personal life. I have been exploring the role of psychedelics and it has been eye-opening, revelatory and disappointing all at the same time.
Where am I? I am accepting myself. I am coming to terms with the painful realization that I fear intimacy in my personal life and yearn for it at the same time. I am coming to terms with how I am sensitive to the presence of others such that I must isolate in order to feel like myself. This means I am lonely most of the time. I am trying to move away from blaming people for this, there is no one at fault. I am figuring out what I can change and what I can not.
I recognize the laundry list of hobbies I wish to pursue but don't, is because they are distractions. I believed they were ways to fill my time well, so my life is well-lived. I believed they would help me cultivate a healthier relationship with myself. But I now see no matter what, I can not avoid sitting and being myself, sitting and being with myself. This is so difficult for me, and I do not know why. I do not know how to feel good in my own skin, but I will spend the rest of my life trying to change this.
Where am I? I have come a long way in the last year. I no longer dread work. I now respect my limits such that I have fewer migraine headaches. I am less angry. I feel less desperate. I have made a hugely significant discovery with regards to sustainable patient care and that is how to matter. I have struggled with what it means to matter for my whole life, and I suddenly know. I can not explain how though psychedelics may have had something to do with it. But I would like to credit more the people I was with and the haven they created. I was welcomed and made a part of that. I believe the experience of being amongst these wonderful, good-hearted people, people who made me feel like I mattered, helped me finally grasp what I had been missing.
Where am I? Looking forward. So many of life's lessons can not be taught. So much is learned from being worn down and from suffering through. From recognizing when the suffering has become unnecessary, is where there can be wisdom. When suffering does not lead to the change you desire, and you continue to suffer in the same way, than you are choosing to suffer over changing yourself are you not? The courage to change can not be taken for granted. Change means something different replacing something familiar. Change takes a kind of death or killing. In this way, it is heroic. I do not know where this courage comes from. It is very true that inertia can satisfy. Status quo is good enough for most people. Who will I be? What is my status quo?