Growth and acceptance

Part of my placement involves participating in group therapy and in a roundabout way the group therapy helps me deal with my own issues. I never thought about it before but I realized the last few years have been quite difficult. I have dealt with depression, anxiety, phobia's,stress and anger. It probably doesn't help that I'm a type A and am very unhappy when I don't get what I want and that's the problem.

The fact that in life nothing turns out the way you plan it and you don't necessarily get what you want is a very tough thing to accept. Even after 6 months into the program, I ask myself if I made the right choice, or if there was a better choice...and if someone mentions about how someone got into med school I bite my tongue and pretend I didn't hear them.

The group therapy has taught me that I do not deal well with stress and it accumulates to the point that I do lose my mind. I also do not deal with my anger issues and that compounds the stress. Of course in addition to those add in sleep deprivation and and the inability to fall asleep as well as unhappiness and you get the perfect recipe for a breakdown. Some of the things they try to explain if the importance of breathing and counting to reduce stress and anger. They also talk about setting limits and not trying to do too much since the added responsibilities just compound the stress. In addition they mentioned a key phrase: 'everybody has good and bad days' and I realized that being happy all the time is unrealistic and having the perfect job is also unrealistic, all that I can do is try to see the glass as being half full instead of half empty as I currently do.

My other problem is that I keep thinking that something else will make me happy. First, I thought this program can make me happy but that didn't happen, then I thought that placement is where I will finally feel that I am making that difference in people's lives and that will make me happy, but as you can tell that hasn't happened either. I think I realized that a job will not make me happy, money will not make me happy either although most people do think it helps. What I realized is as much as it scares me, if I truly want to be happy I have to go out and interact with others, and that is my next biggest challenge to tackle.