Being a medical student, making time for my husband, Grace Darling, and family is hard enough- but making time for me always gets put at the bottom of the list. When you have 48 hours of to do's to fit into a 24 hour period, some (or sometimes a lot) just don't get done.
For the vast majority of my academic career (high school, college and medical school) my life and thus my identity gets boiled down to my test grades. When you are so consumed and saturated by school your brain starts to process like this:
-95% on test- you are a great person, you should be proud of yourself, you are put together and on top of everything, you are awesome!
-70% on test- you are worthless, you should be ashamed and embarrassed, you can't do it, you don't deserve to be here
I am sure that this isn't how it is for everyone, or even the vast majority. But just ask that super intense dork in your class that is trying to get into medical school and they will relate perfectly.
This mentality is fine and even awesome when things are going good, but what happens when you no longer make those 95's and are in a medical class of highly intelligent people and you are just average. How do you make yourself feel better, when everything you are, can be boiled down to a single number- your most recent test grade.
At this point, feeling crappy about my self, I started to examine why I was down. To everyone else it was evident- when you put all your self worth on academics, when your grades start to drop, your worth is dragged down mercilessly with them. With this new understanding, the next step was to figure out who am I, other than that hypervigilant, dork that studies all the time.
So, I asked myself: Who am I, besides a medical student?
First, I am a child of God and my identity should be sought in Him. I love this, but realistically I am still trying to figure out exactly what it means and how I should go about it. I do know that no matter what my test grades are, God's unconditional love is always where I should take refuge.
Second, I am a wife. Well, this wasn't really adding to my self worth, because at that time I felt like a pretty lousy wife. I felt like my poor hubby was fairly neglected with all the studying that I had to do.
Third, well...umm... what else was there to me... I didn't run, play tennis, or figure skate anymore, I didn't have time to read for pleasure, I was no longer an active part of my sorority, I wasn't president of this club or that, I liked to shop but never had the time. All the other things that added a little to my identity, I left in Charleston, when I graduated from college there . I couldn't think of anything else that made me - well me.
Looking at all of this it was clear to me, that I needed and wanted something that made me, me and helped me to feel good about myself. During the next few weeks and months of working on this, I started making meal plans and executing them, making greeting cards and handmade jewelry.
You may be thinking that your identity is not in what you do and neither should your self worth- to both of which I totally agree. However, realistically this is how it was/is for me. So I am trying to make the best of it, but it is definitely a slow learning curve to actually being able to take this to heart.
I found that my taking up these hobbies gave me something to be proud of, no matter what my most recent test score had been. I was a good wife, my husband was being taken care of. I was creative and loved every minute that I was able to steal away to work on one of my hobbies. I was becoming me and am now able to define myself other than just a medical student.
So no matter how small something may seem if it is important to you and who you want to be, being able to accomplish that one little thing can make you feel good about yourself. If this is so, then I think you should make time for it. We spend so much of our lives busy, busy, busy and usually taking care of others. I think it is important to deliberately take time out of all the demands of life to just be you and do something that you love. Don't just think of yourself as so-and-so's wife, mother, taxi, friend- Challenge yourself by asking what makes me, me! And make time for whatever it is you love to do, (or will begin to do).
Lesley
Lesley, I know you have struggled with this and it sounds like you are finding the key. I am so proud of you and you should certainly be proud of yourself!
ReplyDeleteLove you,
Fran