Y2 in Review
TL;DR - Got into Y3! Had some great times with great people! Let my own standards get in the way of my self esteem so wasn’t as lovely as I’d like to be. Next year: Stop pushing all your “not-good” feelings away and just chill out. Let people know you think they’re cool, it’ll be better for your friendships ❤️
The end of the summer holidays is looming, so it feels like the time to stop running away from reflecting on the past academic year, September 2024 - August 2025. A chunky 2 hour train ride, with blue skies and mild air conditioning is perfect to mull over the highlights and learning points of the last 10 months.
In broad strokes, Year 2 felt harder than Year 1, just as everyone said it would be. Lectures were dense despite their sparsity compared to last year, with teaching weeks sandwiched squarely between 3 placement blocks and 4 exam periods. But this increasing clinical exposure has whittled down seemingly endless career paths to just 4; bring on anaesthetics, or psychiatry, or paediatrics, or neurology. And exam results have let me step into Year 3 come September!
Despite this, Medicine felt even more like a side hustle this year. Days at the hospital allotments planting trees and picking camomile; dinners with friends, planned and impromptu, but frequently finished with crumble; exploring more of Wales, from Tenby to Neath and up to Bangor, was a blur of deep greens and greys (all rocky precipices, and cloudy skies); hours sweating in saunas and freezing in open waters; there were many moments to appreciate how the medics around me aren’t the stereotype of studious. Then there were trips across the bridge - with friends and family, and meeting the family of friends. And moments beyond the borders of our little island; bike rides in Italy and walking around Rome; placement in The Gambia seeing a new side to healthcare; Greece for a conference and sharIng consciousness; and Germany for a little industrial fun. Then Switzerland, in summer AND winter - proof that some friends are for more than a season.
But with all this recounting, and writing, and pausing to recall, the ecstasy of happy memories is less persistent than expected. While jamming so much into one year there hasn’t been less space for sadness. Instead it’s snuck in, through tearful days and irritable moods. Swapping space in my calendar for back-to-back plans has swapped mental strength for fragility. While there have been successes in so many spheres of life, it feels like my expectations for myself have grown faster. As my to-do lists have expanded, the hours in each day have not, making unticked tasks evidence against my self esteem.
Looking back now, I can see little thoughts and feelings began to pop up months ago, like wasps on a sunny day. Tinted with a jarring negativity, they created a sense of competition with others, assumed hierarchies instead of accepted differences, and tied heavy knots in my throat and chest. These knots, in reflection, were feelings of jealousy and insecurity. But instead of seeing that in the moment, I steamrolled over them with replacement thoughts.
The tools my therapist gave me at 16 were less helpful here. I quickly found evidence for why jealous thoughts were irrational and reached for cognitions which affirmed that we are all different in our own ways instead. I spotted my self-esteem was fragile, and again applied my CBT tools - turning to evidence in the form of behaviours and success to prove to myself that I needn’t feel this uncomfortable heaviness when confronted with the success of others. But these tools were for battling anorexia, not the averagely healthy brain I inhabit today.
I can see how the same inclinations that got me sick before still exist. With my ankle still injured, my exercise routine has stalled and withered my body image with it. But the work done in my teens has persisted, food is still eaten and the mantra that “my body is the least interesting thing about me” hasn’t wavered. Those feelings still stick though. Noticing clothes fit a little tighter, seeing my arms and thighs become a little softer, feeling my sports clothes create little divots in my sides where they used to rest flat all comes with a mix of anxiety and disgust. But I know I shouldn’t feel that way, so again I steamroll over those unwelcome wasps of thoughts and feelings. They’re rapidly shoved away with reminders that “our body is a tool to act in the world”, that we are a product of averages (not what we eat or do in one day), and that my body has brought me to so many places and people. I tried to find the gratitude in the new sensation of physical growth, but I missed a key step. Feel. Feel and recognise those feelings before acting.
The less I wanted these out-of-character feelings, the more I focused on other ones - as though making space for gratitude, adoration, and optimism would overcrowd less pleasant emotions. My anger with how tools of power are operating was given space to be experienced and explored, but I struggled to give the same curiosity and time to emotions I find less “good” or virtuous. This meant they ended up looming in my emotional landscape, adding a grey cloud to each encounter I had. Each compliment I gave felt edged with insincerity, I questioned why or if friends truly liked me, and the usual kernel of joy in my heart seemed to fall into worry. But, in a moment of chilling-the-fuck-out, just naming and admitting I felt envious of people for doing all the things I dream of doing, those clouds abated.
But what does this mean for the next year! Long term relationships! All about compatibility rather than numerosity. What’s different between my worried little brain now, and when I was 16? It seems to be perceiving the longevity of relationships..? It might seem like a leap, but back then, I just didn’t like the “bad” feelings. Sure, feeling inadequate sucks. But seeing your feelings of inadequacy limit the love you can share with people feels so much worse these days. Seeing that it impacted how I interacted with people and shifted the way I saw them, the way I saw reality, is so lame - who lets envy get in the way of joy? And going through this little internal shift surrounded by people who, I think, see the best in me, made me want to hide it even more. But just admit it! I wish I was as stunning, confident, talented with languages, knowledgeable , athletic, and mysterious as you all are. But saying that brings a smile - it makes it so obvious that comparing my singular self to everyone is unreasonable. We are all so many things, in so many situations, with so many goals. Comparison is useless. Everyone is pretty cool in a way I’ll never be, so I might as well love them for it. And if doing so means we can be more ourselves, without those annoying wasps of thoughts and feelings, then I can’t wait for the friendships which can follow.
