So Says the Voice in Your Head

The ex used to talk disparagingly about what I do--the practice of medicine I do in a different sort of way. It's never actually worked, in his mind. At least, not in my shitty prescriber hands....He likes to wonder aloud if it works to my kids, enjoys telling folks that he just hasn't seen results, in spite of the instances to the contrary that he seems to conveniently forget.

This week I arrived on the East coast for a family visit. Unfortunately, the night before one of my DNA donors had collapsed and been hospitalized. Febrile, convulsing, and delirious with labs and imaging revealing nothing out of the ordinary, my other DNA donor was in a state of overwhelm and constant panic....

I thought he was dead when I found him on the floor....

Nonetheless, he'd come to a bit for the paramedics....  Tylenol was given. IVs, Pharmaceuticals followed. Plain Film. CT. EKG. MRI. Many labs. DNA donor seemed to grow worse in the hospital. The Tylenol, et al would not suppress the fever nor the violent convulsions and chills nor the delirious hallucinations. By the time I saw him, he was acting strangely, loopy, not himself, expecting a miracle from the Miracle Max who worked for the king for all those years.... But he didn't want to help me help him. He was too loopy for that. No pressure there.

Did I mention, I'm no Miracle Max?

Did I mention, that I'm actually trying to take a much needed break from my work? 

But that is always seemingly the timing for when somebody nearly dies or needs an acute prescription of the little nothingness that I do. And ultimately, these things matter not. When your own family member is in danger of dying, and you're a doctor you do whatever the hell you can in spite of the voice of your ex ringing in your head telling you just how fucked up at prescribing you are. You try to shut down the echo of how he thought you'd fail out of med school. How you suck at being an entrepreneur. How you will never amount to anything....You try not to focus on all that and the fact that the practice of this holistic medicine is pretty damn difficult....

Focus on what is Strange. Rare. Peculiar. Those chills and tetanus-like-convulsions and violent trembling as part of the lead up to the fever are strange as far as fevers go.

And so you do.

And that is when everything absolutely and dramatically shifts for him or so he tells you the next day in his old self. He's normal. Non febrile. He tears up and seems to think you saved his life. They are going to discharge him, he tells you.

But you--you still aren't sure. Perhaps it was something else. Or so says the voice in your head, at least. 
 

Emotional Literacy Kindergarten, Maybe

I've thought myself to be in the emotionally literate class most of my life. Indeed, I am in that class of people who seem to not merely feel things deeply, but am highly sensitive to the feeling class of things. Indeed, I've prided myself in being "in touch" with my feelings. Been there, done that. If you must know, on the MBTI I'm strongly into the F region. As in a Feeler. And so maybe you can possibly imagine my surprise in sitting down to write a letter to someone I felt wronged by several years ago. Such things I have needed to heal but seemingly, can't.

The shit runs deep. A friend of mine whom happens to be a therapist suggested that a particular piece in my past was holding me back. This was a situation, where things blew up in my face when I was in the throes of all the shit with my ex. She recommended that I do something to "let go" of said situation.

And so, naive me sat down to compose a letter that I never intended to mail to said person who in my mind, dramatically offended me. And sure there were things that were done unwell. Things that were painful. Things that could have been done in a kinder way, you know. Of course. But as I worked through what happened, I was shocked to discover how much crap I created, myself. Crap that was all mine to own. Just goes to show you that when you are warring with yourself, you often invent an enemy outside yourself in order to engage in battle. You pick up on minor things, shit in the air around you, and then you transform it into an epic Odyssey.

I have done this.

And what shocked me was how much of the shit in the air as regards the past, was actually mine to own. How long have I worked with this shit, exactly? A long time....

And there it was hanging in there as blame for someone who basically helped me on my journey more than almost anyone else. But He all epic-esque failed me. I didn't fail me. He failed me. That is how I have written it. Asshole. Narc?

Perhaps this is the power of writing.

Perspective.

I seriously looked back at the circumstances, of what happened. And I fucked up. Mostly, by not owning my emotions. Me not allowing myself to feel the truth of what I was really feeling. How ironic. Me, the epic feeler. Me, who has always been told, I feel too much.

How ironic.

They morphed--my emotions--into states I could not recognize. And up was down, right was left, and something akin to admiration and love was anger and shame.

I realize now, I must be in kindergarten, emotionally speaking. Will keep you updated, when I make it to first grade.