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I'm putting this post here because I think it qualifies as an emotional flashback but I honestly am not sure. I HATE moving. It has become traumatizing for me. I know it's probably not pleasant for most people. Finding a new place to live, and then packing everything up, selling things, throwing lots of stuff away, the whole transition is a bit daunting no matter how big or small the move. I have to move all the time. ALL THE TIME. Ever since college began I have never stayed anywhere more than a year or two. For medical school living in an apartment on a tiny island far from home, I had to figure out how to cart things there that aren't available on the island and then figure out how to get rid of more than half of the stuff by the time I needed to go home. Other people could ship barrels of stuff home but it wasn't possible for someone living in the middle of the country like myself, and no one else I knew was living anywhere other than a coastal area where barrels could be shipped. If your bags were overweight there were locals hovering around waiting to take all of your stuff, because you couldn't just pay an overweight fee. I think this was a scam to ensure the locals had a few extra things from the rich students.

I remember the first time I had to pack all my stuff and move to college. I think this is where it all began, and possibly earlier when packing for vacations. I had to pack for college completely alone. I remember being on the verge of tears the whole time because no one was helping me carry my stuff to the car. Everyone else was watching TV. I knew that if I asked for someone to help me I would be guilt tripped or attacked, so I just kept taking stuff to the car but took a lot of breaks. So then it became late at night, I was feeling very lonely, and for a little while the power briefly went out, which made it worse. I feel that lonliness every single time I move.

And when I do have my parents helping out, they always complain the entire time about how I have too much stuff. When I would pack for the island for med school, my mom would also just comment about how I had way too much stuff. And it's true that I usually do have more stuff than my family on vacations. Because I'm the only one that brings enough! Family members are always asking me for extra toiletries, my sister would use my brush, my hair dryer, all of my toiletries without asking before we left for vacation and it was too late for her to pack her own stuff. I brought my computer so that we could watch movies on the plane and my family would just make fun of me for having too much stuff.

I was the scapegoat and my depending on my family to help with all of my stuff just gave them ample fodder to shame and guilt me. And it comes back to me every time I move. You would think I would be desensitized to it after all this moving. But I'm not. Every single time I get so down on myself for having so much stuff. I get envious of the guys that have like two suitcases and that's it. But I also understand that I'm a highly sensitive person who needs a few extra things to feel more comfortable. I am also passionate about my style and I have a ton of clothing because of it. I have a hard time with having a lot of clothing and accessories, I try to pare them down as often as I can, but my sister comments about how I have too many scarves, etc, and then I have that echoing in my head.

When I moved out for medical school rotations to New York, I had to pack all of my earthly belongings into one car and that was it. When I got to my grandma's house she also made comments about how I have so much stuff. And then I wasn't so proud of getting all of my stuff into one car anymore. But I've seen my roommates have just as much stuff, if not more, than me. And they aren't ashamed of it, even when family members complain. Or sometimes family members don't complain at all.

I'm sure if I really wanted to I could live out of two suitcases. But I also have the disadvantage of not wanting to keep some things from childhood at my parents house because I don't talk to them anymore, so I have some sentimental things I need to keep with me. My sister has the benefit of her husband in the air force and so whenever they move, there are strong young air force guys who can pack up all their stuff and move it no problem, no extra cost. My sister moved to Okinawa Japan without much effort. And sometimes when I'm ready to get rid of a bunch of stuff my family than says that I'm getting rid of too much and need to calm down!!! Which is it!

Sorry, I write really long posts, but this issue plagues me often and always. I wish I was excited to move, or at least didn't become horribly depressed and require bottles of wine and lots of TV to get the job accomplished. I wish I had friends that weren't busy with med school that could help me out. That wanted to help me out. I wish I had lots of money and could just have other people back everything for me in a neat and orderly, space saving fashion. I'm a lot better at helping other people back their stuff. But I struggle with all of this guilt and shame of having too many things. But when I unpack the things I'm so glad that I have them. The scarves, the knick knacks, the pictures, I want them all, and have to squeeze them all into my little car.

Someday I'll have a home, and I won't have to squeeze everything into a small space. Someday I will have money and can easily pay other people to professionally move my things. But for now whenever I pack all my things and have to take stock of all my earthly belongings I procrastinate until a day or two until I leave and am depressed and mourn the fact that I'm leaving yet another comfortable home and must create another safe space in a strange city or town. I'm tired of it! I'm tired of being so sad and full of guilt! I just want to be happy and relaxed and not constantly be pushing my comfort zone. I think pushing your comfort zone is great and have done so many times, like when I jumped from a plane, went rock climbing, went to a foreign country for medical school. But does it have to be every day? Especially when it doesn't seem to make me feel any better? Ugh.

So I just want to know... is this normal? Does anyone else think moving sucks? Does anyone else struggle with having lots of things? Or am I the only one that struggles with letting go of things? All my life I have had trouble letting go of things. Because I knew if I didn't keep it, no one would want it, and I would lose it forever. I used to cry every new year because I didn't want a New Year to happen. I mourn change because I am extremely sentimental. That and I think change for me usually meant something bad and stressful and I would have to face it alone. Even when I had a boyfriend I was living with, I had to pack alone even when he said he would help because he had to work on opposite schedules as me. So I've been dealing with this in a very lonely manner. And I hate it.

I am good at compartmentalizing relationships in my life. I've been pretty good at keeping work friends separate from friends I can party a little more with. I'm not one of those people that ends up getting drunk with the boss and lots of awkward things happen that I regret. But I cannot compartmentalize my life.

What I mean is, throughout med school I just feel like the life and school stresses just keep piling up and never cease. And when I fix one problem it's like five more come up in its place. I went NC with my family right in the middle of medical school because my parents were making my life a lot more difficult. But at the same time, I feel like I'm not very good at this whole being an adult on my own thing. I used to be very organized and good at budgeting and that has all pretty well gone out the window. And I think I've been subconsciously rebelling against it. I feel that I never really got to enjoy my childhood because I was constantly organizing and budgeting. That and I also had my mom to be constantly nagging at me and leaving notes all over the house about things I needed to do. I don't think I really even needed her nagging because I was trying to stay one step ahead of her in the hopes the nagging would go away. Well it never did. I was never organized ENOUGH. I was never perfect enough.

So how do I let things go for later? For example, I'm starting a new rotation on Monday and it's depressing the * out of me, I don't want to go back to rotations after I just took a huge exam, and I think it's catastrophizing. At the same time, I was harassed on my birthday two days ago, I wrote another post on that recently. I am still not getting the checks and credit cards I really need right now to be able to eat even though I have been talking to USPS for days and they are assuring me that my mail is no longer being forwarded to my old address. Also, I haven't heard anything about the rotations I applied to go to in August and September, which means even if I wanted to be organized and start looking into new places to live and if I should sell all my stuff or not, I can't, because I have no idea where I'm going, I keep bugging people and not getting answers.

I just feel completely like I have no control over my life and it's all piling up! What the * do I do!!!!! How do I survive this one day at a time! Gah!

I posted a positive aspect of my birthday of the OOTF support forum, but anyway, my birthday was yesterday and it was... well I guess full of many emotions. And I cannot help but blame myself, thought I am trying not to feel too much shame and mostly converting it into a healthy anger as much as I can.

A friend wanted to take me out for my birthday. I recently went NC with my parents and have a very, very small support system. I thought it was wonderful that my friend wanted to take me out, unfortunately her bf she is living with, well that has become a very awkward and upsetting situation. I went to their house for a bbq once wearing a pretty dress with a slit up the leg. It goes to about mid thigh, it's not an incredibly sexy dress or anything, I mostly wore it to have a nice summery light dress to wear. Also, I am a raging feminist and believe that women are not "asking for it" by wearing sexy clothing. Well, her bf made a lot of comments about my legs that day and I was mostly brushing them off as jokes and later told him that his comments made me uncomfortable and he apologized. But his advances haven't stopped.

I constantly feel like I'm accidently leading him on, and getting really uncomfortable that my friend is going to get angry at me. He started talking to me on Facebook messenger and I was speaking to him very casually and not very much, just trying to keep it distance and polite. He wanted to talk about plans for my birthday, and seeing as absolutely everyone I invited bailed on my birthday last year and it was pretty depressing, I engaged in the conversation. At one point later in the conversation, he joked about us as a "threesome" going out to the movies together on my bday, and I make a joke about being the special guest of the threesome and how that would be cool. I was joking, he apparently was not, and then the next bbq they threw, when everyone else had left, he said they did want to have a threesome with me. Whoops. Awkward.

I like to think I'm a sexually open-minded person. I'm young, I'm liberal, and I'm all about gay marriage, sexual exploration, and generally having the freedom to explore yourself. But I know I am not at all sexually attracted to this couple. And I wonder just how much of it was my girlfriend's idea and how much of it was her bf. Not going to get in the middle of that! So I politely said I was flattered and said I would "think about it" but that in general friend of mine who have done so have regretted it. That was my polite way of saying no, I allowed a bit of awkwardness in the room, didn't want to stumble over myself to make them feel better, but I didn't want to embarass them or humilate them.

Well my bday came around and her bf basically turned into a horny little kid and it led to many embarassing and frustrating moments. He very clearly wanted some of the bday celebration to be just me and him, but I made it very clear I wanted his gf to come along, she was the one I really wanted to be there. The whole day he tried to put himself in the middle of us, tried to put his arms around both of us, made a lot of sexual jokes. As the day went on I made it more and more clear that I was uncomfortable. But at the same time I was hesitant to rage at him. He doesn't get to ruin my birthday! It's not his day! So I very quickly brushed off all of his advances, it got to the point where his gf was telling him to knock it off. At one point he kind aggressively asked me in the car on the way home what I have or have not done sexually, and when I refused to answer he told me I was either a freak in bed or a complete prude and then his gf yelled "STOP." to which the rest of the ride he pouted in the back of the car. His gf apparently felt bad and tried to comfort him, I just got angry. I hope I made it clear enough that I'm not ok with him hitting on me in front of his gf. He even, in very public places, tried to ask me about my sex life and then try to shame me for not being ok with his questions and comments. When I would comment about how good looking the male actors were in a movie I would see him turn angrily jealous. And it sucked.

I couldn't help but feel guilty, because I shot down most of his jokes and advances, but I didn't shoot down ALL of his jokes, I laughed about one or two and then I feel like it just erased all of the "no"s and put us right back to square one. But every single time he tried to touch me at all I made it clear it was not ok. He would just put his arm around me or play with my necklace and it really bothered me. I have had a few scary experiences where guys made it clear that I was somehow asking for sex just because I was talking to them at the bar. I have heard a lot of sexist comments from a previous roommate that made it clear that he pretty much thinks of every woman as a sexual object and not much more. And I write on this forum because I have been a victim of sexual assault by multiple boyfriends. To the point where, though I have a healthy sex drive, I could never have a sexual encounter ever again and be totally ok with it. I have no interest in relationships, I have one long distance bf and we're pretty much just friends, we haven't had sex in a very long time because his sexual behavior has gotten increasingly more scary, and I haven't yet gotten up the courage to break up with him.

I am not going to be hanging out with my friend's bf for a very long time. If he tries to chat with me I will ignore it. That was the final straw, no one gets to do that to me on my bday, but I feel like in my desperation and lonliness, I knew this could happen but went into the situation anyway. I have made it very clear that I am not comfortable with his advances and yet he just kept pursuing it and then would "check in" with me. Are you having a good birthday? Well even though you've been MEAN to me I hope you're having a good time. Mostly I would talk over him and change the subject when he would start to feel sorry for himself. If I didn't care about his gf's feelings I would have said some very nasty things to him, because I really am not at all attracted to him. At all. And even if he was attractive, I've developed a switch in my mind to very quickly turn myself off to guys, I think to protect myself. Until I find a very sensitive sweet caring guy that is very emotionally mature, I'm closed for business. And I'm sad because I would like to live in a world where I can openly talk about sex in general, not my own personal experiences, and not have it be taken as a flag that I'm hitting on a guy and then he should become a crazy hornball.

I am really tired of being a sexual object. Sometimes I want to be proud that I am a beautiful woman and not be ashamed of what I look like and what I wear. I want to be free to feel sexy and pretty and not be attacked. And then sometimes when I go out to the bars I cover myself in sweats and still get aggressively hit on. I stopped going to the bars, which makes me sad because I remember going out with gf's and dancing the night away happily. Not anymore. I know this sounds totally silly, but the movie I saw was the new Mad Max, and I almost cried several times because Max was surrounded by beautiful women that had been reduced to baby incubators in their society, and he never once tried to take advantage of them, never even tried to kiss Furiosa. I wanted a man like that, so badly, in my life, that I would never have to worry about. Some days, I'm sorry, I want all the men to go away. I really hope that changes someday, and that the good guys tell the aggressive guys to stop, and that women stop telling me that it's always my fault when I end up in an uncomfortable sexual situation with a guy. I get confused, am I doing something wrong or am I blaming the victim?

I'm tried of feeling trapped. I just want to be happy.

Every hear of the Sunday night blues? I never did until like a month ago. When we all get a little depressed when the weekend is over and the workweek is about to begin again. I have always had major insomnia on Sunday nights. Especially in medical school because I wonder who is going to lose their temper and how am I going to get critisized this week? Now that I'm studying for a board exam and not doing a cinical rotation currently, I thought that would go away. It did for like a week.

Last night was awful. I just felt this loneliness that felt like a knife diving down through my stomach and into my soul. This feeling that my entire life is a failure and I have no friends and I will never make it as a doctor. Just so, so lonely. And I remembered that I've felt lonely my whole life, no matter how many friends I have had. I have always felt out of place. And for as long as I can remember, I've had insomnia many nights, other than Sundays, with this same feeling. And I have so many vivid nightmares lately. Sooooo many. Always featuring a family member or the attending that harassed me shortly after I got away from the horrible family and caused my CPTSD to worsen.

All I want to do is sleep all day and distract myself all night from this horrible feeling, so I often watch TV for hours and hours late into the night. I wake up drained. Uuuuuuuuuuuugh. I feel like I'm climbing mount Everest and I'm just trying to finish medical school. I have tried EMDR and such, things to try to get me in touch with and process my feelings, but of late they just seem to become way too overwhelming to even process. Or something will happen in a show I watch that reminds me of a loving family I wish I had and then I just cry for HOURS.

I JUST WANT TO SLEEP. Melatonin used to work like a charm and now it does nothing. And even when I sleep for a long time I seem to not be getting much REM sleep. I'm just pooped. I have xanax but don't want to get addicted so I use it very, very rarely and I think it reduces some of your sleep cycles.

If I could get better sleep I know some of this would go away. But it's such a catch-22. GAH! No more nightmares! SLEEEEEEP!

Every single time I schedule my medical school electives, or do anything in med school for that matter, my inner critic goes HAYWIRE. I wish I could just enjoy myself! Clerkships are supposed to be a fun time where we go explore the different aspects of medicine to see what we like most. If you do a sub-I, that means you're serious about going somewhere to be a resident, so you basically pretend to be an intern and get a little extra work and be more serious. However, of course, we make it way more complicated. I've been told lots and lots of advise. Go to conferences in the field you want to be in, do the electives of that field early on so you can put them on your application, do research, etc. etc. Things are a lot more complicated than in the old days of medicine. And my life has made them even more complicated, having little family support and almost no money at all.

I wish I could just have fun. I'm thinking of cancelling an elective because it's in a different state. But it's in neurology, one of the fields I'm most interested in, and I'm having trouble finding that elective in the state I'm currently in. I really don't want to move to another state in a month. I'm a highly sensitive person and moving actually causes me ALL KINDS OF TRIGGERS. All kinds. My parents both accused me of having way too much stuff, they never helped me pack, they used to help me move but I stopped that all together because all they did was * the whole time about how all my stuff is heavy and why do I live so far up in the building. I get freaked out. I hate figuring out what stuff to keep or not, I feel weighed down with all the decisions I have to make, all the packing, all the organizing. I collect stuff while living places because I'm good at designing a comfortable little nest for myself that is stylish and comfortable. A place to be safe at the end of the day. But packing tears down that safe place and then I fall to pieces.

The way things are scheduled now I would have to move to a different state three months in a row. No thank you! I will die. But if I don't find a neurology elective before September it doesn't show up on my transcript and then my chances go down. But how much further down? Who the heck knows. Do I want to go into neurology so badly that I should rearrange my whole schedule for the coming months? Will it affect my chances of getting into a psych residency? Do I want to do pediatrics instead? Too much!

And I totally catastrophize and over-futurize. Every decision I make I see just making a permanent mark against me in getting a residency. I didn't make it to the psych conference because I had just finished a huge test and was too stressed to make the journey to Toronto. But then when I saw other students going to the conference I felt a pang of panic. That's it! I didn't go, I'll never get a psych residency! I want to cancel this elective and then just get whatever I can get for July. That's it! I'll never get a neuro residency because I'm trying to make my life less stressful! Why aren't you better at moving! Shame shame shame!

Talking to other med school students just makes it worse, we all freak out all the time about stuff like this because it all just gets more and more competitive and every little move you make means the difference between life and death, meaning residency or no residency. I just want to have fun and still get a residency. I don't want all these little decisions to freak me out. I just want to live!

I just posted this on the OOTF website as well, but I kind of thought it would also fit here and, well, I need all the support I can get. I went and saw a psychiatrist today, a new one, because I am almost out of my anxiety medication and my primary prescribing doctor is in another state. Since Xanax is restricted, I needed a new doctor. I realized this psychiatrist sent me into an emotional flashback, I realized this of course a few hours after the appointment.

I came in for test anxiety and wrote that down on the introductory paperwork. He hardly asked me any questions about who I am, my life, my past psych diagnoses or experiences. He just kind of launched into this exam and started throwing advice at me. He told me, well, in order to do well on a practical exam like this (I am a medical school student and I go interview a bunch of pretend patients and write patient notes, basically they're checking to see if I can handle being an intern for eight hours) I just need to practice as much as I can. He's like, go to the clinic, I'm sure they'll take you, and then just see like 40 patients and write notes until it's all muscle memory and that will help with the anxiety. And then he just kind of occasionally ask me about my fears and my feelings, and then stop again to just chuck a bunch of test taking tips at me again for a while, while I just stared at him and nodded. He was kind of like, well what's the big deal? You're catastrophizing and you just had to stop doing that the best you can, use some techniques to help out with that.

WHAT TECHNIQUES! You're giving me test taking skills and I'm looking for anxiety coping skills. I know I'm supposed to practice, but I get so anxious I just avoid it altogether and I'm coming in for treatment for that! I shut down! I freak out! I know how to succeed on this exam and I can't bring myself to actually go through the motions. I tried to explain this and he just kind of skimmed over this and was trying to basically minimize all of my catastrophizing. What makes your situation so special? What happens if you fail? I understand using logic to try to bring down my anxiety, but I already have the logic part down or I would not be here. That's not what PTSD is about. It's about your body freaking out in spite of your mind. CBT only takes you so far in that respect I think. And if he was trying to use CBT I don't think he was doing a great job of it.

He kept telling me what to do and not how to do it. And it reminded me of anytime I came to my parents, feeling hurt, vulnerable, and asking for some validation and some help. I got no validation or statements of empathy from this guy. Not once. I felt like he was just chucking advise at me and hoping some of it stuck. At one point he even said, "are you going to try practicing a lot? I mean you're polite and you're telling me yes but are you actually going to do it?" What are you, my dad? Are you trying to manipulate me into making promises I can't keep? And then at the end of the visit he said, well I'll write you a prescription for a lot of refills because I don't know when I'll ever see you again. What? How about telling me when I should follow up with you, or trying to speak to me about the importance of a follow up. To me it just was kind of manipulative.

And when I left I just sat in the car and burst into tears. I had a practice scheduled at a hospital this afternoon and I just had a melt down and never went, just curled up into my bed and fell asleep for a couple hours. It just reminded me so much of my parents. Just hurling advice at me instead of asking me any questions or trying to explore my feelings. Not offering any real techniques that could help me through that anxiety. And when I don't really seem to be taking the advice seriously or disagree with it, they would just lash out at me and, as my therapist would put it, "take the ball and leave." "Well I'm just trying to help you, but if you don't want my advice then I don't know what you want from me," and then angrily storm away. No listening, no validation, just oh, well if someone is bullying you, here's a list of comebacks. And if you don't like those well too bad. I'm going to give you lots of advice to handle a friend without ever having met this person, and if you don't like it then I will shut down the conversation and offer you no more love and support. It very strongly reminded me of that. Well I'm the psychiatrist and a doctor and even though this test wasn't around when I was in training I'm just going to throw a bunch of advise at you and try to manipulate you into doing it. Too anxious to follow my advise? Well I'm just going to brush right past that. Just figure out your own coping skills. Now give me money you don't have and be on your way.

I'm just exhausted now and feel totally hopeless for this exam. He didn't help me feel any better. After a while I just nodded at him blankly until he finally got out his prescription pad and wrote my prescriptions. I never intend to go back to that man, in fact he reminds me of the first therapist I tried, she did the same stuff to me. "Well why don't you tell your parents one thing you're appreciative of each month. Can you do that for me?" Just ignore all my fears of talking to my parents and getting backlash any time I try to have a serious topic. No, just manipulate me into making empty promises. My current therapist told me I ought to report that woman to the american psychology association. And as a training med school student and hopeful future psychiatrist, he really disappointed me. I left worse off than I started.

I just can't help but feel betrayed by the very field I believe in so much. These people if not careful can really mess someone up. When I finally got the chance to tell him about my abusive family he finally shut up for a minute and changed his tone for a bit but then went right back to the useless advice. I'm a traumatized person, maybe use a little care. That and early on in he pointed out how fragile I appeared and like I looked like I was going to cry in kind of a condescending manner and then I immediately started crying.

I hope not many of you have experienced this. But it's hard for us to trust, and these are professionals we are supposed to be able to trust. I mean, we open up our hearts and souls and are vulnerable in these sessions. What a shame.

I have crippling, crippling stage fright. And the funny thing is, I have been a theater nerd for most of my life. I have been doing theater, dance classes, singing classes, all of my life. It's always been a passion and a hobby. Now, I'm a medical student, and those theater days are weirdly coming back to haunt me. We take a big important life-altering exam in which we do an EIGHT HOUR long practical, we see 12 standardized patients (actors), do a physical exam and such, and then write a note. You get 15 minutes to speak to a patient, and 10 minutes to write a note. Yikes. And they are WATCHING YOU. The actor is watching everything you do and say and checking off boxes that you asked specific questions and did certain maneuvers. That you expressed empathy, validated concerns, used teamwork skills to include the patient. It's called a patient-centered interview. Most of us do have souls, but some incredibly smart people are like walking machines and need a little extra help in the empathy department and I think this is mostly geared to week people with no social skills out.

However, I'm really scared it's going to weed me out. All through my years in theater, I have never really improved in the stage fright department. I have never really desensitized. And I'm trying to search through my feelings, and my past experiences, and I'm trying to figure out why. I think it's that inner critic and that need to be perfect. To have perfect people skills and if I have one awkward moment of silence where I may have forgotten what to say or do, sometimes that's all it takes to tip me over the edge.

So this fear, it's keeping me from getting more practice. That, and, a hospital I used to rotate at, very close to my home, has teachers regularly running drills for this exam. So why can't I just go there, sign up, and practice? Other than my crippling need to be perfect in front of an audience, be liked by everyone and seemlessly flow from one question to the next, I also had a HORRIBLE, traumatizing experience with one of the attendings. She was my educational coordinator of one of my rotations and she emotionally harassed me on a regular basis. She just picked me out one day and bullied me almost every day, from that point on, and almost got be kicked out of the hospital because she twisted the truth to her higher ups and made it seem like I was abusing her. Well, luckily this has since been cleared up, I passed the rotation, no major harm was done to me career-wise, and she is no longer allowed to teach students. However, the scars in me remain. And just driving to that hospital just makes my skin crawl. I go in and just think, this is the place where no one cares about me. Once an intern ran up too many stairs and passed out, no one even acknowledged he passed out, a student had to tell the surgery team he was doing morning rotations with. I don't think the residents are treated well and then it trickles down to the students. We are also often judged harshly just based upon what mood the attending happens to be in that day, and no amount of sucking up changes anything.

I just feel helpless, like I am at the mercy of the unpredictability and crazy emotions of everyone around me. I know in my logical mind that this hospital no longer has control over my grade. I'm done there, relatively unscathed, alive to tell the tale. But I don't want to go back. I sit for hours just shaming myself. Why can't you just go in there! Your grade will suffer! You can't find people to practice with because they're all busy! This is your only chance! And then I shame myself for shaming myself. And then there's a vicious cycle.

I don't know how to help myself. Luckily once this test is done, if I pass it, I won't really have to do that ever again except I think to be board certified in whatever specialty I go into, but I don't know much about it. I just have to make it to the end of Monday. But every day it's like the pressure cooker just builds more and more. I couldn't even get out of bed for a very long time this morning. I'm so exhausted, falling apart, and I'm trying really hard to figure out how to move past this.

I'm trying it all- writing about my feelings, positivity, EMDR, TAT, tapping, meditation, yoga, sleeping well, eating well, distraction, exercise, talking with my therapist. Everything. And yet these feelings that I can't get in control, they are very scary.

My inner critic is very much one of perfectionism. But it is also all about panicking. I have had terrors seemingly all my academic career that anything I do wrong is going to affect my chances of having a successful career as a future doctor for the rest of my life. I had it pretty badly in high school, feeling that any Advanced Placement test I didn't do well on would decrease my chances of getting into a good medical school and I spent all hours trying to up my GPA and make myself look good, but being quite timid, I was not competitive enough to argue my grades higher and be in the top 10. I was only in the top 5%. Oh darn. Just kidding.

Ok, and then came college and I just kinda barely hung on. I was totally catastrophizing everything. Part of that was my inner critic. But guess what? I also had my mom "checking in on me" over the phone every weekend, and I am not even exaggerating, nearly every single phone call my mom told me that since I was going to get a C in my freshman chemistry class I might as well give up any chances of getting into medical school. Every. Time. For one C! Well, then other C's followed, and I was genuinely studying my * off, and getting mediocre grades. I was freaking out inside. All the time.

And in medical school, it turns out there are a whole lot of people just like me. Every little thing that goes on, people tell me, "well you better do perfectly on this or if you don't take a test by this time you better kiss residency goodbye." Every student I know has this mindset about everything that counts toward residency. Because we're all freaking out about it together. And that's NOT HELPING MY INNER CRITIC!

I don't know how to stop freaking out! I tried to cancel my exam time just now because I got an email saying an earlier spot became available and the two minutes it took me to get on the website was apparently long enough for the spot to be taken and then I was left without a test spot. AND I PANICKED. I didn't throw things or anything, but the very first thing that jumped into my head was, oh my god, I'm going to take this test way to late and never become a resident.

Everything I read says I still have plenty of time to take this exam. That I should do it at the very latest in October, which is a long time from now and there are plenty of spots open until then. And people freak out and cancel their exams all the time, so spots always open up for a very short period of time. But then I can hear other students in my ear, oh no you have to do it earlier or it won't show up on your initial application and then no one will want to interview you! I don't think that's quite accurate. I think mostly our counselors spread this rumor because usually no one really cared too much about this particular part of the board exam, and then one person failed and did it too late to retake it, so this rumor is spreading that you will be doomed if you don't take this exam like six months earlier.

I don't know who to believe. I don't know how important it will be to take this exam at a specific time. And I get so much confusing and contradicting advice that I have no idea whether or not I SHOULD freak out. This fear of the unknown. It's awful.

So what if I take the wrong advice and make a poor decision and I don't match into a residency? What if I never do? This just freaks me out all the time. It's like something constantly nagging in the back of my mind. What if? What if? This catastrophizing and uncertainty is driving me nuts. If I knew the right way to go, I'd feel more comfortable. If I knew who to believe, I'd feel better. But deep deep inside, something is just telling me that things just kind of work themselves out in the end and I'll be just fine.

But I DON'T WANT TO TRUST THAT VOICE. I feel like that was my original voice. I remember, in elementary school, we used to have numbers instead of letter grades. It was much more relaxed. I didn't really care about my grades. Don't get me wrong, I was still very competitive, very much a perfectionist. But I would really procrastinate projects and just not care. School felt more enjoyable. There wasn't this extreme freakout happening that started being embedded in me when my mom started ingraining it in me. She was a perfectionist and accepts nothing lower than high A's. She was always a top student in nursing school. So she expects that from me. And her doctor dad expected that from her. Because if you aren't freaking out about your grade, you aren't doing it right.

What would happen if I just relaxed about it? Would I do better? Is it worth the risk to chill out and experiment and see if things improve, or will my delicately balanced world just crumble and I'll really mess up and never match? I feel like maybe if I chilled out a bit and not obsess over when I need to take exams, maybe things would be ok. I don't ever seeing myself chill out so much that I lose all motivation and do badly. But I don't know if I trust myself that much.

And this is just a small portion of the massive inner dialogue that no amount of meditation and yoga and self help books seems to SHUT UP. I will drill a hole in my brain! Just kidding. But seriously...

I have a strong inner critic. I mean I can tell it is really ingrained in there. Deep, deep within. The force is strong with it.

But my therapist did this exercise with me once and I want to do it with her again, or do it on my own sometime, develop it more. It probably already has a name and is probably identified on another part of this forum, but anyway here goes:

She had me think about my very first memory. I will go ahead and share it, I just remember this blurry image playing out like a TV screen. I never told anyone that I think this is my first memory, because my family usually brushes it off. My mom the ubpd ex-nurse says, oh you can't have memories until you're five anyway, it was probably just a dream. Recent science states that may not be true. But anyway, I digress. Just a little screw you to the developer of my inner critic, my extremely critical mom.

Anyway, in this memory, I'm crawling on the kitchen floor, I go over to the cat bowl, I pick up a piece of food, and put it in my mouth. My cat at the time walked over to me, sniffed my head, and walked away, probably a little confused.

It's pretty funny. And I did apparently eat cat food when I was little. I think my inner critic would immediately jump to the conclusion that I had brain damage as a baby. But my therapist said, wow, that says a lot about you.

It shows that you have many qualities that work well with being a doctor. It means that you are curious. You try new things. You have a scientific mind that tests things out. That means you're smart. These are some of your building blocks. These are the parts of you that were not yet influenced by your parents. And as you go through those early memories, you may discover more about who you really are.

At first I thought, this is stupid. I was just a baby eating cat food, that says nothing. But, weirdly enough, those positive thoughts just nestled in and stayed there. My therapist used this somewhat logical, scientific reasoning to prove to me that I'm kind of cool. And that this coolness is who I actually am. And when I get really stressed, sometimes this just pops into my head. I repeat the proof to myself. And I listened to that core person when she said, become a doctor, it will work for you. And maybe why, despite all of the things that all of my family has hurled at me to try to not get me to go through medical school, I ignored all of it, even when I felt it was wrong. There was some part of me, the real me, that was still there, screaming to get out. And that's pretty cool. And maybe that means I can trust myself. And maybe that means I make good decisions. And maybe that means, in the end, I'm going to be ok. And I deserve love. And I deserve happiness.

Just an interesting practice to try.

My emotional flashback of the day. I'm not sure how triggering this would be to anyone else, I'm not really going to be describing anything especially traumatizing, it's just a surefire way to put me into an emotional flashback.

I'm just trying to be a good med student. But I know that residents and attendings sigh and roll their eyes and try to ignore students unless you prove that you are somehow useful. At least at the hospitals I rotate in, students are not that welcome, even though we are the ones that will be in charge one day, so maybe ignoring us is not the best approach to teaching. Alas, doctors don't have teaching degrees. Sorry any doctors who are on here. I will probably be offending a medical professional in some way or another during this explanation. I'm sorry. I've been a medical assistant, an EMT, my mom was a nurse, and it seems like each one rants about the other all day.

Today I managed to be useful. I scrounged around the ER, begged nurses to help me find things, looked in every nook and cranny, and then proudly produced suture kits and supplies for cleaning out a wound. It was a big moment for me, I'm usually far too insecure to ask for help because I know I'll get brushed off more often than not and it becomes a little too much to take. I usually give up because supplies in an ER are touch to find and they always seem to be migrating. But I found them all! What's more, I know stuff! I know how to remove sutures, I know how to suture, I know how to clean a wound. It was my big day to know stuff. And then things quickly spiraled out of control.

I was trying to help a suturing procedure. The child involved was freaking out. A lot. So it became a bigger procedure. Well suddenly everyone needs to become the hero. The most condescending pediatric anesthetist came into the procedure, belittled everyone in the room including the head ED attending in the pediatric department, and it was bothering me. The peds attending then got irritated by that and started berating the poor resident for not being prepared for suturing, even though he was. The nurses then decided they needed to feed off that energy and, as usual, went after the students.

The anesthetist was doing things like expecting the resident to suture in the dark. I suggested turning on one light and she said "NO!" But a nurse turned on the light and she said nothing. Anesthetist then asks me to stand on the other side of the patient. Nurse then starts barking at me about how my head is in the way of her vitals machine and why was I standing there and I need to do this and that and the other. She would not knock it off until I was like "look, the attending told me to stand here" and then it was suddenly ok, but then I better put the armrail down because I don't know, my arms will break off or something if I don't. There was no point to putting the armrail down at that moment. None.

Then as I'm trying to assist in handing off supplies to anesthetist the nurse practitioner student decides she knows more than me and starts mumbling in my ear that I need to do this and I'm doing that wrong. At this point I'm about to flip out. And then I'm like if you know so much better than me then you do it instead of standing back and telling me what to do. And she was continuously telling me the WRONG thing to do. You are a student! What makes you think you know so much more than me!

Same NP student then started jumping in front of me to see things the resident would point out on a patient. She would stand in my way even when I asked her politely to move. So then I "accidentally" knocked her to the side to see a patient and just started ignoring just about everything she said to me. The nurses also tried to lecture me on putting my purse on the floor, as if lockers were going to appear out of thin air. No one lets students have lockers. If we put things on desks the nurses freak out more. We are like homeless people being scattered left and right.

I realize I'm exaggerating. Because it's HUGELY TRIGGERING for me. My family, whenever there is some small disaster or stressor, will all turn on me because I'm the only one not freaking out. When my mom was in the hospital I was regularly attacked for the smallest reasons. I was trying to make a pizza to help out my sister and dad one night and they literally stood over me and criticized every step of the process. When I get visibly frustrated they turn on me more. Oh well, I guess you can't take critisism very well. I don't know why you're freaking out. Or condescendingly, awwwwww, you're trying so hard, it's ok, you'll do better next time.

I get it now. They were angry that I was calm. I knew what my mom had and I knew she was most likely not dangling on the verge of death like she made it seem. She's uBPD and any health condition she has she just lets fester and when she finally goes to the doctor and it's gotten really bad, she spirals into a depression and states that she has almost died on several occasions. Anyone that questions this is personally attacking her, and you will then be attacked by the family that rallies around her dysfunction to call themselves good people. Every doctor she meets is either her savior or trying to kill her. I do not participate. So I am viciously attacked.

My family has for years tried to attack me to feel more in control. And, like in my family, when at the hospital, if I try to say look, I don't like it when you do that, could we please work on communication, I know I will get backlash. Because I'm a lowly student and I should be grateful and I know nothing. But I do know something. I know how to be an empathetic human. But that's not ok. So I keep my mouth shut and am typically reduced to crying in the bathroom for hours afterward and not knowing why. In places where I know I will be heard, or I know the consequences don't affect my future career, I have no problem speaking my mind. Not here. They have too much power over me. And I HATE IT.

Right now, for example, I'm typing a super long rant and angry at the injustice of it all. I'm still working on that.

STOP BOSSING ME AROUND!

Learning about what emotional flashbacks are, even that c-ptsd exists, has been a huge improvement through my life. My therapist likes to stay away from labels. That I can understand. Labels in therapy, like a diagnosis, are often avoided, for fear that we are branding people for life and subjecting them to prejudice from people who don't understand mental illness. But I tell ya, when reading a description of an emotional flashback, I felt elated. Oh my gosh! There is a name for why I'm weirdly emotional and angry and cry for hours after someone snaps at me and no one else seems to react that way. I feel this terrible sense of anger, helplessness, and injustice, like I want to embarass or hurt this person for days after the fact. How dare they do this to me!

I'm not weird. I have just kind of wandered through this journey of finding out why life is so difficult for me. Why I am scared of the outside world. I still function in it. I'm still in medical school, I still make friends, still get boyfriends. I still wake up in the morning. But I often spend the day just fighting within myself and struggling to get anything done. It's not "just" generalized anxiety or depression. I knew there was something else going on, but no one was telling me what was going on. Until I realized. Maybe I have PTSD. But I don't get visual flashbacks. So what is wrong with me?! Alas, flashbacks come in many colors.

It's amazing, now that I know what they are, so many I pick up on that I have within a week. A lot. But as soon as I identify it, that's often enough for me to get through it and get on with my day. Instead of battling with myself and trying not to cry all day, being set off by anyone that doesn't display empathy and understanding.

What a relief.

I first heard about EMDR from The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. van der Kolk. I thought why not give it a try, I doubt much damage would be done if it doesn't work. And I at first found it a little hard to believe that a little eye movement can dramatically improve emotional processing. But I started to notice before learning about EMDR that when I'm really stressed out my eyes start to hurt. Does that happen to anyone else? Like an eyeball headache in both eyes. Along with being achey all over. And my intestines going nutz.

I have zero monies for to go to therapy. So I actually found some how to's and videos on youtube. I thought I'd give them a try, and found the ones that struck me as less creepy than others. There are some weird ones out there with a soundtrack from like another planet. But I settled on some peaceful ones and gave it a try. And it seems to make the eyeball headache go away, along with feeling just more motivated. Like it isn't quite so much like wading through a sea of molasses to get any sort of chore or errand done. For a few days at least, then it comes back. I've only done like three or four sessions for myself. And when I start to feel the eyeball headache I make sure to do the videos.

Just wondering how other people have felt about this. I hope I'm not just having a placebo effect that will wear off.

I have this memory that pops up periodically. I have always kind of pushed it aside because I thought, well, it didn't directly happen to me, so I shouldn't be traumatized by this memory. Well I decided to stop shaming myself today and see what happens.

When I was in elementary school, my sister was a teenager, and it was a Friday night. Normal teenagers get to go out on Fridays, but for some reason my sister wasn't allowed to go to something, I can't remember why. My mom was probably forcing us for no reason to have "family time," which is usually do whatever my parents want to do and deal with it. This time it was sitting down for dinner together and watching a concert. I knew it was going to be boring as * but I knew better than to complain. Bad things happened when we complained. The night just had a weird vibe to it. I often had these feelings of being really uncomfortable and couldn't place my finger on why. Early intuition I guess.

My sister was ticked off, as teenagers who don't get to go out usually are, and had argued with my parents earlier in the evening. My dad asked my sister to turn the light off and my sister snapped "do it yourself' at him. My dad then flipped out in a way I had never seen before. He slammed his food tray down and went at my sister, she tried to run away and then he pushed her into a corner. I could't see what he was doing after that but I heard her screaming. Then my mom pulled him off and pushed him away. She's had to do that a lot. But a part of me thinks she enjoyed that part, being the rescuer. I think she would sit back and let it escalate and then jump in to save the day.

I carry a lot of guilt from that day. I remember afterward everyone left but I wanted to pretend like nothing happened, so I stayed with my dad and watched half of the concert and then when I couldn't stand it anymore I went to my room. I heard my mom talking to my sister. I guessed they were words of comfort but knowing my mom now, she was probably manipulating her, being gentle and loving and at the same time hinting it was her fault somehow. I keep thinking, I should have left my dad alone to swim in his guilt. I shouldn't have pretended nothing was wrong. I should have hugged my sister and comforted her. I just stood in my room paralyzed for a while. No one really talked to me about it, or if they did, I don't remember. I don't remember dad apologizing. I don't remember being told that behavior was not ok. I don't remember being able to talk about my feelings. And sometimes, I have nightmares.

I know that my sister pretends that day didn't happen and has abuse amnesia. She prides herself on not holding grudges, but I think it's to a fault. She does what I did that day. Pretends like everything is ok. And doesn't comfort me when I come to her for it regarding our parents. She used to be my lifeline. She used to protect me from them. But after having her baby, it's like I don't mean anything to her anymore. My parents are gods with all the advice on parenting. While I just pray that my niece doesn't become us. So far I think my parents haven't really gotten to my sister and she's a very freely loving mom. I pray she stays that way. I try to encourage her but she just keeps her distance from me.

I lost my best friend because I pulled away the curtain and saw my family for what it was, dysfunctional. And it makes me very sad. I cry about that day like it happened a week ago or something. I'm trying to figure out how to let go of the guilt, but it's been so far ingrained in me. And I wish I could tell her I'm sorry. But I think she would just act as though she had no idea what I was talking about. And I don't think that would make me feel any better even for the sake of trying to be altruistic, my usual tactic for self satisfaction.

I feel better for sharing though.

I choose "squicky" but I have no idea how else to describe it. I started this post on another support site and want to continue it here. I talk about my past with violence and sexual abuse, just fyi.

I watched "Gone Girl" with my boyfriend and it sent me into a feeling I'm quite familiar with now. Does anyone else go through it? I just get these prickles up and down my back, I shut down. I want to cover up and hide any evidence that I am a woman. Any sexual features I have. I get this way sometimes for not really any reason, and start to get the feeling that every guy in the room is oggling me. I want to wear big baggy clothing, in fact a lot of the time when I go to the bar with friends I wear sweats while other girls are dressed to the nines. The guys I hang out with love this, they find it hilarious. I tell myself it's because I'm comfortable in my own skin. But I am not. I want to cover up all of my skin.

I get angry. It isn't fair. Men don't have to do this. I've been harassed at bars for simply looking good. Guys complain about this a lot, how a girl must be dressed that way because she wants that kind of attention. I want to look sexy sometimes, I want to be looked at, but sometimes, that's it. Looked at. I want to feel pretty and confident. Not harassed. I was raped by my first boyfriend. Other men since seem to be of the mind set that if I am their girlfriend, they can have sex with me anytime, and if I want to stop at anytime, that isn't fair to them. And now when my current boyfriend wants to touch me when I don't want to be touched, I completely shut down. I sit very still and hope that if I don't make any sudden movements, he won't want to touch me. If I do anything slightly provocative, he runs after me and starts pawing at me. It scares me. I kind of have this saying to myself sometimes. I wish I could take off my boobs and hide them at will.

What do you do when you feel these feelings?

Hello all. I'm from the Out of the Fog forum as I'm sure many of you are. I was so scared to make my first post on the previous site and a lot less apprehensive on this one, because I have gotten so much love and support since I joined. I am a medical school student. My journey has been very tough, because for the longest time I had a lot of anxiety and depression and didn't even realize it until I took a survey our psychiatry professor suggested we give to psychiatry patients and scored extremely high levels of anxiety and moderate levels of depression. This started a somewhat painful journey of self discovery that has ultimately granted me freedom, my one major desire in life.

I struggled a lot, I failed some medical school classes and struggled to keep grades up, and I couldn't figure out why, I have always been quite smart, sorry if I sound narcissistic. I have many weaknesses, but intelligence in not one of them. I'm also painfully shy at times, never really want to leave my apartment if I can help it, and believe strongly in the healing power of cats. I discovered my struggles and shyness were a result of my mom having undiagnosed borderline personaity disorder, as discovered by me and my therapist that I finally gathered the courage to seek out. We discovered my tainted past, the years of manipulation and abuse I was never even aware of. I just spent most of my life feeling that I was horribly flawed, and not of much value. My first boyfriend also most likely had uBPD, along with a few other boyfriends after. I am a victim of emotional abuse, physical abuse, all of which were mostly covert, and sometimes overt. Covert in my opinion is almost worse. No one on the outside sees the pain you go through, and when you explain they usually leave the conversation in doubt and disbelief.

My first boyfriend raped me. Boyfriends after sexually assaulted me in other ways, to the point where I don't think many men have any self control or respect toward women in the bedroom. I don't like to admit this to friends or subsequent boyfriends, and usually do not. Because my whole family that enables and rallies around my mom are all about self pity. I refuse to be a victim. I don't want to be known as the girl that was abused and raped. I am a survivor. I admittedly struggle and have difficulty opening up because of this. But I have fought long, hard, and all alone with very little support to be where I am today. Where most medical students were getting emails from their moms saying they miss them with dorky cat videos attached, I got constant reminders from my mom full of guilt tripping and how much money I owed her. That is her favorite sword of Damocles. Money. While studying for my boards and applying for rotations, my parents were abruptly removing all financial support, threatening to kick me out of their home, and whatever else they could do when I began to refuse the abuse they were hurling at me. I never submitted. I simply ran away and lived and worked on my own until I could afford to go back to school. And I did. I haven't spoken to my parents in over a year. My siblings have all but abandoned me completely.

This will not define me I will learn to thrive. But right now, I'm stuck in survival mode, always fighting through what feels like a sea of molasses, struggling every step of the way to make it through the day and end up with a successful career, and some day, a family. I need your help to do this!