Today, my wife and I had our first couples therapy session. There were a lot of tears, hugs, and end of session WORK, but I feel hopeful that we will come through this with a stronger marriage and I will be a better man and father as well. One of the things that I told the therapist today was that the weight of this, well, I wouldn’t call it a secret since we always knew that there was a possibility that I could have a child, I would call it an ignored issue. The weight of this was ALWAYS somewhere in my thoughts. Sometimes, it would pop up randomly in my sleep or I would think about it when I was taking an exam. I can recognize now how when you have unresolved issues, no matter what they are, you can’t run from or ignore them. They will affect everything that you do. In my case, getting through my PhD and now medical school, has been up to this point, more difficult because this issue was a 200-pound albatross hanging around my neck. While the last few days have been emotionally hard, I feel lighter than I have at any point in the last 10 years. Having my unresolved issue out in the open so that I can DEAL WITH IT is a wonderful feeling. I would urge you all to take time to deal with any unresolved issues that you may have in your life. They don’t just go away. No matter what the issue (or issues) is, it will haunt you at the most inopportune moments in your life. Certainly if you are going to be attending medical school, you don’t need things popping up at random moments; you have too much to lose….
Anyway, I have scheduled an individual therapy appointment with a therapist, and I have that appointment on the 26th. This is a good time for me to work on the anxiety and self-esteem issues that have cropped up since starting medical school. I also want to work on some of the stuff that I’ve been harboring in relation to my family/parents; there are things that I now see that influenced my thinking and were a part of some of the bad choices that I made in my youth. I want to break the cycle and not carry these things forward into this next half of my life. When I turned 50, I told my wife that this represented an opportunity for me to be happy; there weren’t a ton of happy moments in my youth and up until I met my wife in 2006, there wasn’t a ton that I took joy in. But God has given me the gift of continued life so I want to make it the best life that it can be going forward.
Outside of reviewing old material to keep it fresh, mostly gross anatomy and OMT, I am working on turning my dissertation into three publishable articles and my wife and I have a joint manuscript that we are working on along with an abstract that we want to submit to APHA. We also are going to be speaking at the Beyond Flexner Conference in March. This is going to be a busy spring and I’m hoping to get all of this stuff done before my medical school classes resume in July. Keep me lifted friends!
