Out of Focus - the diary of a student radiographer.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Therapy

Hell, I started this blog thinking it would be good therapy but I haven't really used it as such. I'm going to today. I'll warn you now - this blog is going to be long and waffly, most probably a little incoherent and definitely gloomy - so if you have a problem with that go and read someone else's blog. It's not like I'm writing this specifically for someone else to read, I just need to get some things out of my head.

I really hate the black dog. You think you have successfully kicked it out then, when you least expect it, it sneaks back and bites you on the arse. I don't want it to stop me from successfully completing this course - I know I have the ability to be a radiographer and I want to be a radiographer, and besides if I run away from this I don't know where I can go next.

Sometimes I feel like there are two of me living inside my head. There is the rational one, that thinks logically. My rational self knows what is going on and is sensible and realistic. The other one is my emotional self that lives on feelings and can't think rationally. Sometimes my rational self is stronger and can tell my emotional self not to be so silly and that is good. Sometimes my emotional self is stronger and won't listen to my rational self no matter how loud it shouts and that is generally bad. I've just read that back to myself and it sounds so screwed up, but that is how I am.

I'm not a very confident person. Often I can pretend fairly convincingly that I am confident, but I'm not. My lack of confidence can lead to me getting stressed. When I get stressed, I often take an ostrich approach - I try to ignore the stressed stuff in my head by distracting myself, usually by spending too long on the internet or by watching any old crap on the television. The reason I left my IT job in London 5 years ago was I was badly managed, I was expected to get on with stuff I didn't have the ability and confidence to do and I was too nervous and silly to do anything to improve my situation. So I did a poor job, used the internet too much at work and got badly told off for both when all I was doing was the best I could. Consequently I now take criticism, even the most friendly and constructive criticism, very, very personally and get all upset.

I have several stressors at the moment on my placement. One is the aforementioned criticism. My rational self tells me this criticism is good, it is vital to my learning, it's not at all personal, but my emotional self goes to pieces when I am criticised. My emotional side is also convinced I am not progressing nearly as fast as I should be, and it won't listen at all to my rational side which says this is nonsense as I am only on my eighth placement week. I also feel I have so much to learn and remember and so much coursework to do at the moment and this is only the first semester - if I can't cope now, how am I going to manage when the amount of coursework I have to do increases?

Anyway, I had a long sob over all this on Adam's shoulder last night and today, when Rebecca, my personal tutor, came to the hospital to see me I was still feeling emotionally raw and, to my horror, I couldn't stop myself bursting into tears in front of her. Luckily, she was wonderful about it, I was able to tell her all about how I was feeling and what was worrying me and she was able to reassure me that I was progressing well, no one she had spoken to at the hospital had a bad word to say about me (or any of the other students) and the next few semesters shouldn't be as hard as the learning curve wouldn't be so steep. She also let me go home for the afternoon which was good as I could go have a good bawl in private which I really needed to do.

Tomorrow is my study day so hopefully I'll have got myself together again for Friday. I'd just like to find myself a very large metaphorical gun so I can blow that bloody black dog's head off.

3 Comments:

  • That sounds horribly familiar. I have these crises of confidence every so often, when the carefully-contructed shell crumbles. I have to remind myself that I've felt like this before, and remind myself it passes.

    But it's still shit when it happens.

    By Blogger Jeangenie, at 2:51 pm  

  • Whever you feel like that at Uni, remember how many people are too chicken to go to retrain for a new career like you are doing. :)

    It's ineveitable that there will be the few bad days. It's because you are trying to do something with your life instead of hiding in a dead end job with no ambition.

    By Blogger Pookledo, at 5:02 pm  

  • You are not alone. If you have the black dog, the slightest criticism, stress or doubt can get out of all proportion. And the rational side just goes on holiday.
    Can you try a bit of counselling?
    You blog made me sob a bit. But then I understand because I have an interview tomorrow.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:11 pm  

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