I've been having a bit of a hard time in my personal life.
The move, being away from close family and friends (and realizing that I'm "out of sight, out of mind" for some), being pregnant, not getting as much exercise as I used to and being overall a bit bored created a perfect storm of low feelings recently.
Things came to a head a couple weeks ago when my husband left for a two week long business trip back to Canada (I was so jealous!) which also coincided with a two week break from my course. I was very lonely and bored and all those feelings which I'd been keeping at bay just started to overwhelm me. I would get sad and cry for no reason, I started to sleep poorly and just felt like I was in a bad mood all of the time.
I decided to take my midwife's advice and sought some counselling. The counsellor was a very kind and sympathetic person but got me a bit worried when she decided to refer me to a psychiatrist for further assessment. Luckily he told me that he really didn't think I was clinically depressed and that all that sadness was a result of a perfect storm of what I've been through recently plus being pregnant. I was actually incredibly relieved to hear him say that because I know that being depressed is not healthy for the baby and because I was nervous about being put on anti-depressants.
He was also very encouraging about me applying for medical school and even made a follow-up appointment with me in a months time specifically to talk about it and to share some advice on what to do to get it.
One thing though, that is always in the back of my mind is what I'm going to do if I don't get into medicine. Right now its the force driving me forward and gives me hope and motivation...I do worry about what I'll do if I don't have that any more. The doctor told me that I'm a high functioning person who needs a lot of stimulation and that is part of the reason I was feeling so low - because of a lack of it.
Ugh. Life is not easy eh?
