It feels as if something is pressing my head bitemporally. But it is not constricting in nature as it is localized, not generalized. At times, it becomes interchangeably throbbing in nature. It is also associated with severe tingling sensation. There is no aura, nausea or vomiting. But presence of light can be distressing sometimes.
The symptom started to appear when I was in psychiatric posting. I first thought that it is probably because I don’t like psychiatry, in which I easily became stressed. However, the symptom still persists till this current posting. It is so irritating and disturbing especially when it persists for several hours.
Ah…, I’m scared. I’m so scared. I’m really scared. I couldn’t sleep for the whole night. It is not only difficult to initiate the sleep, I also keep on waking intermittently. Sometimes, I end up waking so early in the morning, but could never go back to sleep afterward. It is so distressing and bothersome. What’s more, it is tiring. At times, when it so troublesome, I end up crying.
It is always like this whenever I need to do some tasks either presenting a CP, short case, seminar, CPC or having an exam. It is normal to feel nervous when I facing the exam because everybody does feel so. But, to feel so much fear just because of CP and short cases, why is that so? It is not something new. I’ve gone through it a lots when I was in year 3 and 4, yet I still feel nervous. Furthermore, there are so many CP, short cases and seminars. So, how would I survive if I feel scared every single time of it?
Previously when I was in matric, I also get scared when I went to see a lecturer to ask question. Doesn’t matter how closed I was with the lecturer, I still felt scared. But, the fear was not so intense, it was just a nervous feeling. It didn’t disturb my sleep at all. And I always able to overcome it. But as I entered this faculty, the level of fear keep on increasing especially during clinical year. It is so much so that I also have muscle twitching, increased frequency and dry mouth.
I wonder why is this happened. Is it because my self-esteem and self-confidence getting lower and lower? If it is so, is it because I was not well prepared and had not enough practice? Ah, I hate myself so much when I feel so scared over a trivial matter like this. How would I survive if something crucial happen later?
p/s: I start to wonder whether am I suited to be a doctor or not.
At the beginning, I hate psychiatry so much. Since I was in the first year, I don’t really enjoyed the subject. And, it was the same when I was in 4th year. There were many theories, which were so difficult to understand, and very complicated. Furthermore, there were a lot of terms that are rather confusing. Different lecturer gave different definition and each of them only acknowledged their own definition. It was so distressing and troublesome. On the other hand, as I went through the posting, I realized that in certain aspect it helped me on how to interact with other people, how to deal with problems and how to help other people. So, the level of hatred dropped and became neutral now.
When I need to clerk the patient, I felt so reluctant. I easily get angry and irritable whenever I interviewed them. It rarely happened in other posting but it occurred almost all the time in psychiatry. I knew that it was not supposed to be so, but I couldn’t control it. It was probably because the nature of the patient who was either manipulative, mute, spoke non-stop, talked irrelevantly or gave incoherent answer. Normally it took more than an hour to finish the clerking. It was not only the clerking, the CP also took longer time as compared to other postings. In average, each of the CP took at least 2 hours. Each of the sentences need to be commented and interpreted. Thus the discussion would be dragged on further and longer. In the beginning of the posting, I easily became bored and distracted during the session. And, after 1 hour I tend to get irritated if the discussion was not finish yet. But later, toward the end of the posting, I started to became more interested and participated more during the discussion. Moreover, I was no longer felt irritated even when the session lasted about 3 hours.
To tell the truth, at first I didn’t really like one of the lecturer. It started when I was in 3rd year where I had a ‘bad’ history with her. Since then, I always had a negative view on her. Furthermore, she like to analyze people. I hate it so much. It felt as if she was reading my mind and scanning my body. So, as much as I could, I tried to avoid her. However, being in the posting, it was very difficult to escape from her, especially when I was a group leader. After attended her classes, talked with her and confronted her, I felt better about her. She was not as bad as I thought. And, she is a good lecturer actually. Therefore, I felt a bit of guilty for bad mouthing her. Now I understand why confrontation is better as compared to avoidance. Currently, I still felt uncomfortable with her way of analyzing people, but I can accept it because it is her way of interacting with other. Besides, it is her right. As long as she is not being judgmental, then it is ok.
Yesterday, I had a lunch with her at KP. While we wanted to cross the road, she held my hand. I was so speechless at it. Honestly, I felt a bit strange and awkward when she held my hand. Probably because it was the first time someone held me like that. But at the same time, I felt so happy because it gave me a feeling as if someone is protecting me. Even it looked like as if I’m a child though. Hehehe…
For the past few days, I felt a bit uneasy thus I message her. I just need someone to hold and hug me tightly so that my uneasiness went away. The only one whom I could think of was her. Actually, each time I message her, I would feel guilty because I’m afraid that I’ll burden her. But I have no way to turn to except her. So, the only thing I could do to repay her kindness is to pray that Allah will reward her and bless her and her family. Amin…
After lunch, we prayed solat Zohor together. I wanted her to be an imam since she is older and I respect her a lot, but she refused. I wonder how it feel if she is an imam since my m** had never been an imam to me too. Ish…, next time I’ll make sure that she will be an imam.
After the prayer, she hugged me. I felt so grateful and relieved. During that time, without I noticed, the uneasines was not there anymore. It had slowly faded away starting from the time she held my hand and as the time passed through.
p/s: Okasan…, arigatogozaimasu (for the lunch and for the time) =)
