Hi Dec 25 -ve rambling

I have been preparing for exam. I tend to do things intensively, at last minute. These last few months is my last minute. Sometimes I feel suffocated. Sometimes I feel that I am still not good enough for this exam and I need to work harder. People are asking how my weekend was on a Monday morning. I told them I had a boring weekend. Could be because I didnt get to see D over the weekend. And could be because of my upcoming Friday Twilight. I will be alright, I guess. I told Anna I am also thinking about my last 3 supervision sessions with R. The case managers are aware that I won't be here in January actually. I feel guilty about it. I also don't feel like I am getting holidays. I have not made plans to go anywhere. I will be preoccupied by my upcoming exam. I feel bad, for wanting to run away, for feeling not belonged completely or not wanting to be. Have I learned something, over the 4-5 months, have I gained something, have I become better in some ways. 

And I feel guilty, for feeling or predicting that I can't tolerate the workplace after R leaves. And being left with a feeling of disgust towards a superior I can't respect. (but I need to take my leaves, and I smartly chose the best time for myself, right)

End of Nov, work-related thoughts

My previous consultant gave me a goodbye gift of saying I will flourish in the training. At the beginning of this year I told myself I want to do better admission history taking, do better ED assessments and learn to write proper formulation. Each working day felt mundane and they passed by slowly. But when I glance back, many days and months have passed. Somehow I have learned something, in ways that I couldn't pinpoint exactly or specifically. Somehow I have become a better registrar, someone I would want to be a year ago. 

This term I learned something completely new. First I am running a registrar clinic, second I need to come up with some plans. Third, I am working with many people and they are always waiting for me to say something, some instructions or advice. Fourth depending on the waves, I need to tolerate the tedious script jobs that won't stop, frequent interruption from people for non-urgent jobs, and the many MHRT reports for patients whom I have not met (and actually why are they even on TA?). And then I am working with someone who made me want to run away (which I did and eventually realised with frustration that there is no running away). I am still feeling unsure if I am enjoying this rotation, as I am looking forward to my another afterhours week in January. Although I do like what I have gained, new learning, new kind of competence, new clinical perspective and the lovely people around me. Learning new skill or knowledge is not difficult, but working on weakness is. My recent OCA interview has brought to the surface that talking to normal people is my weakness. I then realised I feel more at ease interviewing acutely unwell patients. I have difficulty doing more than 10-min review for a CCT patient who is not talkative or hypomanic or tangential or angry. 

This year is ending soon. Sometimes I feel that I have a lot to do, sometimes I feel that I don't know where to from here. People like to ask why we want to do Psychiatry (but people are less likely to ask why they want to do surgery or internal medicine). I do not have a clear answer. I don't think I am that generous to do something to want to help people. I guess I am just chasing a sense of competence. Chasing a sense of competence, my obsessiveness and perfectionism. These could be my strengths and deadly weaknesses. 

Continued

我和你说我的twilights。你平静地听。每次你一脸平静地听，其他无关紧要的个人情绪，我都说不出口了。你又提醒了我first year trainee的responsibility scope。我还是对自己太苛刻了。谢谢你总是耐心地指导我。

Post my October Twilight week

Dear R,

This stretch of twilight is my one of my most stressful shifts this year. Every evening when I came to work, I wished I could go home already. It was testing my decision making, problem solving, leadership, coordination, stress management skills, and my clinical skill has become a basic bread and butter in the background. I still couldn't do the former well. But I always learn something, after every on-call shift. You told me just recently that I shouldn't expect myself to be competent in every aspect as a first-year trainee. I still couldn't fathom the real meaning behind those words. As unlike my other previous consultants, you didn't say to me directly that I am too harsh on myself. 

I meant to take a break from my day job for a week. But I realised I still couldn't. I have been obsessively checking my email too frequently when I wasn't at work. I am unsure why my inbox is flooded with more emails in CCT or is this just my biased perception. I am worried about those unfinished accumulating jobs that will be flooding onto me overwhelmingly once I return to my usual job the next Monday. I am sure they will. I couldn't stop myself from replying to some of the emails to get some things sorted. And they are not even clinically relevant. Too much admin job. And I felt alone in Red Team. 

I also realised I can't escape from what/who I dislike. I was faced with the truth of it on Friday. I had to call the person I dislike for urgent clinical clarification (and he hung me up at 1 second? Isn't this worse than our clinic patients who DNA, at least some of them picked up my calls at first ring). I had to hunt for him, just as usual. I still had to do my job. After a few moments of feeling the obvious rejection, I have found, from my experience of working with that person, that I am doing my best at my job, because of who I am and who I want to be, and not because of a need to impress anyone. That was also the first time I realised I can live without external validation, and still believe I am not only good enough, but good. 

而那是因为过去一年半累积的经验成长，也因为你给我的底气。