#PHPE is like before school babysitting for people who can't be trusted to follow their mealplan

[mashupofmylife]

I’ve written and rewritten and debated this post on all other socials, so naturally it goes up here without a second thought.

I finished residency today. 4 years and 25 weeks after starting. But Psychiatry is a 4 year residency? And American residencies finish at the end of June? 

It took me 25 extra weeks because I spent those 25 weeks in PHPE, and PHP, and IOP, working on my eating disorder, and my depression, and my PTSD. And when I came back to residency I continued to work on all of those things, while also doing the doctor training thing.

I take more meds than most of my outpatients. I have more frequent appointments than most of my outpatients. There are definitely days where I’m jealous of patients who seem to be doing great compared to me. 

Part of me wanted the full story to get shared, because it was a lot on top of a lot, and without the full story you can’t appreciate what my life’s been like. Part of me thinks that no one needs to know how hard I worked and what I overcame to make it to the point in my career. Or that I’m fishing for compliments by sharing all of this.

But hey, shits hard and I’m trying to let myself really appreciate what life has been like.

So maybe I sometimes still end up on the couch for hours wishing I didn’t have to be alive.* I graduated psych residency while juggling treatment for my own mental health issues that have literally knocked me to the ground on more than one occasion. Maybe, just maybe, I can talk about that without turning into a giant tomatohead.

*My therapist knows. And my psychiatrist. And my primary care doc. Honestly this is an improvement from where things were.