On memory

I came across an email I wrote a few years ago and it was about something that happened to me in 2007. In 2006 I took some time out of medical school for reasons I’ve discussed many times in this blog. The thing is that in 2007 I returned to finish off my medical degree and I kept running into people I’d known previously from medical school – and they were all surprised that I had returned! The only person, it seems, who wasn’t surprised that I returned to my studies was myself. And yet I struggled to understand why people were surprised given that I never once considered it a possibility of not returning.

Here’s part of the email I wrote to my friend (and, yes, I do write very long emails):

Being back at the hospital I am often running into guys who knew me from a few years ago, and its so weird. Some of them (I guess the ones who knew me a little) tell me that they’re glad to see I came back into it, back to med. This girl even gave me a hug the other day and said exactly that! Now, in my mind I can’t remember ever being as unsure as these people seem to be that I would return. When I decided to take leave, I knew it was just a break, that’s what I wanted, and I don’t remember doubting that I would return, only doubting that if it was to be one rotation off or the rest of the year (that’s all the options the school offered me). But maybe I was projecting something different. I don’t know now, I’m confused. Maybe other people were projecting onto me and doubting my commitment or abilities more than I was. It’s so strange; I don’t recall being that unsure.

I remember feeling empty and alone and overwhelmed - and the insomnia- but it wasn’t even the lowest I have ever been. By comparison that period wasn’t even that bad or even that long-lasting. And I remember a few months after I stopped doing med in 2006, a friend of mine (and I mean a friend not an acquaintance) said to me “you’re not going back, right?” I thought that comment came out of nowhere and I was a little offended, because even at the time of that question I was very convinced that I would – and actually looking forward to returning to med the following year. 

My family also had countless talks to me telling me that I should return to med. I felt it was so pointless because they spoke to me as if trying to convince me of something that was against my will, whereas I felt ‘of course I won’t counter-argue because we both are thinking the same thing’. It was absurd. But of course, I knew that some of them were telling other members of my family that I was a loser who was incapable of finishing a real uni degree. 

And then there was my therapist, who probably knows me better than most of the people in my life and is familiar with most fragments of who I am. She also asked me before I started back, if I actually wanted to go back. Returning to med was never an issue as far as I was concerned; when I would was the only issue present at the time I decided to take time off. And she had known me since before I started to feel all the negative stuff that made me want to take the time off. 

So, my question is: why did everyone doubt that I would return to med; what have I forgotten from that time? Why do I forget? And what else am I forgetting? It’s scary, you know.
The only explanation I can think of for my old acquaintances saying they’re ‘relieved’ to see I came back into med is based on another theory of mine. After I’d already been on leave a few months 

I told two acquaintances of mine from medical school that I was on medical leave. So, my theory is that these two boys must have told a pretty drastic story of how I was and why I’d had the time off. I figured this after I ran into some people and to catch them up on my story I’d tell them that I was a year below them because I’d had some time off – and yet most people already knew that even though I’d only told two people in my course.  They all added that they were glad I had decided to come back. What decision to come back?! I had never doubted whether I would or not. Unless I am forgetting something. Am I forgetting something? 

It’s pretty confusing. I am scared of becoming convinced of something like 2+2=5 if you tell a person enough times, like in that book 1984. Maybe the whole world is really like that, and the world trade centre really just fell accidentally and there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and you can convince a person that the world has always been the way it is and nothing of the past atrocities brought us to this “progress”. But then what do memories serve us for? To confuse us? To make us suffer because of the incongruences?...

What I’ve come to realize since the time I wrote that email is that in this world it is dangerous to believe what others tell you about yourself. Hitler, for example, surrounded himself with yes-men, people who agreed with his every word and told him his every idea was genius. Isn’t the same equally true if others are constantly beating us down and telling us what a failure we are and how unlikely we are to succeed? We need not surround ourselves with only our worshippers and we don’t have to believe our oppressors, but the truest stories are sometimes those we write ourselves. The story of Vanessa is best written by Vanessa; and if I want to describe a positive person, then I have to build my story to allow myself to become that positive person. It’s taken me a while to figure that out, but my story is a work in progress.