loss

One of my classmates threw himself off the roof of my dorm this month.  I don't know which door he exited through, but in my head I see him walking by my door, trying the roof door, finding it open, stepping out into the sunshine, seeing our spectacular city views.

My blood ran cold when I heard the news.  Right before I left for vacation, I tried the doors to the roof right.  They were locked.  They were locked every time I tried them, so I quickly gave up trying.

In my head, because I'm in graduate school - maybe I would have been late to work that day, or maybe I would have come home for lunch - I see myself maybe bumping into him as he got off the elevator, asking how he was doing, what he was doing back on campus.  Maybe he would have tried the door and I would have been really excited to see it was open to finally get to go out on the roof with him.  And we would have chatted, and he would have gone right back down the elevator back to whatever he was doing before.  I don't recall ever speaking more than a few words to him, but my friends say he was nice, smart, and really together.  He had just finished his MD.

* * *

I've gotten a few midnight calls from a classmate.  I always picked up the phone because I was always scared that it was something like this.  He always reassured me that he didn't have a plan, and I reassured him that he would be an amazing physician, and that all the difficulties he was struggling through would give him compassion and heart for his patients.  It would all be worth it in the end.

The news and administration did not release the name of the jumper for hours.  I worried.  I finally called him, mistakenly called his house number at 10 pm, and his mom picked up.  I apologized profusely, then texted the number she gave me.  How are you doing? He was great.  He'd finished, had a great first year of residency.  The cloud had lifted.  He was studying for Step 3 exams and was really happy.  I was so happy for him.

* * *

I tried to be a robot in undergraduate, but it didn't work so well.  I had the most amazing grades, a few good friends I saw maybe once or twice a week, and was depressed out of my mind because I hadn't yet figured out that I was an extrovert and locking myself in a room alone made me miserable.

I was afraid of the grayness, the constriction of emotion, the flatness in which there is nothing to look forward to the next day or the next or the next.  I knew I couldn't face another episode of depression, so I made it a point to be healthy, to take care of myself. 

Mediocrity?  Yes.  Sanity?  Worth it.  I've had enough time in graduate school to take care of my heart, to figure out some pressing issues in my own life, to meet people and think about finding someone to spend my life with.   

Sometimes I wish I could be the kind of student I was in undergrad, but I am a much happier person than I was then, and I have grown tremendously over the past six years of medical and graduate school.  I don't regret the friends I have made, the fun I have had, the vacations I have spent with family.  We only come this way once.  

I am glad that I took the time to build community, to make friends, to work on my life and relationships.  It isn't the kind of thing that goes on your resume or gets measured in numbers.  But this reminds me that it is the most important thing in life, and that life matters more than success, and success with no one to share it with is hollow.

 * * *

My classmate from all reports had good relationships with his friends and family.   He had just come back from vacation and posted the pictures online.  I don't know what kind of pain he was suffering from, what was going through his mind.  Depression is a scary beast, and it is one I have had (fortunately) only circumscribed encounters with.

Therapy was one of the best things I could have done for myself, even if it was a little awkward going to the psychiatrist and hoping that you wouldn't run into anyone you knew in the waiting room (or going to the restroom the moment the door began to open so you wouldn't see them).  Medical students want to be perfect, invulnerable, together and "with-it", but we're not.  Some of the times when I was "with-it" most academically were the times I was falling to pieces in my personal life, in my head, in my emotions and integrity.

Get over the stigma and go.  I had friends bug me for a year to go, and I was too proud to do it.  I didn't need help.  I was going to journal my way out, power through like I did before.  After their repeated nagging, I finally, reluctantly made an appointment and dragged myself into therapy. 

* * *

It's only in retrospect that it frightens me what I was thinking.  I was obsessed with the possibility that I might get into an accident.  I rode dangerously, took stupid risks.  I would think about it for the entirety of my commute to and from school, and almost every time I would think about staging an accident - easy enough to do, not improbable, not something anyone would guess.  But I was too scared of how much it would hurt, and that it would be really traumatic for the driver and my family and friends, and I knew that it wasn't really what I wanted, but I thought obsessively over it.  I knew I wouldn't.  But I thought about it often.

I could track my progress in getting better by how carefully I rode.  One milestone to recovery was the day I realized I was afraid of getting in an accident because I was happy, and another was when I stopped obsessing over accidents at all and just rode cautiously.

Dear medical and graduate students, realize that no matter how with-it, together, happy your friends look, you are not alone in struggling.  All of us struggle; some of us hide it better than others.  Tragically, some of us hide it so well no one guesses it until it is too late.  Get help.  It's okay.  Lots of us do, and it doesn't make you weak or not "with-it" or go on your record as a permanent black mark.

Going to therapy was one of the best decisions I ever made (besides deciding not to go straight to medical school, partially because I feared another depression).  Or talk to a friend, talk to someone, to anyone.  Life is worth it.