thoroughly psyched

my psych rotation was an interesting one and i loved the people i worked with. the amount of effort going into end-of-term thank you cards is usually proportional to level of attachment i have to them. although i didn't have much time to whip up the cards, the fact that i used my precious shrinky dink paper and got out the watercolors is indicative of how much i liked the psychs =) was even a tad sad on the last day at not being able to know the outcome of our inpatients' admission. i surprised even myself that i cared that much o.0

now, it's onto my general practice attachment. two days immersed with an awesome gp in a room so cold that polar bears could call it home... couple that with a steady stream of coughing, spluttering, feverish, miserable patients... my poor immune system was overwhelmed =(

despite having moved onto a new rotation, i think i'm still suffering from a psych hangover. a patient of ours came in just last week with a bunch of angry red lines across his back. he was requesting morphine of course. i'm not quite there yet but i gave myself another surprise when i woke up with an ouch. toddled over to the mirror in that half awake state and freaked myself out with what i saw. it was a very wtf?! moment. if i was superstitious, or had this happened a few weeks ago on that friday the thirteenth, i could have probably convinced myself that i had an unsolicited visit from some dark sinister thing. the next thing that popped into my head was a mental picture of me with baby gloves on. and one of those frilly baby bonnet things. with the one-piece pajama suits. a straightjacket momentarily flickered, superimposing itself in the already ridiculous mental image. seriously, who the hell scratches themselves like this? impressive scratches, i must admit but just a tad disconcerting that i did this subconsciously. it still hurts in that stinging sorta way, implying that they're not as superficial as i first thought. makes me wonder what other things i do... or have done whilst asleep o.0 i've gone mental =( they say there's a first for everything - this is one i could do without.

trickling along

aches and pains are all i feel
get a massage, what's the big deal?
my bones, indeed they creak and groan
what a worry, i'm no old crone =(

there's something else bothering me
it seems be a thing i can't see
stressing less with what lies ahead
hasn't done much to lift that dread.

oodles of thoughts and feelings
trapped under my big glass ceiling.
my mind and heart, i cannot peg
which came first, chicken or the egg?

an answer i've yet to find,
it's hard to think with a sick mind
not the perverted kind, mind you
an ailing one, one that can't spew.

plans to make and things to do,
facebook brought a surprise or two
yet i seem unable to budge
no flecks of joy from choc'late fudge

the road ahead, i can't see
it all remains fuzzy to me
plain winter blues, or something more?
summer will tell us, that's for sure.

'til this season's come and gone
the curtains will remain all drawn
i'll trickle along, seeking zen
until they open once again.

a complex complex

before i start my babble, pics from taiwan and singapore are at my flickr.

just let me babble. i'm not looking for words of comfort or anything. the thought of physically talking this through with a meatspace friend makes me sick. writing it down's the next best thing and hopefully, the more times i go through the mess in my head, the more sense i can make of it. let me be and trust that i'll sort this through in my own way and in my own time.

psychiatry really messes up one's mind... or maybe it was because i've somehow ended up with a mind that was more susceptible to psychiatric influences, hmmm. whatever the case may be, i've done one week of psych and i already feel like one of my patients. mind you, psych diagnoses are subjective because if you really think about it, nobody's normal per se. how can anyone really define the limits of normal? if such limits were placed, let's say on intelligence.. then genius and idiots are both abnormal and hence need psychiatric help?

my mood of late could be described as depressed. my affect resides in the vicinity of flat. i get teary sometimes for no apparent reason... sometimes as soon as i open my mouth to talk to someone. one'd think that i would've been ecstatic to see old friends whilst in singapore. don't get me wrong, i was glad to see them but there was no familiar lub-dub i would've had during prior visits. it's this fear of raising expectations to find disappointment later on i think. thank you, med school. thank you for teaching me to aim low.

my appearance is decent i guess.. i'm not stepping outta the house disheveled yet but behavior may be described as largely normal save bursts of impulsiveness - was bored, was cold and impulsively went out to splurge over a hundred bucks on a heater for the living room. before that, i planned my trip so i'd get back less than 24hrs before first day of rotation. i never never do things like this.. i always exercise caution and leave myself at least a weekend to recover from a major trip or event. this time, i thought to hell with it.

thought content and processes are normal, but then again.. what exactly is normal? insight's present and judgement is intact, i suppose. you'll have to tell me otherwise. appetite's there.. increased if anything. sleep's fine - i still sleep like a log. suicidality is minimal with fleeting thoughts of "i could so easily cut myself with this knife. i wonder what it would feel like to slit a wrist" while chopping up veggies or something but they disappear as soon as they materialize in my mind. ever since the starting date issue, i've been feeling down, staring into a bleak latter half of the year. nothing seems worth doing and feelings of worthlessness pay a visit now and then. all in all though, i'm far from dsm-iv criteria for depression of any sort though i'm curious to see if taking an antidepressant will make any difference.

while in both taiwan and singapore, people have been asking if i ever get lonely living alone in an apartment better suited for a family rather than a lone person, in a foreign country away from family. i tell them i enjoy my own personal space. i like coming home to my fluffy rug and to the large expanse of a living room, to be greeted by panoramic views of the hills and the ocean beyond. i don't necessarily need to surround myself with roommates or comany all the time to get by. what i do want is to belong. i want to belong, to find my niche and some sort of stability along with it. i want to belong at school, at work and most of all, in lfe because right now, i don't know where the hell i'm at.