anyone else feeling depressed?

[chasingmytail]

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I am.
Disclaimer: I'm sorry I'm gonna vent a lil now so you can go away if you don't like these kinds of posts, but if you're bored read on:

I just don't know if this is feasible....I took half my pre-reqs in college and recently started the postbacc in the Fall to complete them, but withdrew from Physics, Orgo I, and Stats mid semester because I was working full-time, had no time to study, didn't wanna screw my GPA over, and was sick of listening to pre-med committee advisors tell me "you need a 3.8 or you won't get in to med school." My GPA is already about 3.2.

So that was a mistake, I realize that now. I am persistent though and am taking these classes again this Spring with less work hours. After working in clinical settings I realized, I REALLY do want this. I can't picture doing anything else.

However, I am in debt already from college, and definitely not making enough to make ends meet and live on my own with these classes now. I have some family support (parents) but I'm 22 and feel like a total moocher. I drive 40 minutes to get to work and school and 40 minutes back every day (w/o traffic). I'm a female so I worry about having kids and a family on time, yadda yadda yadda. It's totally difficult maintaining a relationship when you're so busy all the time and I feel I can't balance a realtionship with trying to get to med school and a pretty much full-time job and commuting to work/school/bf's place. But at the same time I don't want to be one of those lonely cat women! By the time I'm in med school, at 24 or 25 I feel like everyone will be married or something.

I'm so confused. I don't mind the debt, but I do mind not having people around me....this post-bacc thing is such a lonely existence when everyone else goes out and you're always busy.... I don't know, I'm just depressed. Sorry, just wondering if anyone else shares these feelings....DOes it take time to get used to the lifestyle? I applaud the mothers, fathers, spouses, and full-timers - you guys are superhuman or something....no, actually I guess you're just amazing, future doctors!

 

[sistahnik]

Hello chasingmytail!!! I think that you are being a little unreasonable with yourself. First of all, you live at home and have support from your family, second of all, if you need to concentrate on school and not work you can. You are 22 and it sounds like you have no serious obligations such as a car note, rent, etc,. I think you are worrying about things that will come on its own timing, like marriage. If you are sure that you want to go into medicine, then you need to concentrate on doing those things that will get you there and not settling down with children at such an early age. Also, not everyone in med school will have already gotten married or had children yet. Just try to think about things from a different perspective and appreciate the position that you are in. Now I'm only assuming that you live at home because you said that you couldn't afford to live on your own. Lastly, it's a good thing that you live at home because you can try to work part-time to pay off some of your school loans if you wanted to without having the added pressure of other bills. Just wanted to give a little advice from my viewpoint!! Good luck with your classes and keep your head up!! 😍

 

[remo]

Why don't you try just taking 1 class so you can get into the swing of things? Physics and orgo are some of the toughest and taking those and stats while working and commuting would be too much for anyone.

 

[blee]

I mean this in the most positive way: You're feeling down over a situation that was practically set up for failure from the beginning. Very, very few people can pull off a full-time work schedule and a 12-credit course load. It was not a smart idea to start your post-bacc year this way, and you paid the price.

chasingmytail -- no guarantees, but I bet you have what it takes to do this. The trick is to know your limits, and I'd say that you unequivocally reached beyond them this semester. If you were to take those courses without working, or take only one or two classes while working a reduced schedule, you would at least be giving yourself a fair shot at success.

As for your other concerns, I wonder how many of them you are magnifying because of your blue mood. I've been there; I understand how you feel. While everyone has to make their own value judgements, I can only tell you that I would be a miserable husband/father/member of society if I did not love myself first. All of the other things in life can and will fall into place themselves, but nothing will happen if you lack confidence in yourself and happiness in the little niche you make for youself in this world. Again, I've been there, and I continue to struggle with random little things from time to time...but if you could somehow do a side-by-side comparison between me today and me three years ago, you might not be able to see any similarity.

One last note -- if you think you'd feel old as a 25-year-old M1, you need to spend more time in the nontrad forum. 🙂 I will turn 29 four months into med school, and I'm younger than many of the most frequent posters here.

 

[happydays]

Prioritize. What's more important to you? focus on that first.

 

[chasingmytail]

Thanks for the support all. You guys are so optimistic; it's good to have that perspective! I know I should just suck it up and do what I gotta do, but when thoughts wander it's hard to stay focused and then I get down on myself. I also know I need to be tougher in order to get where I want but hopefully that'll emerge with experience.

I have a question though. As for these W's that I decided to take in place of sucking it up earlier....if I manage to excel this semester, do you think they will be overlooked? I mean I'm sure if I prove myself on the MCAT and further classes it's not gonna be that big a deal. If adcoms ask questions though, do I just tell them the truth that I took on more than I could handle or is that condemning?

Of course I am considering all the paths including MD, DO, ND, and foreign....as long as I can pursue medicine.

 

[JimmyG]

You know, chasingmytail, I have talked about this before a little either here or on mommd.com (you been there? great site..), but I think sometimes us females worry too much about the "supposed to" (i.e. being a wife, being a mother, balancing relationships) aspect of life. Don't worry about the unknowns; just work on what you DO know about you and that is trying to go to medical school. This is the turning point for you. You are young, I promise. At 22, I also felt that I needed to work hard on relationships because if I didn't, everyone would be married by 25-26. Now that I'm closer to 30, I have so many unmarried, childless, happy friends who took advantage of their "alone" time to advance their careers, travel, and just live their lives. Look at your life in this perspective. If medical school is your dream and the career you would like to persue, then I would full force go for it. I agree with the other posters that you must be able to love yourself before you can give to others. This is a special time you have with your family, enjoy it!! Your experience in getting into medical school will be a learning and growing experience--maybe one meaningful enough to touch on it in a PS 🙂 Good luck. It will all be ok.

 

[bubbleyum]

yes, i am feeling depressed...

 

[adennis]

I often hear women lamenting when they will have children while going through this adventure.. I also hear many non-trads worrying about GPAs and MCAT scores etc...I think part of this is part of being a neurotic premed (no offense - it's a fact - I was one too)...the first acceptance you get all of that will go away.. grades to matter.. but all the premed advisors that are feeding you a load of crap about a 34+ MCAT and a 4.0 GPA being required to get into school should be shot.. You will have to explain the "W's" on your transcript... but it shouldn't be a big deal.. better to explain a W than an F or D on a recent transcript..

As far as everything else... just let me share something about myself...
I've always done everything backwards... I got married very young.. worked for a long time.. had kids.. worked more... then finally went back to school... I went back to school after I'd been married 8+ years and when my kids were 4 and 2 years old...the hardest part of all of it was making the decision to quit my job - dropping that 2nd income and taking a huge leap into something that I had NO CLUE I could pull off....

The hardest thing now is to try to retrofit school/studying into "life"...my husband doesn't get it.. my kids don't understand.. I got a homemade christmas card from my son that said he was glad I didn't have to worry about school this christmas... talk about depressing..

I digress..

the point is.. don't worry about having kids now... you are VERY young.. you are better off knowing what you want and pursuing your dreams NOW than when you have soooo many responsibilities...if you want to have children at some point, in schoo, residency or later.. you'll have them.. you'll make them fit into your life.. you'll know what to expect at that point so you'll know what to do.. how to handle family etc.. it will be a much easier transition for you... take your time.. make good, well-thought decisions... don't obsess about what will happen for the rest of your life with family etc...
if it's meant to happen.. it'll happen..

good luck to you.

 

[VelcroSky]

Hi there. I'm not trying to invalidate your feelings, but believe me, 22 is very young. To me, it seems like you've got an incredible headstart. I'm a pre-vet post-bac student. I'm also 31. I have at least another year after this one before I can start vet school. I can definately relate to your feelings. About two years ago when I was still trying to decide whether or not to go for this seemingly insane dream a friend of mine put it into perspective. She said, you could decide not to do this but in ten years from now where will you be? I could be a practicing doctor or the alternative of working some job that is not really what I want to be doing. In fact, if I follow this dream, in ten years I will be glad that I did it and these extra years in between won't mean a thing.

Also, I wonder where you are from. It seems different places have different standards as to what constitutes "old". I'm from NY. I have lots of friends in the city who are around 30 and still are not settled down into either marriage or a career of any sort. I guess you could say that 30 is the new 20 if you want to be corny about it. Trust me when I tell you that when you are 30 you will look back at 22 as very young.

But the doubts are a natural part of this whole process, I think. I have days when I'm totally charged up and excited about what I'm doing and then I have days when I'm totally depressed thinking I must be insane for trying this. I get lonely because I feel like I'm the only one trying to do this when I sit in my classes filled with 20 year olds and I have had to put any hopes of relationships on hold. On those days that I'm feeling like this, I try not to focus on the long term scheme of things. I don't even think about what I'm doing, trying to become a vet. I just focus on the day, what I'm doing now. That way it doesn't seem all so daunting.

I hope that something I said in there helps. The bottom line here I think, is what I said before. Just think about down the line when you're graduated from med school. Will you really be bummed out that you took the years to further your goals or will you be glad you did it?