Hey guys....so I'm a second year student getting ready to take Step 1 in about a month. Just looking for any advice or a different perspective. The past two years of med school have been really difficult for me. I had a lot of personal events occur during the summer before M1 that changed me a lot and I even considered deferring my start, but in the end decided that maybe starting something new would be a good distraction. This turned out to be a huge mistake and I became extremely depressed over the course of the year in a way that I never thought was possible. Couldn't go to class, would stay in bed til past noon most days, eating barely anything. I would manage to study a couple hours each day and cram for tests at the last minute and somehow managed to scrape by and just barely pass mostly due to having a pretty good science foundation prior to med school. The worst was that I hid this from everyone. I had never been a depressed person before and hate showing weakness. I lied to my friends and family about how I was doing, but I slowly began isolating myself from everyone. It wasn't until the last couple months of M1 that things became unbearable and I finally told my family how I was feeling. At this point, I was on the phone crying with my mom every night, not sleeping, unable to eat or study. During exams, it was a struggle to even focus on what I was reading and block out everything else that consumed me. I still put a smile on whenever I was forced to be at school and I don't think anyone would have ever guessed what was going on behind closed doors.
I finally ended up failing our last two blocks and had to remediate over the summer. I came home for the couple weeks before the remediation exams and that's when I really fell apart. My parents had me start seeing a psychiatrist and therapist and I started taking anti-depressants. Going back to school for remediation was torture. I remember breaking down crying as soon as I got back to my apartment and remembered all the miserable nights I had spent there the past year feeling so hopeless and alone. I was ready to give up then but my parents insisted that I keep trying and not throw my future away and even offered to help pay for school as an incentive. Somehow I managed to pass remediation and spent the rest of the summer in therapy and taking my meds in the hopes that second year would be better.
M2 hasn't been much better...I've continued my therapy with doctors near school, but I feel like this hasn't helped me much. My family seems to think anti-depressants are magic pills and accuse me of not taking them because they don't understand how I can still be in so much pain. I still find it incredibly difficult to focus and motivate myself and I've become even more isolated and alone. Even though I've managed to make it through classes, I don't think I will be able to pull this off on the boards. I was supposed to start my dedicated studying a week ago but instead have just been laying around my apartment crying and drinking. I feel like I'm at the point where I can't keep living like this and want to give up but I don't know what I would do besides sitting at home, which would probably make me feel worse. I wanted to be a doctor all of my life and worked so hard to get here and once wanted this so badly. I know I will regret it one day if I give up now and I feel like if I take a leave of absence, I won't come back. And it sucks because I know I could have done so much better.
Should I just try to push through and take Step 1 as scheduled? I've made it this far...but feel completely unprepared at this point. Or should I take a leave and try to study for it again in a few months? Or just give up completely because this field is too stressful and will cause me to relapse in the future? I really do want my life to get better and despite everything that has happened, I still feel hope that things have to get better one day, even though I know I have to put in the work to get there.
Thanks so much if you read all of that and for any advice you can offer.
I finally ended up failing our last two blocks and had to remediate over the summer. I came home for the couple weeks before the remediation exams and that's when I really fell apart. My parents had me start seeing a psychiatrist and therapist and I started taking anti-depressants. Going back to school for remediation was torture. I remember breaking down crying as soon as I got back to my apartment and remembered all the miserable nights I had spent there the past year feeling so hopeless and alone. I was ready to give up then but my parents insisted that I keep trying and not throw my future away and even offered to help pay for school as an incentive. Somehow I managed to pass remediation and spent the rest of the summer in therapy and taking my meds in the hopes that second year would be better.
M2 hasn't been much better...I've continued my therapy with doctors near school, but I feel like this hasn't helped me much. My family seems to think anti-depressants are magic pills and accuse me of not taking them because they don't understand how I can still be in so much pain. I still find it incredibly difficult to focus and motivate myself and I've become even more isolated and alone. Even though I've managed to make it through classes, I don't think I will be able to pull this off on the boards. I was supposed to start my dedicated studying a week ago but instead have just been laying around my apartment crying and drinking. I feel like I'm at the point where I can't keep living like this and want to give up but I don't know what I would do besides sitting at home, which would probably make me feel worse. I wanted to be a doctor all of my life and worked so hard to get here and once wanted this so badly. I know I will regret it one day if I give up now and I feel like if I take a leave of absence, I won't come back. And it sucks because I know I could have done so much better.
Should I just try to push through and take Step 1 as scheduled? I've made it this far...but feel completely unprepared at this point. Or should I take a leave and try to study for it again in a few months? Or just give up completely because this field is too stressful and will cause me to relapse in the future? I really do want my life to get better and despite everything that has happened, I still feel hope that things have to get better one day, even though I know I have to put in the work to get there.
Thanks so much if you read all of that and for any advice you can offer.
