Fear & Anxiety

Over the past couple weeks, every time someone asked "how are you?", I would reply by saying that I wouldn't know until I have some grades posted. As much as I hate it, this seems to be my world. Forever trapped in the question of whether I'll do well enough on exams to get back to America. I've been enjoying learning so much this month; pharmacology in particular is fascinating, with each clinical vignette being like a riddle that I can actually solve. So although days of studying were draining as usual, I still enjoyed it. Until the tests. Pharmacology was a brutal exam. Like, I hope I passed, but I'm not betting on it. So now I've felt this anxiety creeping on me, and the compulsion to constantly check the grades will hit me again and again.

What I hate is that I know this feeling isn't right. I shouldn't be hit with anxiety over something like this, right? Worry never helped anything. Yet here I am, my feelings tied to the results of my collective knowledge tested on a particular exam.

What do I do with that? Submit it to God? Yeah, trying. Work out for endorphins? Done. Booze it up? Beer in hand and hoping to avoid taking it any further.

When that depressive episode hit me last year as a result of grades and having to stay an extra semester, I couldn't stop it. Prayer, Bible, God, workouts, booze, none of it fixed it. It was like a heavy blanket. I could hold it at bay for a little bit, but the weight of it was still always there. So now that I'm a full-time student again, I'm afraid of the same thing happening. Again. Especially since I've come so far...

I'm eight months away from getting off of this rock. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. But that's only if I don't screw this up. I don't want to spend another Thanksgiving here.

So there it is. I have anxiety about these grades. I want to submit them to God, but don't seem able to when actually confronted with the grades.

As it stands, I think I made at least a 50 on pharm and at least a 70 in path. A year ago, of course, I was sure that I'd made at least a 90 in a class, and that turned out to be a 58.