You are crazy.......

Me - No i'm not
You - You are mentally unstable
Me- No, i'm not
You - You have mental health issues
Me- ummmm, maybe

Friend- Why would you write about being depressed on a public blog? You shouldn't have done that. Nigerians are very judgmental people. They will see you as defective and crazy and will look down on you.

I know someone who refused to go see a psychologist to assess his need for anger management and would rather go to jail, all because if he went to see one, it meant they thought he was mad and he wasn't mad. Of course, said person is a Nigerian. I know how the average nigerian views mental health issues. But that's not my problem. The reason i wrote about my experience was to let anyone who might be going through the same thing  know that they are not alone and they can and should get help. I don't care if that means narrow minded faceless people on the internet now think less of me and have ammunition to use to insult me. The people who the post was meant for would appreciate it and that's all that matters.

25% of all med students become depressed. 1 in 4, that's a lot and it's mostly situational depression. Med schools are getting better at identifying and providing resources. My school is pretty good about it, actually very good. We get random emails about it, secure online services and they are very good at getting you what you need,. I heard about 2 interns who killed themselves in August after a month of internship. Medicine can be brutal. 300-400 doctors kill themselves every year. We can't bury our heads in the sand and pretty this does not happen. People who are not depressed don't kill themselves. This is why I am so careful about guarding myself these days. My happiness comes before anything. I will not tolerate any threat to it, either in the form of persons, places or things. If anyone is as much as subtracting from my life, they are gone in a second. I am working really hard to achieve a balance and have a life outside of medicine.

I personally think the worst person is a fellow med student or physician who tries to minimize another med student/physicians experience because they have been through the same thing, so assume they know it all. So what if there is nothing new under the sun, like i was told, that doesn't mean we react to the same things the same way or that because we are both in medicine our experiences are exactly the same. You might have had more social support that the next med student/physician or they might have health issues that you don't have. I hate when people do that. Just shut up and focus on yourself. Your oversabi is not appreciated especially if you are not bringing any positive thing to the table. Face front.

Interviewer- Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Me: I want to be writer who is a doctor

Medicine will never be all my life is about. That's a recipe for disaster. I've had a taste of that and never again

The future looks so much brighter. I feel so blessed because the negatives turned out to be positive.
A classic case of a blessing in disguised. This is what happens when you hang in there and get the help that you need. Sooner or later, it stops raining and the sun starts to shine again.

 P.S. I hate it when people go on and on about how they haven't heard from me when they themselves haven't contacted me at all. The last time i checked, it takes two to stay in contact. It's one thing if they tried to reach me and i know that bad as i am, i am pretty good at responding to people. Some of my friends need to be reset as they are forgetting themselves especially the ones with wives. SMH.