This post was included in the Patients for a Moment: Starting Fresh blog carnival hosted at chronicbabe.com.
A couple of months ago I started a new job. My Twitter friends were probably sick to death of hearing me talk about job applications – it took an entire year and a half to get one. I did find a good job finally and I’m happy about that, but it’s also hard to let go of the career I was SUPPOSED to have. Since high school, I worked towards a medical career. I took the advanced science classes – and sacrificed sleep to pass them. I put in the hours of lab research and community service. I shadowed doctors at ridiculously early hours of the morning. I even got in to a great medical school program and started attending classes. Then the lupus reared its ugly head and all of a sudden that dream was just gone. There was no way the crazy hours and high stress levels were going to get along with my lupus, so I was forced to leave the medical program. I think I’m still mourning that loss. I see my new job as a poor substitute for the life I wanted, and that just isn’t a great way to face the world. It certainly doesn’t help that my new job is in clinical research – a field that I was trying to run far away from because I knew it wasn’t where I wanted to be. It’s definitely not something I want to do full time for the rest of my life.
It’s so frustrating when people say things like “Oh well, that’s ok, you can just find another career.” Well, sure, I can find another career, but it won’t be the career I wanted. The one that I dreamed about and spent 10 years working towards. That one was taken away from me by factors beyond my control. I know people mean well, but those comments just aren’t helpful. And then there are comments that I get from other members of the chronic disease community. Things like “Why can’t you just be grateful that you can even manage to work fulltime. I’m never going to be able to do that again. I wish I could work somewhere – anywhere.” I get where they’re coming from. The loss of life goals and feeling like we’re stuck on the fringes of society outside the circles of “respectable” citizens that do their part is a very difficult part of the chronic disease reality. I certainly don’t mean to undermine their feelings when I complain about my job situation, but I also shouldn’t have to hide my feelings from my friends. Everyone’s life is affected differently by these diseases, even if the overarching themes are the same.
It probably isn’t great for my mental health to see my life in this pessimistic light all the time. So I think my new goal is going to be to remember that just because this is where I’m working now doesn’t mean that this is where I need to end up. I’m not stuck here and it’s time to stop being so bitter about what I’ve lost and start thinking about what I can still achieve DESPITE the lupus. It sounds so simple in theory, but I think it’s going to be even harder than I can possibly imagine. But all I can do is to try to keep steering myself towards the attitude that I want not the one that comes so easily right now. I may have started my job a couple of months ago, but I think the true fresh start is happening now.