So, I’m guessing someone in our class is actually a psych major. I may be deathly afraid of you, heads up.
Growing up I had a few best friends, two of which were the daughters of psychiatrists. One of them introduced me to psychedelics at a young age, passed notes to me in between class on darkly things and broken glass, and absolutely hated her mother. The other listened solely to nature sounds while beating her fists on her walls, insisted I call her beautiful, and definitely hated her father. I used to want to be a psychiatrist. I was really into chatting with the quiet folk on AIM, dishing out “panaceas” and advice based on nothing I had experienced outside of the movies. However, when I became a sophomore in high school, I recognized that having fucked up, hateful kids was not a goal of mine, and my fucked up friends convinced me to pursue a different career.
Really, I’m too emotional and I don’t want to be constantly aware of the science of my mind. It’s supposed to be a mystery up there. Right? I don’t want to know I’m not really in love, just suffering a chemical imbalance, or have access to artificial medicines that could so easily change who I am. Anyhow it amazes me how some people are able to sit there for hours, listen to people’s horrific lives, and prescribe them pills to…make them better. Wax paper? I am a sponge. The same goes for rape crisis counselors. I don’t know how they do it!
I volunteered at a domestic violence center on a Navajo reservation over spring break, and was amazed at how the workers functioned. They joked around the entire time singing “Woolly Bully” and playing pranks on one another. At the same time single mothers my age with their possibly tainted children stumbled up the steps of the makeshift trailer, seeking shelter. I know over time, optimism is the only way to survive constant strife, and I want to make a difference in the lives of those who seek it, but I can’t disconnect myself from people so easily and I really don’t want fucked up kids.
I know what you mean about the whole optimism thing. For ASB, I volunteered at camp heartland, which is a camp for kids affected by cancer. Man, the workers there were some of the funniest, upbeat people I’ve ever met. I think you got to be that kind of person, really, in order to handle seeing so much suffering. But at the same time being a psychiatrist or rape counselor is a little different, because, as you said, there needs to be a certain disconnect between you and the patient. So where does that disconnect come from? How do they do it? Could make for an interesting interview.
I agree that being a psychiatrist must be kind of a scary job. Do you think that you would lose the ability to just interact normally with people, instead becoming too analytical and diagnosing yourself and your friends with all kinds of disorders? I’ve also wondered if, as a psychiatrist, you would ever discover that no single person you have ever encountered is actually normal. Would that make you question the validity of psychiatry, or just the sanity of the world we live in.