Journal

Thought id give you guys an update on my life up till now

My mother died of breast cancer when i was eight. She had panic disorder and OCD, so when she went to her GP complaining of a lump on her breast he sent her away with a presciption for valium and told her "not to worry about it". By the time she saw a specialist six months later, the cancer had metastasized and there was nothing that could be done for her. Looking back, i think this was when most of my problems started.

My father remarried quickly. I now know he had been having an affair for some time, and my older sister and I moved in with him and our new stepmother. I don't resent her at all, but she and my sister never got on. When I was twelve, my sixteen year old sister developed anorexia. She was hospitalised after a suicide attempt, and has spent the last ten years in and out of psychiatric institutions.

I realised early on that i wanted to be able to help others like my mother and sister, and after seeing them both misdiagnosed and mistreated by so many psychiatrists, I decided to become a doctor. I hope that I will be able to use my experiences to help other patients. I did biomed first year (a compeditive pre-medicine intermediate year) at Auckland university.  It was difficult, but i was determined to get in, so I studied hard.

Half way through my second year of medical school I discovered I was pregnant. The timing couldn't have been worse: I was nineteen, in full time study and my boyfriend and I had only been going out six months. Choosing to keep the baby would mean putting my dreams on hold. It was hard, but I've never regretted my decision.

It should have been an easy pregnancy. I was young and healthy and in a long term stable relationship. But being a med student, I knew all about everything that could possibly go wrong during the pregnancy and convinced myself that every one of them was happening to me. I would moniter my heart rate and blood pressure five times a day: If they were too high, I convinced myself that i had pre-eclamsia. If my baby stopped kicking for a minute, i was sure he had died. I drove myself mad worrying about what to eat and how much weight i should be gaining.

Oliver was born in April 2007 and weighed a healthy 3.8 kilos. I took two years off med school to raise him while my partner worked full time. These were the hardest years of my life. I missed the intellectual stimulation of university, and after the excitement of the birth was over i became isolated from my friends. I woke up several times every night convinced that my baby had died of SIDS, and had to check on him every few minutes to be sure he was still alive. My partner tried to persuade me to seek help, but i refused to admit there was anything wrong with me.

I failed to lose my pre-pregancy weight and found myself eating for comfort. I took my son to see my sister, and she told me if she was ever as fat as me she would kill herself. I began to diet excessivly, so much so that i was unable to breastfeed my baby. I was convinced that i was fat and ugly and that my partner wasn't attracted to me any more. Looking back, I realise I probably had post natal depression.

This year things began looking up. I put my son in childcare and went back to university. A friend  friend pursaded me to see my GP, and I was diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder and put on medication.

I am very grateful to my wonderful boyfriend for staying with me through all this. Thank you also to my father, stepmother, sister and my wonderful boyfriend's mother for being there for for me and to all my friends for your support. :)