moving on from a bad day...

yesterday was horrible. Completely horrible. So many things were just a huge challenge and in general I was fairly overwhelmed by workload and stressload and bad news from home etc. I was mostly coping outwardly, then  in the afternoon I had GP placement so I hoped it wouldn't be too stressful or difficult and tried to look forward to it...I had missed the workshop a few weeks ago when we looked at the cardiovascular examination, and the GP in charge of me was aware of that (I said straight away) and made me do it anyway - but I just had no idea. Doing that on a real patient, who was already quite upset because of the nature of her visit just made me feel awful - I didn't want to mess her around, and I was going into the examination blind - having just watched a video about the procedure a few weeks ago. I managed to fumble through it - obviously unsure - but she was patient and lovely about it all. I was so unbelievably relieved to have finished, and managing to hold things together to get through to the end of placement (we had about half an hour left) until ten minutes later he made me do it again. I actually declined verbally several times but he wouldn't take no for an answer. I'm honestly so proud that I didn't cry in front of the patient - I came so, so close. Just managed to keep outwardly mostly composed...only by grace!

In that kind of a situation,  I don't cope very well. My confidence is quite shaky, and I can be very 'all or nothing' with my thinking, so when I'm in a position of being pushed beyond what I genuinely believe my limits are, I can go into shutdown. My whole mind just fills up with how much of a failure I am, how awful I must be in every way, that I should just hide away from everyone in the shame of being such a horrible person and such a mess... Once my head's full of all that going on to that extent, I just can't function properly and aspects of the situation I would usually be okay with just fall apart, and it all becomes a cycle again. I hid out in starbucks and listened to a song (which I'll post at the end) over and over...it was a real blessing to get that space.



I then went to team night at church, feeling pretty rubbish. Held it all together there (very challenged though to make a huge decision that is not at all easy about my life - more on that one later..) but when I got home I was just overwhelmed by self-destructive thoughts and skipped the second half of my meal plan for the day, then made myself sick (totally pointlessly even in terms of food).

I then spent some time on the phone to a friend who said something very useful:
'we all have a level of stress that we can take - except my 'bar' is constantly filled halfway because of my eating disorder and all those thoughts and emotions that I constantly have to work through in the background that most other people don't. Because of that, I can go beyond my limit maybe more than other people - but that's totally to be expected, and I shouldn't beat myself up about it. It is how it is, and it won't always be that way...'
 True: so reasonable, and so true.

Looking at the situation this morning, I can see the facts so much more clearly:considering I had missed a workshop and not learned or practiced properly, and I actually probably did quite well. I'm good at building relationship with patients and was kind to them and hopefully able to put them at ease. I managed to take her blood pressure (which I'd only ever done once before on a fellow student) and remember most aspects of the examination.

A bad day is a bad day. It was horrible; it was painful; I messed up; I made mistakes. But I'm human. God's grace is more than enough for me - more than enough.I have a presentation this morning that I've not had time to prepare; my kitchen is a mess because of flatmates not tidying up their dirty plates/pans etc (and I promised not to clean other people's things - as much as I like to); I'd really quite like to not follow my meal plan today. All these things cause me lots of anxiety but today is a new day. His grace is sufficient and He loves me, despite everything.

Off I go! This is the song that helped me survive yesterday: