persistence

The other day a survivor of sexual assault as a child came to speak to our class. From childhood to puberty she'd been abused by her father. She was amazingly in tune with how she felt back then, how she feels now, and everything she had to go through in between. I admired very much her emphasis on surviving over being victimized. The thing she said that struck me most was how she described the physical effects of her trauma as persistent. Not continuous, necessarily, but ever latent. Neck pain, sore throat, jaw aches every so often. It drew attention to the way this is embedded in her identity as much as everything else. Afterwards I asked her whether this persistence applies to emotional pain, too. As someone whose feelings have too strong of a memory and who can't concentrate after anything remotely emotional happens, I was so impressed by her capacity to carry with her all of that, to be at home with continual feeling of this sort. Besides flashbacks and the like, how often does she consciously think about it? She said, often, but not about the actual events--more about what to do with it, how to proceed with what she has. That is conscious, and persistent.

I've been told that I'm too self-aware, and I know this to be true and how sometimes damaging it can be. So to see someone with such extreme self-awareness that wasn't crippling, in the face of so much that could be, that was a source of survival, was so strong and amazing to me. We're always being told that practicing medicine is a privilege, and really most things in my life are privileges. Being new means that it's still surprising, when you realize people share with you for a reason, with an expectation that you will remember and use it as to not waste their gift, and that you are working to live up to this trust. I know how idealistic that all is and how much of it is inevitably consumed in stress, worry, limitations, and so on; how sometimes you're not given the trust at all and how other times you are and you fail. But to be given the chance? I will always take it.

My chest pain is 99% gone. The sensation was so sharp while it was there that now every time I breathe or laugh without pain, I'm aware of its absence. I find myself breathing in more often and more deeply to feel it, and am reminded that that's persistent too.