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How Are You? Really.
I follow many physician entrepreneurs for encouragement, one of these is Sunny Smith, who has a coaching business called Empowering Women Physicians. I opened up her latest newsletter. The words punched my heart: One of the members of their community died by suicide. While the good news is physician death by suicide has decreased, the gut-shocking news is that it is still higher among female physicians.
Why?
We can blame medical training in general, corporate medicine, and patriarchy to name a few institutions that lead highly compassionate people (often women) to feel as if they are stuck, trapped, failures, demoralized, imposters, and frauds.
You don’t have to be a physician to experience this. Not by any means.
Part of what is so devastating for women is that everyone around us, your co-workers, society, your institutions are saying the system you live and breathe in, “Is normal.” Well, if that’s the case then I must be abnormal. I must be the problem.
No. Nope. I’m not. And you’re not.
It’s worth repeating in all caps: YOU ARE NOT THE PROBLEM.
The worst part of it all is the guilt. Oh, the guilt. The gratitude jar (even though I love the practice of gratitude) sometimes makes it worse. So often we hear this: “I have a great job—my patients/clients love me, my kids are amazing, I have a beautiful house, perfect neighborhood . . . " It’s not selfish if it’s all insta-worthy to still say, you’re not happy, something isn't right, you want something different.
I was in therapy with my partner two summers ago and I said these very words to the therapist: “I have no right to complain.” The therapist gently pointed out that, actually, yes I had every right to be upset, and no, it was not complaining, and I promptly burst into ugly tears.
As I have felt, and as I often observe with my patients, it’s rare that someone truly wants to die, what they want, is to not feel trapped. Trapped by suffering, those nasty lies manufactured by depression, trapped by economics, trapped in a career that no longer fits them, a partnership, an abusive or toxic situation.
Here it is again in all caps if you or a woman you love needs to read this: YOU ARE NOT THE PROBLEM
HAVING IT “ALL” DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN’T WANT SOMETHING DIFFERENT
And most important: YOU ARE NEVER ALONE.
Please don’t hesitate to call 988, make an appointment with your doctor, tap into someone and say, I’m not doing well . . .
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