Immaturity
I've been meaning to write a post about this for a while, so I'm glad I'm getting to it today. I'm noticing that I'm very immature compared to people my age, doing the thing that I'm doing (medicine). Now, when I say immature, I don't mean to tie maturity and nerdiness together. They are separate and independent entities. There are a lot of people in my class who are mature and nerdy and even some who are mature and cool (well only a couple). But I feel like I'm the only person my age who is both immature and cool. Most of the people here know why they are here, are happy to be here and enjoy it for what it is. They see themselves as adults getting trained in a discipline that they will devote their lives too. See themselves as adults is the key phrase here. I don't see myself as an adult yet....in fact, I still feel like a teenager most days. I whine and complain like a kid, I look at things through a kid's eyes and in all sorts of respects act just like a child. More examples: I have a child-like relationship with my parents, I can't seem to keep a balanced budget, I ignore bills because I think that if I ignore them they'll go away, I have this incessent urge to drive like a maniac even though I should be past this, I still have very low self-confidence, I can't defend myself, I can't set correct priorities, I can't be strong and careful when it comes to boys. And I'm sure there's a lot more that I can't even remember now. What has made me like this? Well, I'm pretty confident that it's a product of the emotional abuse I suffered when I was a child, combined with the fact that I didn't have friends until college. Plus, some of it may just be due to me being gay. Because my parent's were so cruel to me, I am still yearning for them to give to me the love and support that I needed as a child, although I should be able to just get it myself and say "Fuck you" to them. Everytime I get on the phone with my mom, I feel like I'm in high school again, wanting so much from her, yet never getting enough. I don't even talk to my dad because I still can't get over what he did to me. Because they continue to treat me in a way that doesn't acknowledge my needs, I can't have a normal adult relationship with them. So in essence, they still are hurting me today...though, it's truly my inability to come to grips with it and how they will never be what I need, that really hurts me. So sad. And because I didn't have any friends when I was a kid (I had aweful experiences with friends and concluded in high school that I didn't need them...big mistake), when I got to college (after I had major depression) I decided that I needed to learn how to be social. Well, it's hard to make up for lost time in just four years, so today I'm still struggling to live the childhood that I wished I had lived. This puts me at complete odds with the concept of a professional school: only adults should be professionals. Now maybe, it's just a product of the environment that I'm in. I rarely felt this way in college where I hung out with fun people all the time and I was one of the more mature ones. But it's like I have taken a leap from rolling on the floor to walking without having the intermediate of crawling. I feel so uncomfortable in my environment. But what can I do? I've set a course and there really isn't a way to get off the boat for a year and get back on. Even if there was, what would I do? Where would I go? This immaturity is possibly something that is pathopneumonic of being gay. Regardless if we were abused or not (although a lot of us have been in some fashion), most of us were not allowed to live as ourselves when we were children so we make up for that by doing things we should have done at 14 at 24. I think it's exceptionally difficult when you don't have anyone in your chosen school who is going through the same thing. I mean, my best friend Mike is going through the same kind of growing pains as he starts his first real job, and it's great to commiserate with him, but it's different because he's not gay or going to be a doctor. It would just be nice to know someone who was in exactly the same situation. The only other gay guy in my class is both really nerdy and doesn't seem immature (at least as the world would say...he may be slightly socially immature). This guy never goes out, enjoys studying and learning and doesn't really complain about it....I can't relate to him very much. Everything is just really hard right now. Yes, it would be easier to just ignore these feelings and maybe this is what makes me a little mature, that I'm so self-actualized. But I can't...ever since the depression, I've sworn to myself I would never have tunnel vision like I did in high school and just ignore the problems. There is a benefit of my continued identification with children: I still remember vividly what it was like to be a kid so I understand kids very well and will be a great child psychiatrist. It also helps me come up with novel research ideas. However, I need to find a way to be mature and still identify with kids without being one. Any advice from you all would be much appreciated.