Scabs & other habits

I've always had a tendency to be  a picker of scabs - its a guilty pleasure, although as a child I seemed to have more opportunities & scabs to pick. Something happens when you get older, I'm not sure it's necessarily acquiring better coordination, more likely less risk taking behavior resulting in less scab producing wounds.

So in adulthood I've developed other ways in which to create & pick metaphorical scabs. I seem to have developed an unhealthy habit of putting myself in situations that make me feel worse. This can be the only explanation for why I have spent the last 2 & a half years being worn away my the Cambodian health system & its workers, whilst steadfastly refusing to quit or to leave early.

Other people working in other hospitals here have achieved great things, developed great relationships with staff, left behind donated equipment & created training material. People with high flying clinical & academic careers drop in to deliver highly polished training programmes & command instant respect & awe.

Meanwhile I have failed quietly to do anything remotely successful & every day produces yet more evidence that I am clearly quite useless. Cambodia is good for cultivating uncertainty or for bolstering those with a highly developed inner critical voice. Especially if you are female because then you can always throw some misogyny into the delightful mix of self doubt & loathing.

I have learnt plenty of other stuff about myself whilst being here, not just that I'm a picker of literal & metaphorical scabs.

I have a rescuer personality trait, which is great when I'm in the emergency medic role but a little annoying when being a friend & especially aggravating for me when people reject my overtures of being rescued whether it be in the capacity building arena or elsewhere.

My anger is almost always just a manifestation of my anxiety.

I often give my time, affection, thoughts, energy & good will to people fairly undeserving of it. The people that really count I don't value enough.

My egalitarian values are not shared by everyone nor the value I attach to education, training & experience.

I had seriously underestimated how important having a penis was for commanding even the most minimal respect from most people in certain countries, above even internationally recognised qualifications.

I can cry without sobbing. I mean that the tears will now just roll down (or 'drop down' as a good friend says) my cheeks without me even trying. I have a friend who I was always amazed at her ability to just tear up & silently weep but now I too have also mastered this art.

If I cry everyday my face doesn't swell up like I am having an acute allergic reaction any more, so my Aunts advice "Don't cry, it will ruin your good looks" is no longer heeded.

I actually can suffer fools to a certain degree, those yearly assessments during my EM training were incorrect.

I can still cannulate, do an LP, intubate, run a resuscitation (in another language - a newly acquired skill) even though I say I have de-skilled.

My head & my heart seem to be on different agendas which explains why in the day time I think about booking the next flight out of here but at night I dream about getting on that flight & wake up choking back tears.

Each of us has the capacity to do good or bad & we choose which we do, circumstances & external factors influence this but the final decision is always our own. I have observed that it is not necessarily hard to do the right thing it is just much easier sometimes to do the wrong thing.

I (we all) have a huge capacity to change but I can't change anyone else but myself.

I didn't appreciate my weight bearing joints until it was too late......