I know how hard healthcare
providers, especially physicians, work; the challenges they face; the obstacles
they must overcome; the demands and stresses they endure everyday as they do
the work, the hard work of medicine. It is not getting easier; it is only
getting harder; and health care providers are paying the price. We are tough,
though, our training has made us this way. We think we can withstand any demand
and do any job no matter how overwhelming it may feel. But in the recesses of
our mind, we know it is not true and, for many reasons, we won’t admit it. For
me, it was the fear of being seen as weak, not good enough, not having “what it
takes”. I was taught I could do anything, endure anything through my efforts
alone – or so I believed.
Have you ever felt pain? I mean real physical pain? Pain so
unbearable it takes your breath away, you are afraid to move, and you can’t
stop the tears from flowing. I have and the physical pain I experienced was the
worst I had ever known. It gave me a better understanding and a deeper
compassion for my patients who went through such pain. I could not imagine pain
worse than what I had experienced. I was wrong.
There is a worse pain. Like me, others have experienced it.
I know because I was at their side when they did. Too many are going through it
right now and cannot endure it much longer. Like I was, they are on the
precipice of a deep, dark pit called despair. Despair, with its’ brother hopelessness,
is the worst pain of all. It is an emotional state that even now I find
difficult to put into words. But I know it. I have felt it. I have lived it and
it is bad. Despair, at its worse, must be experienced to fully understand what
I am describing. I hope no one else experiences it but the reality is most will
experience it at some time in their life.
Have you ever experienced pain so visceral that it was hard
to breathe? Have you ever been so overwhelmed with grief or heartbreak that you
cannot stop crying? Have you ever gone month after month with no joy, a complete loss of joy to the point that you have forgotten
what it feels like to have it? You cannot imagine ever feeling it again. Have
you ever gone night after night unable to sleep because your mind is racing,
you cannot stop your thoughts, and you lay there praying for sleep but it doesn’t
come? Have you ever felt completely hopeless to the point that you cannot imagine
things ever getting better? Have you ever been in the bottom of a deep, dark
pit and cannot climb out? Have you ever felt so alone that no matter how loud
or how long you cried out no one heard you?
You can call it what you want to - depression, burnout,
etc., yet these words do not do justice to the pain of despair. You
cope the best you can, sometimes well, more often not so well. I know because I
did the same. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. What saved me and
brought me out of this pit of despair? First and foremost was my faith in God.
A significant second, though, was when I finally opened up to a few friends,
medical and non-medical, I knew I could trust, with whom I would be safe, and who
would love and support me.
How wrong I was to try to do that alone because of pride,
shame, embarrassment, or simply fear of being seen as weak! Trying to persevere
through this alone won’t work. Eventually, your best coping skills, your
strongest efforts, your best “mask” will fail and the pain of despair will
overcome you. All those you love and care about will suffer with you. Fortunately,
there are people who care, who will listen, whether professionally trained or
simply, like me, who know what others are going through and are ready to help
anyway they can. You cannot do it alone. Too much is at stake. Medicine is hard
enough, life can be harder, without trying to do this alone. There is hope.
Life can be good again and joy can even return! Despair does not have to
overcome you. The pain can stop.
Andy Lamb, MD
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