I was really hopeful for fourth year because everyone before me told me it was supposed to be the best year of medical school.
However, unfortunately life decided to throw me some punches and it ended up being my worst year of medical school.
My health issues intensified and I developed more health issues. I had quite a few painful “friendship breakups”, I was losing my faith in God and my grades were suffering. It was a miracle I made it through fourth year without failing.
I became very depressed.
I would cry a lot, missed too many days of school, stopped doing things I enjoyed, slept way too much and ate way too little and sometimes even had suicidal thoughts.
By the time fifth year came around I was still struggling with these depressive symptoms and the more I isolated myself the worse it got.
One day I woke up, having no mental strength to get out of bed to go to school. I decided to check my phone and saw someone mention something about the University of the West Indies Health Centre free counselling services in a Whatsapp group. That was the beginning of a new journey for me…
Based on my traditional Christian upbringing, for a long time I thought I would just have to pray, read my Bible, journal or speak to myself to overcome struggles like depression, anxiety or low self-esteem.
However, I was learning the hard way that that’s just not how mental health works.
Going to counselling helped me to identify faulty thought processes and root causes for certain issues, and taught me healthier coping strategies for life.
I also started reaching out to one of my pastors who helped me to regain my footing spiritually. He gave me practical tips on building my self- worth and dealing with my emotional struggles. Moreover, I started meeting with a sister in Christ who helped me to develop a renewed passion for the Bible and I started searching out scriptures about healing and declaring them over my life.
More importantly I stopped isolating myself.
I joined back a small group of young people from my church which really encouraged me every week. I also started studying medicine a lot more with my study group, recognizing that in this final year of medical school, we would really need to support each other.
Life was still a challenge but I wasn’t trying to do it alone anymore. I wasn’t drowning anymore, but I was swimming and I’d continue to swim until I reached the finish line.
In February 2018, a few months before our final examinations, I was asked to dance for a Christian event. I was quite hesitant at first because I hadn’t danced in over a year. I also really needed to focus on studying, but I said yes.
After choreographing a dance to the song “Your Spirit” by Tasha Cobbs, I went out and danced with all my heart. After the event a young lady (God bless her heart) from my country, came up to me and told me that as I was dancing, God said to her that “Esther’s healing is now complete”. I just wanted to cry in that moment.
She didn’t know that for years I had been praying and journalling and believing God for complete spiritual, physical, emotional and mental healing in my life. Now my healing was complete!
You see the thing is, my physical symptoms didn’t go away immediately, my emotional wounds didn’t just close up and my struggles with depressive thoughts didn’t just disappear. However, day by day as I chose to believe for my healing and continued making practical healthy steps, I started feeling better little by little.
I made it to the end of medical school successfully with a group of amazing friends, with my faith stronger, in sound mind and a much healthier body.
Did I experience heartbreak after that? Heck yeah. Did I struggle with depressive symptoms again? Yup unfortunately. Did I have a recurrence of stress related physical symptoms? Yeah, internship was stressful!
However, I was able to cope a lot better and I didn’t wait as long as before to seek help which helped me to recover a lot faster.
Life is messy but life is also beautiful and it was not meant to be done alone.
So I encourage you today to reach out to someone today if you’re struggling or to someone who you think may be struggling. We have to help each other on this journey to complete healing.
Yours truly,
Dr. Esther J Trotman (M.B.B.S)
“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.” (James 5:16)
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