An unusually awesome day in Psych
7.50 - sort of stumble out of bed after five hours sleep due to being up until 2am sorting out presentation for the day. Take two pro plus tablets.
8.15 - get breakfast/get dressed/etc.
8.50 - leave house (I have no idea what I spent an hour doing this morning either)
9.10 - arrive at psychotherapy place
9.30 - sit in on CBT session with partially sighted man who is a skin picker (dermatillomania - there you go, word of the day!). He was given some habit reversal tasks - when he feels like he wants to pick at his skin (something that involves tensing a fair few muscles) he has to clench his fists and put his hands by his sides and hold them clenched for one minute. The psychotherapist made me join in on a practice run and it’s actually quite painful to hold it for that long - which is good, associating something negative with the sensation.
10.00 - sit in on group therapy session that uses behavioural activation therapy to treat a group of people with depression. It was really interesting, and even though I was only there for an hour and a half I liked seeing this motley group of people, with their wildly different personalities and how they responded as a group. Also I finally understood what mindfulness is!
11.45 - inhale lunch
12.00 - sit in on CBT session with a patient whom I was fortunate enough to see last week as well so it was really good to get to follow her up a little and see what she got up to over the week.
1.15 - finish that session. The next one I was going to sit in on was a DNA (did not attend) so someone suggested I go home.
1.30 - go home. I’d just made a cup of tea so wanted to drink that first.
1.40 - arrive back at home. Do productive things like panic fill in my workbook in case they take it in today.
3.00 - leave house again. Just as I’m about to leave a policeman knocks on the door wanting to talk to my housemate in relation to our cars getting broken into the other week. Seeing as I apparently got forgotten about at some point he wasn’t able to say anything to me - it had to be to her. He says that he will come back later.
3.35 - arrive at portfolio session really hot and bothered and stressed.
3.40 - session starts, we do our presentation (the one I was up until 2am the night before preparing). I talk about interpersonal therapy and systemic therapies.
5.15 - the consultant taking the session grades our presentations and me and T both get excellents for our parts (didn’t see whta the other two got). Not bad for a night before job! Especially as the entire time I was presenting I had no idea what I was talking about. Saying things like “interpersonal changes” while the inner me is going what the hell are interpersonal changes?! Apparently I came off relatively knowledgeable so that’s okay.
5.30 - me and T complain to the consultant (who is one of the leads for the psych block) about our lack of support from our consultant during the block and he says that he will look into it. He also offered us a session next Wednesday morning but it clashes with a course that T has already signed up to and that I really should sign up to.
6.00 - finally leave hospital
6.30 - arrive home. It’s my cooking day so I make food. Meanwhile housemate is making cupcakes. They go a bit wrong and she declared them “the worst cupcakes I have ever made!” Still taste good.
7.00 - dinner ready. Find out from housemate that cupcake baking housemate is upset that we went to co-op without her yesterday, even though the reason she wasn’t invited was because it’s her birthday this weekend and we have to make her a cake at some point. And I’m slightly annoyed that she’s annoyed because after a year and a half of living together this shit always goes down in the week before someone’s birthday, but at least all will be resolved on Sunday.
7.05 - Back in kitchen to ‘eat’ dinner. I don’t really eat anything. I think I went past hunger so long ago that I just felt sick by this point, and I had some really bad hunger pains.
7.30 - after dinner I dry up while housemate who was baking washes up. (Rookie error, baking on the day you wash up). I finally extract bowl from saucepan.
8.00 - policeman from earlier is supposed to be coming around this time.
9.00 - now. He still hasn’t arrived. I might have misremembered the time he said he’d come back and maybe it was at 9. It’s not really a problem, it’s just that our house is quite big but our doorbell sucks so people always knock on the door and we don’t hear it. Two of my housemates are revising in the living room so that they’ll hear it when he comes. I’m also watching from the window. There’s currently a GIANT parking space right outside our house and I’m sort of tempted to move my car but I already moved it once closer and I can see it from my window where it is so it seems a bit excessive.
So yeah, day in the life of a med student.
