What’s Even the Point?

“What’s even the point?”

The receding hairline my gaze had fixated on during X’s minute of silence rotated toward the ceiling.  Now his black mask faced me, darkened from tears flowing down his cheeks intermixing with the stream of snot he was choking on.  Restless hands pulled at the tissue I’d given him 5 minutes ago as X questioned whether or not it would be ok to blow his nose in these COVID times.

My heart ached to say something reassuring, something that could take his pain away but my mind drew a blank.

What had he said wasn’t true?

“Even before the pandemic, I knew I wasn’t happy.  I thought changing my job would make things better… but it didn’t.  It was just a new way of being miserable.

The people I thought I knew ended up being pieces of shit.  My girlfriend of 6 years… well, she told me I was a miserable person to be around and left.  And now I’m living at home with my mom at the age of 33.

And even if this pandemic goes away… the protests.  Climate change.  I’m just taking up resources… for what?  So I can sit at a desk and write code all day?

The world’s gone to hell and I contribute nothing to society.

What’s even the point?“

His dull eyes held mine, daring me to challenge him.  Daring me to tell him his life was worth living, waiting to pounce and declare his pre-rehearsed objections.

This game, I knew.

I was quite familiar with the internal monologue and arguments that fuel the anger sustaining you through the day.

The fury guarding the black hole you don’t want to peer into, yet keep in the back of your mind as a possible way out.  The route only explored in quiet moments of desperation, when you’ve run out of things to distract yourself with.  When the busy-ness fades and all you’re left with is a distorted reflection of yourself, mocking every decision you’ve ever made or are about to make.

To take the war within and birth it into reality – this was the true test.

No longer fighting against an imaginary foe but to see your shadow win against a real person?  What other proof do you need that the darkness within you was right all along?

What other nudge was necessary to explore the black hole further?

Even as I sat 6 feet apart from X, I found the urge to enmesh difficult to resist.

I recognized a fellow cynical, old soul within the first 10 minutes of meeting him.  I saw my story reflected in his, picked up on the details he didn’t want to tell.  I even felt the resonance of his self-loathing, the regret of opening himself up to someone he’d just met 15 minutes ago – not because she’d proven herself worthy but because she had asked ONE open-ended question.

S.S.D.D.

Shaking my head internally, I marveled at how I always found myself here – falling into people’s emotional despair.

And men… men were the worst.

Correction: Uncoupled men were the worst.

Bereft of a partner who was willing to do the emotional work in a relationship, they were left stranded in the middle of the pandemic.

Too dependent on activity based friendships – activities now banned – they found themselves on their own lonely islands, terrified of reaching out to a friend just to talk.  Uncomfortable with the language of connection, they didn’t know how to convey their sinking isolation.  No, instead they leaned on familiar words of anger and frustration to connect, unaware they were severing their ties with greater precision until it was too late.

These edges, I knew.  Regrettably.  Intimately.

Sad young men.  Angry old men.

All benefiting from the lessons you learned by growing up with emotionally constipated, immigrant parents.

You don’t need to live in that chasm where emotion and language refuse to meet anymore, M.  But you find yourself here EVERY. DAMN. TIME. 

In this iteration, I was drowning in another person’s cesspool of tears and snot accumulating behind a black mask.

The collective grief of everything these last 7 months pulled me down like an anchor chained around my neck.

I was tired of resisting.  But now was not the time to sink.  Not while X was waiting for me to drop some magical words of reassurance.

Inhaling sharply, I refocused on the hum of the HEPA filter in the corner of my exam room and retraced the steps that brought me here.  Back to the clinic, to GAD-7’s and PHQ-9’s galore and never ending Zoom calls for anxiety and depression.

November 2019

Like X, I knew I was unhappy before the words “flatten the curve” became part of our vernacular.

My hospitalist experiment had gone horribly wrong.

Maybe it was because I never allowed myself to fully commit – it was easier to exist one foot in/one foot out, just in case.  In my mind, bailing would be infinitely easier this time around instead of talking myself in circles for months like I did with my previous primary care job.

Maybe it was because I always knew deep down I wasn’t meant to be a hospitalist.

Thinking back to my most joyful moments in medicine, they’d always been my long term patients telling me their personal victories, their excitement about the future that had nothing to do with medicine.  Sure, my medical knowledge sometimes helped them get to their end goals, but being “right” wasn’t where my payoff was.

In the hospital, I never got to see the wins.  I never saw my patients get better in a sustainable way.  No, I merely reacquainted myself with futility medicine in full force, people living out fates worse than death.

I found myself re-embracing the idealistic notions I once had – if only these people had a good primary care doctor, they wouldn’t have to end up in a sterile hospital room again and again.

What if something else was out there?  What if I could practice medicine closer to my terms, in a way that would support my values for patient centered care AND also allow me to be a person?

Finding my escape route out into a medical startup – I cautiously waited out my contract before taking on the role of primary care physician again.

This time would be different.

This time I was different.

No longer bright-eyed and nostalgic for a dream that was sold to me but never mine to hold.

More sure of my strengths in relationship building and renewed purpose to guide my patients to away from the hospital, away from that brand of isolating despair that eats away at your humanity.

More hopeful for my future.

April 2020

One month into the COVID era, I walked into my new outpatient office.

The world as I knew it had changed.

And it kept getting worse.

From #healthcareheroes to brokers of microchips in “vaccines”, I witnessed the swift devaluation of the profession I had so stubbornly fought to stay in.

Within our healthcare systems, the “Heroes work here” lawn litter stood in mocking contrast to the way doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers were actually being treated.  Reports of masks being snatched off people’s faces faded away as universal masking at work became instituted, but the damage between healthcare workers and administration had already been done.

Then came the inevitable furloughs and paycuts.  Of course this was going to happen – we weren’t seeing the same volume of patients to sustain our prior salaries.  How could we believe ourselves immune when the rest of the country was sharing in the cinching of the purse strings?

Perhaps these cuts would’ve been easier to stomach if they weren’t declared alongside reports of hospital executives receiving bonuses, for-profit hospital systems making increased profits compared to 2019 and finally, insurance companies continuing to post record profits off the backs of patients paying into premiums for medical care they were being discouraged from using.

Perhaps if they hadn’t put out messages of unity on our screensavers and We’re all in this together emails every week, we wouldn’t have been so indignant.

But these weren’t the only rumbles of discontent.

Distrust in doctors and scientists was sowed through all layers of this country from the current Presidential administration down to the gubernatorial level, even infiltrating our precious CDC – the ramifications of which are yet to be seen.

Tribalism and politics became so intertwined, asking to see other people as fellow human beings worthy of protection by wearing a mask became too big an ask.  No, instead grown adults were gleefully throwing full on tantrums in supermarkets, licking windows, and throwing punches for this infringement on their freedoms.

Facebook and YouTube research now carried more weight than actual data and science. As I watched misinformation shared amongst my own family and friends, my growing stew of rage and disappointment became all-consuming.

I had thought they had the ability to discern truth from political overtures.

I had thought as soon as they saw the numbers following the predictions, they would perhaps change their minds when presented with the data.

I had thought their empathy and compassion for others would override what they heard on FOX news and OAN network.

I was wrong.

As I stood in disbelief at these people I was supposed to risk my own life for, the death toll mounted.

50,000.

100,000.

200,000 deaths and counting.

200,000+ people died alone.

Perhaps holding onto an iPad for one last glimpse of the family they left behind.  Or maybe a nurse, PA, NP or doctor was holding the iPad in one hand, the patient’s hand in the other.

How many deaths had these healthcare workers witnessed?  How many hands did they grasp, knowing their touch would be the last bit of tenderness that patient would ever feel?  Or had they already been emotionally sucked dry by what was going on in the outside world?

We have always carried the weight of people’s denial, of outcomes they pretend don’t exist until it’s too late.

And for what?

When you’ve built your whole life around the core value of service, what do you do when you realize you never once asked if the people around you were worth serving?

When even the people you care about the most – who’ve seen everything you’ve gone through during pre-med, med school and residency – turn around and question the validity of your input because some person they didn’t even like from high school posted a poorly edited video?

Why am I still here?

Why continue to show up in this broken system, to know my future counsel and efforts are easily sideswiped by a click-baity Pinterest link or a social media algorithm leading to a video that promises to tell you what they don’t want you know?

Meanwhile, a CEO continues to exploit my saviorism complex to sustain their bonus structure because I haven’t figured out how to deal with my unmet issues.

My attempts to cling onto medicine seem so laughable now.

What’s even the point?

Black lives matter

A knee to George Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes, 46 seconds.

100 days of protests in Portland, complete with tear gas, moms in helmets and dads with gas blowers in the whitest major city in America – a city I now call home.

As this racial reckoning moved to a worldwide scale tracking the African Diaspora, again I watched people declare themselves.

“Friends” gleefully sharing videos of people siccing dogs on protestors and in the same context ironically declaring, “All lives matter”.

Family members refusing to even mention it during our non-versations, hiding behind inane stories about their dogs.  Yet as soon as they logged onto the internet, muzzles became unfettered as they transformed into Facebook warriors embracing wanton police brutality as a morally acceptable edict of law and order.

I thought of all the Black people who’ve shaped the person I am today.

Memories of love and acceptance, growth and nurturing – stories from my childhood in Toronto, my rude induction into an American inner city high school at the age of 13, my short stint as a pharmaceutical sales rep in Flint, MI (a place that understands that Black lives have not mattered to America for a very long time).   Stories that deserve to be told in their own right, and not condensed into a 1 paragraph snippet here.

My wandering ruminations turned to the first time I fell in love with “Baby”.  His thick, dark ringlets framing his beautiful mocha face at 3 months old.  The way they pillowed his trusting head across my lap whenever I played the piano.  A cute little voice emerging from his dino costume at Halloween,

“Prick er pree!!!”

The devastating blow when I handed Baby over to his aunt for the last time.  The confused hurt in his trusting brown eyes as his pudgy little hands reached out for me, for the family who’d loved him as our own for 4 years.

The faith slowly giving way to betrayal as he shrieked my name, screamed out for my Mama to protect him.

How could someone watch a grown man call out for his mother with his dying breath and still have the audacity to say he deserved a knee to his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds?

How could anyone say they wouldn’t raze a whole city down if that man were their Baby?  Their son, brother, husband, uncle or friend?

I see my Black friends’ faces in that shared video – dogs biting at their legs, heads in chokeholds, knees on their necks.  I see them vilified, old mistakes dredged up against them to make them “deserving” of this treatment.  Meanwhile, a 17 year old crosses state lines fully loaded to go hunting protestors and in turn, is treated with civility and respect.  By law, still a criminal but an entirely different response.

The All Lives Matter contingency will never fully understand this rage because they have never deeply, soulfully loved a Black person and it shows.  Furthermore, they are unable or even worse, unwilling, to imagine themselves or their loved ones in that same position – to empathize with the otherness of melanated skin is too difficult an obstacle to overcome.

And still…

I waited.

Hoped.

Held my breath for friends and family to take this opportunity to embody the values they claimed stamped their golden tickets to heaven.

Waited for them to spout the “Love thy neighbour” bit they love so much.  Maybe add in the Fruit of the Spirit for good measure.  Perhaps even wield this passage from 1 John 4:20 NKJV against naysayers:

“If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?”

Nothing.

And I heard their silence loud and clear.

I heard it say the definitions of “neighbour” and “brother” are conveniently fluid.  That they are so assured of their goodness, there is no need to ask themselves if they actually hold true to their beliefs.

Their silence said they wouldn’t stand for me if it were me on the ground.  Because the truth is, it wasn’t too long ago that people who look like me were lumped in the same box as Black folks.

With a president who continues to spew rhetoric against the China plague /Kung flu with increasing reports of anti-Asian attacks, how could I be so naïve as to think people couldn’t be coming for me at some point in this pandemic?

How could I be so naïve as to think people who claimed to be keepers of a divine moral standard would actually manifest this via action?

That people who preached at me for years to be known by my fruit would recognize the stench of their own rotting works?

How silly of me.

October 2020

The last 7 months have confirmed the darkest reflections I’ve been unwilling to accept over the last 3 years, despite my intuition blaring this siren:

There is a deep lack of empathy and compassion everywhere I look, and it is nearing depletion.  Without these innately human values, what does the foundation of a civil society stand on?

It doesn’t.  And we were never civil.

Again, I asked myself:

How can I continue to serve when I’m not sure there’s anything worth serving anymore?

Making the decision to cut out the noise, I deleted “friends” and “family” from social media, then deleted Facebook entirely.

One by one, distinctions were made between friends vs acquaintances, family vs relatives of no significant import.  Disappointed but not surprised, many in my online and personal circle fell severely short of my criteria of who deserved access to my emotional energy.

I culled the fat until I found myself in a circle of one.

It was a short reprieve to the madness swirling outside, but I couldn’t escape the darkness within.

I could see myself falling into the very same trap that ensnared others:

Me vs them.  A tribe of my own.

Had everyone really proven themselves unworthy of my love and attention?  Perhaps I had been too judgmental.  Too quick to dismiss.

I climbed the ladder in and out of this pit for the last 7 months, never finding a satisfactory answer.

No one is as good as they pretend they are. 

No one is as bad as I want to believe.

Because if they were, I could push them all out of my life forever and be done with it.  I could demonize them and watch as they suffer the natural consequences of their actions and inaction – slowly and painfully.  Without guilt.  Without the urge to intervene.

But they’re not.

And I can’t.

So I sit in these exam rooms day in, day out, watching people pour themselves out to me because they have nowhere else to go.  And when I’m full of their anxiety, depression and grief at the state of the world, I pour myself out into nature – hiking, mountain biking, photography.

This “gift” of listening I had worked so hard to turn into my calling was now a burden carrying the additional weight of 2020.

I am not Sisyphus, eternally pushing forward for a brief glimpse of satisfaction.  Climbing higher, trudging longer distances, pedaling faster doesn’t ease the frustration of the question:

“What’s even the point?”

---

I turned to X and took in the deep breath he couldn’t through his wet mask.

In this moment, I was supposed to reassure him.

He has worth.

He is loved.

There’s a reason he’s still here.

But that script felt too empty.  Too easily cast aside by a fellow weary, cynical mind.

“I don’t know, X.”

His eyes widened as he registered my unexpected answer.

“I don’t know the answer to that question for you – my answer might be different than the answer you’re searching for.

You may not find the answer today, or even tomorrow.

But just because you can’t find it right now doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Tissues stopped floating in the air as his hands stilled.

“What I do know is that your possibilities matter.  The future realities you could create can change things for the better.  And while you’re searching for your answer, you can still do good simply by being here.

Yes, there’s so much bad.  AND you can create so much good.”

X shook his head vigorously in disagreement.

“You don’t know that.”

The corner of my mouth lifted slightly at this anticipated resistance.  Familiar edges surfacing again.  He didn’t see it yet; if he could fight against me, he could fight his way to himself.

“I do.

Your ability to see what’s aching in the world is what will steer you toward what needs to be done.

We’re only able to fix things we see are broken.  And you have the gift of sight.

You’re not broken, X.

You are NEEDED.”

Sobs wracked his entire body this time – that cathartic release to help him get unstuck from this stress cycle.

“If you’ll let me, I’m willing to walk with you while you search for your answer.  I can point you in the direction of people who are better equipped to help you.  I can help maybe clear the haze with medication.

You don’t need to do this alone.”

---

As he thanked me on his way out, I couldn’t help but appreciate the irony of my burnout journey guiding me through this encounter, through this year.

For 3 years, I believed I was broken.

I felt too much.  Didn’t institute enough boundaries.  Cared too much.  Didn’t exercise enough.  Was too much of a perfectionist.  Lacked good time management skills.

I was too much and too little, all at the same time. 

At some point, I began to believe I even lacked the capacity to ever be happy.

Now as I survey the carnage this last year has brought us, I understand:

I was never broken.

I had merely been tapping into something we’d all been too busy and/or too afraid to question.  The systems and world in which we operate have been making and keeping us sick for a very long time.

The hustle of being more, producing more, consuming more has left us disconnected.  The programming to label our warning bells as signs of weakness has left us in a state of emotional and spiritual exhaustion, conveniently opening us up to a bevy of self care products and drugs to medicate us into oblivion.  The suppression of feelings as faulty defects has stolen away our humanity as we explain away our guilt while we stomp on those with less agency.

Somehow I’d internalized my refusal of these dark realizations as a personal failing.  Now, as I watch everyone losing their damn minds while they’re being crushed by the collective pain of 2020, I’ve come to understand I wasn’t the failure.

I’m merely one of the people who sees this truth:

When success is driven by an infatuation with more, measured by dominance and defined by winning at all costs, collective thriving will never be an option.

There can only be winners and losers vying for survival.

My self-flagellation for daring to be a feeling person in a world built with cruelty only maintained the status quo for a system that must be transformed.

I’m no longer willing to bend myself to something that insists on telling me I’m the one that’s broken.

There’s power in exploring every fissure in these bleak times, because accepting my shadow only makes me stronger.

I can sit in dark spaces and wait for something beautiful to grab onto without surrendering to the black hole beckoning me to abandon myself.

I can create something beautiful to grab onto instead of waiting for people to make it for me.

And when I need to, I can be my own glorious light at the end of the tunnel.

Maybe that’s the point.

Or not.

But I can still do good while I keep searching for the answer.