Welp, it’s 1am right now. I have been working on trying to go to bed at a decent time (in bed by 10pm, try to be asleep by 11pm) because they brain can soak up more information if it has had the time to properly sort and store info at night. So why am I up at 1am then you ask? Well, let me tell you about this little thing called anxiety. In general, I am a pretty anxious person but usually I can ignore it or distract myself. However, I have been having a lot of strong anxiety since I started vet school and it makes the time right before bed awful. I just lay in bed trying to even think about what material I had learned that day and I just draw a blank. I spend all day in class or in lab and then I get home and review everything and I can’t even recall what I did. Cue stomach drop and the beginning of a mind race. Does this mean I am studying wrong, am I not studying enough, what can I do to have more time to study in the day, did I read all of the important e-mails that I needed to read, will I be able to pass any of my exams, can I even pass my classes, is vet school right for me, should I even be in vet school, what happens if I fail out, what if, can I, will I, should I… It sucks. I know rationally that I am fine. I mean, heck, it’s only been a week and the quiz Friday is barely worth anything in the long run. But man is there a lot of material that we cover. Today, alone, I spent most of it studying at home and about 4 hours in the anatomy lab studying and catching up on the dissection. Yesterday I probably spent about 6 hours studying, Friday was a short day in which we were done with classes at 12 but I stayed until 3 in lab.
It sure does sound like I am studying enough doesn’t it? I don’t feel like I am getting any quality studying done though, it feels like I have just been preparing to study. Tonight my anxiety caused me to completely get out of bed, pull out my bone box, and go over all of the little processes, fossas, foveas, borders, cavities, articulations, blah blah blah of the forelimb and then I pulled out my chart I made of the muscles with their origins, insertions, and actions. I got maybe 4 muscles in and realized that I needed to stop as it wasn’t making me feel any better. So much for trying to be in bed by 10pm, now I am wide awake with a busy day ahead of me (7am till probably 8pm and then studying).
I’ve considered talking to somebody about my anxiety before but it has never been something that I couldn’t handle. It’s always been something that has helped motivate me to do better. I hoping after my quiz on Friday my brain will finally realize that I am actually doing okay. Ideally, hopefully, I am only this anxious just because I don’t know what is expected out of me academically.
Honestly, I wasn’t going to post anything about this but this is supposed to be a blog about my adventures in vet school and this is definitely an adventure. Plus, I am pretty sure that many vet students have been in the same boat. I already feel better about everything after having typed it out.
So I am just going to leave you with a little tid-bit of what I have learned today:
The trapezius originates at the mid-dorsal raphe and the supraspinous ligaments, it inserts at the spine of the scapula, and it contracts to raise the scapula and move it’s ventral angle cranially to advance the forelimb.