Today’s picture is of a poster I have framed and hanging in the basement. Why the basement? Because that is where my pseudo work-out room is and it seemed to make sense. Plus it’s where I still have some wall space. Now, this poster has also been through its fair share of trauma. I purchased it but took forever getting it hung up. In the meantime, it was still rolled up and standing upright in a bag. There was a plumbing incident and one of the water logged ceiling tiles fell on it. The poster actually punched a hole in the ceiling tile but also got wet. But it survived! Although not quite whole. Anyways, I hung it up. I figured the poster had earned it.
So, this post is a little different. My blog/website is defined by the fact that I am a veterinarian and an aspiring fiction writer. I’ve thought about taking the veterinarian part down, not because I’m not one, but this website is dedicated more to the aspiring fiction writer part. And then philosophical dilemmas crop up that I feel like sharing. Thus today’s post.
I’ve been a vet for over eighteen years. It was a hard earned dream that, like so many other dreams, didn’t quite pan out the way I thought it would. The veterinary profession is plagued with mental illness. This isn’t necessarily a new concept to those of us who’ve been in it for awhile, but mounting suicides within the profession finally made some people higher up take notice. There has been much debate and studies done these past few years to try and figure out if veterinarians really do have a higher suicide rate than the general population and other similar professions. There is some conflicting data but everyone generally agrees it’s a problem. As a general rule, we are a profession of introverts whom like/love animals more than people. The irony of that situation is that we are in a profession where we have to be able to talk and deal with people every single day.
There are several theories as to why veterinarians seem more prone to depression, anxiety, suicide and all the other less than joyful mental illnesses that plague our minds. I have my own opinions that I will not expound upon but I will say that I have not been immune to the struggle. Those not intimately involved with the profession might not understand its stresses, but they are real and only worsening as time goes on. Current veterinary students will graduate with unfathomable student debt and our salaries are not commensurate with these staggering figures. Again, lots of studies, discussions and hand wringing have gone into this topic with (in my opinion) little to show for it. The profession eats away at your morals, your empathy, and your sanity. Many often speak of compassion fatigue – in all the health professions. For me it isn’t so much compassion fatigue, but decision fatigue. I still have tons of compassion but at the end of the day, my brain is shot.
What this profession has also taught me is that love is not nearly so simply defined as one would think, and means something different to almost everyone. I have had people bring me pets that are too obese to walk, covered in fleas, have such severe dental disease that the smell of just being in the room with them is nausea inducing and a litany of other preventable issues that wear at my empathy. And yet, when you speak to those same people, they often smile with loving eyes at their pet and joyfully pronounce how much they love them, how lucky said dog or cat was to be found/adopted by them. This is not love to me, or at least not the whole definition of it. It is to them and I have to do the best I can with what I have to work with. To be sure, there are definitely more dogs and cats in the world who have had it worse and unfortunately I’ve seen them too.
So, here comes the dilemma. Becoming a veterinarian is a dream of many. It was my dream and no one could talk me out of it. I worked damn hard getting into school and the four years of my life spent in veterinary school were a harsh blur of missed family functions, working through illness, little sleep, stress and sacrifice. I’ve been a veterinarian for over eighteen years and am now in a position where younger dreamers come to me, wanting references to get into school. I’m in the process of writing up a reference right now and fighting an inner battle over it. I’m trying to write what I know admissions wants to hear – working my best to write a good and compelling letter of recommendation for a bright young woman who has her heart set on joining a profession I would not recommend. I want this young woman to succeed. I want her to realize the dreams she’s worked so hard to earn and believe me, she’s more than capable of getting into and through school. But I worry. I worry that her life will mimic not only my own, but so many other veterinarians who worked their asses off to do something that is slowly killing them – burning them out and taking the joy away from pet ownership.
As my posts indicate, I love and adore my pets. They are the light of my life – my chosen family, but being a veterinarian has changed how I view pet ownership and the simple pleasure of it. Everything comes with a price. I suspect most professions are not what people thought they would be and the disappointment can be numbingly painful. Veterinarians are certainly not alone in that conundrum.
And so, I write. I write fanfiction and original fiction with characters created in my mind because I can control what happens to them. I can escape into the fantasy worlds I create so I can forget, for at least a little while, cases from my real job that I can’t solve, that there’s not enough money to treat, or that should never have happened in the first place. I write and make up stories to give my brain a break from reality. It’s the same reason most of us read and watch television. I like to think it’s a healthier outlet than some of the other things I could be doing.
At the end of things, I’ll write this young lady the most fabulous letter of recommendation I can and hope that she’s one of the lucky ones that makes it through and truly enjoys the profession. I will hope she finds her way through the financial hardships, through the difficult curriculum and through the (cough*) interesting clients she meets along the way. And more importantly, I will hope that she maintains the love for animals that she currently has, that she can still experience the joy of a new kitten or puppy.
Sorry for the longer rant today, but this is, after all, a blog as well as a website to post my stories. For those of you from the fanfiction world, I will start adding my Inuyasha stories to this website soon. I want to go through and reedit some. There won’t be any major changes and most likely you won’t notice the changes. I’ll be starting with Bakusen’O. This way, if something happens and they kick me off fanfiction, there will still be a place to find these stories because I love them as much as many of you. I still get reviews from readers telling me how many times they’ve reread some of my stories. I truly love this and want to let you know, I reread them too!
Thanks for reading and I hope you all like the new chapter addition to Facilitate Your User.
MJ May
veterinarian and fiction writer 