By Chris Hardy

Content warning: harsh language, distressing scenarios

“Oh, look at that cute little baby!” I said, walking through the halls of the hospital. No sooner had the words left my mouth when the guttural cry of a complete stranger snaps me back to reality, with words that I have heard all too often: “Fucking faggot.”

How lovely. Exactly what I wanted to hear on that Wednesday morning, right between ward rounds and my regular morning coffee.

The shock of being called such a name never wears off, no matter how often you have it thrown at you. Whether it is out of a car window, in a club, or just walking down the street holding your partner’s hand, it still leaves a hollow, cold sensation running through you and a fear of what will happen next. Will they just move on? Will they spit on me, throw their drink on me, hit me? In that moment, all possibilities are considered and feared over.

Don’t get me wrong though. We all develop a thick skin, especially as medical students. We are constantly being yelled at, abused, and underappreciated by both patients and colleagues alike. Falling to pieces every time someone is mean to you is just not practical. But to have such an integral part of your identity, a part that you may still be coming to terms with, be attacked is devastating. Some attacks are not as openly hostile, like the double take of people when you walk down the street and the deliberate lack of questions regarding relationships at the dinner table, but are still just as damaging.

I am in the GP clinic, talking with a patient about a mundane issue that was quickly resolved in the first 5 minutes leaving the next 25 for small talk. Same sex marriage comes up, and I cringe internally. The patient’s face crumples into a grimace and the familiar arguments brought forward; what will it lead to, gays are diseased, God doesn’t agree with these choices. The once quite pleasant patient is now a hatred-spewing entity who disagrees with a core part of my being. I look impartial and listen like we are told to do, until the onslaught is over and the patient returns to their normal state. “Now then, what about you? Have you got a special girl?”

People are often shocked when I tell them about what has happened to me just because I am gay. Some don’t believe me and think I am overdramatising things: “Surely that is a thing of the past? No one thinks like that anymore!”

Wouldn’t it be nice if that were true? Wouldn’t it be a much happier world if we just didn’t care about this stuff and let people live? Such a cliché and I legit feel like a dick writing it, but we can all have a dream. I would really just be happy with some more queer representation in the curriculum or a focus on the unique issues surrounding queer health to be honest. It is impossible to change people’s minds, but it is possible for us as future doctors to help make the world just a little bit less shit for those who are different.

Don’t assume someone’s sexuality or gender identity, don’t assume they aren’t struggling, and don’t assume that you will never encounter queer people. We exist, we are your friends and patients and colleagues. Don’t forget about us.

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Featured image from Pixabay

By Georgia Carter

you are in a submarine. you are looking through a periscope. all around you is blackness, the crushing shade of water when the sun is a distant rumour. you hang, suspended motionless in the current that stirs up flecks and clouds of matter. below you, thrown into relief by your tiny circle of light, stretches a fleshy coral reef. outcroppings, patterned with crazy brain-like shadings, shadow near-invisible holes, and malignant little jellyfish try to pattern themselves after the pinkish floor they cling to.

with your curved little instrument you dig away at the reef. satisfying lumps of material slide easily off the whole. what is left turns pale and fluffy at the intrusion, its stuffing almost frothing out like a slit couch. beeps and sizzlings accompany your work.

you turn your attention to the floor, scraping delicately at the jellyfish. silky red flags unfurl from their hiding places and spiral smoothly into the dark. your instrument begins to roughen, blacken, and the smoky smell of a barbecue left unattended rises incongruously around you.

a jellyfish clings to your cauteriser, suddenly squid-like, red and white like a sunburnt beachgoer. you manage to scrape it off against the floor, and it too whooshes away with the current

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Feature image from National Geographic

By Rav Gaddam

As I write this, I am sitting in class, questioning how I got here. Not medicine, or life, or anything as deep and meaningful as that, but more how did I get to this class, all the while feeling sad and teary?

As Maria von Trapp once said in a brilliant movie, “Let’s start at the very beginning, A very good place to start.”

This morning, I woke up before my alarm, and I did what I do every morning; I start my day telling myself that “Powerful people get back up every day”, then dragging my hideous PJ clad-self into the shower to begin the routine; a ninja wash, waging and winning a war against my hair, breakfast sculling and then off to placement.

Here, things diverged from the routine.

Normally, I would pretend to be 100% interested in my placement, soaking up things like the knowledge sponge I am, all the while secretly day dreaming about lunch. Once in a blue moon, an intern or a consultant will interact with me and ask me a question (which I usually improvise an answer to), and slowly but surely, lunchtime appears.

But today? Not so much.

Today, I got to the placement, joined the handover, and then, I had a funny feeling. It’s the feeling that you sometimes get when you know your housemates are up to some mischief (like perhaps sticking your flamingo candles to the roof). Call it intuition, call it a warning shot, whatever floats your sailboat. Turns out, I was right to be on guard, cause today, my brain decided to play a fun little prank on me.

What was that joke, you ask? Well, I went from being Pooh Bear to Eeyore in under 5 minutes.

I’m going to be honest with you; if I were to have a hidden OSCE talent, this would be it. If there was a station to see how fast you could go from being relatively functional to crying on the floor about how you didn’t wear matching socks today, I would blow the examiner away. I would be the percentile that was above the percentile, an ATAR score of 100, if you will.

So today, at placement, I went to the bathroom and cried.

What triggered me? Who knows, I probably never will. But for some reason, my brain just decided that that today is the day for a cry. I like to imagine that perhaps there are little people in my head going “TODAY, SAD RAV WILL BE ACTIVATED.” Yes, I know I do med, but I still have an overactive imagination, so the people in my head will continue to be there to make the decisions that I make.

I digress from my point though.

Depression is a funny thing; a little bit HAHA funny, but a little bit frustrating funny too. Your doctor tells you to remove your triggers, your therapist tells you to challenge your thinking, your mum tells you that you are powerful, you can dust yourself off and rebuild again. Despite all that great advice though, sometimes you just don’t know when it might hit, or what you might be doing (fun fact, I once broke down while eating a HSP, and I don’t know if you have ever seen a person ugly cry while also shovelling food, but trust me, ain’t a good look).

What does it feel like, I hear you ask?

Well, imagine watching a really sad movie (not sad because they are terrible like Twilight, more sadder like Marley and Me), and take the part of the movie you cried in, and put it on replay. That feeling of sadness, despair and a little hint of hopelessness, all combined with irritability, anger and tears, that’s what depression feels like for me. It usually just tracks along most days in the background like all the advertisements on the interwebs, but every once in a while, it pops up despite your ad-block, so you just have to emergency quit Safari and hope that you didn’t lose anything important in the tabs you just also accidentally closed. Somehow, while all of this is happening, you’re also expected to trundle along and keep smiling/being derpy and continue to be a medical knowledge sponge.

So where to from here?

Well, I do need to get through this class, despite my mind telling me that this is not worth it. Then, home would be a good start. A hot shower, a call to the therapist, perhaps a visit to Officeworks or Aldi. I am fortunate/unfortunate enough to know what to do when I get in one of my spirally low moods, but not everyone might be at this point yet. Figure out what helps you from spiralling downwards and deploy it as necessary. Ask for help, and if anyone even mildly gives you any shame about that, either:

1. Cut them out of your life
2. Ask them why they are doing it, and get them to challenge their thinking
3. Walk away like the BAWSE you are and let the haters do their own thing

Most importantly though, be kind to yourself. Love yourself, even if your brain decides to throw a tantrum and ruin your productive plans and be accepting that some days/weeks/months can be an absolute shit-show. Even if you are completely “normal”, you are bound to have a bad day, but if you’re somewhere along a mental health issue journey (like me), know that you might have more hurdles than most, so be accepting of that, get your warrior mode on and be that powerful person and try to get back up every day.

Forgive yourself for having the bad day. It’s ok, and know you will always have people to help you get back up again.

Oh, and just to bring this to a full circle, how did I get to class? I drove myself. (HAHA funny joke, I know, I am now set to do stand-up as my back up career.)

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