Jan is extremely busy with his studies and work. I (Linda Evans) cannot expect him to spend time on making films. Because he does not have that sort of time. That is why results that are described in the course of the school year, are only mentioned in textual form.
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The relationship with my parents has completely changed. The insecurity that I would feel when I was with my parents, has gone. I no longer need the approval and the respect of my parents, I no longer feel that I have to prove myself towards my parents.
When my parents came to visit me before, my mother would immediately criticize me as soon as she walked into the door. I felt very irritated by that and there immediately was a tension between us and a tense communication. There is no more criticism.
The contact between me and my parents is much more pleasant and open than before. My father feels much more at ease with me. My father has become very interested in me and he talks and thinks with me quite a lot about my future. While he used to be annoyed about me all the time. And always made me feel that I was a failure, or that I was wrong. He asked good questions and I was not irritated about that. In the past, my father would ask ‘stupid’ questions that easily irritated me, so that our conversations were often unpleasant.
There is a lot more understanding and support from my parents towards me.
I have also celebrated, together with my family, the 45th wedding anniversary of my parents. That was very relaxed and pleasant. I have never experienced a family gathering in such a nice and pleasant atmosphere.
I now get classes together with 23-year old youngsters.
The contacts that I have with this new group of students are nice and relaxed. They have immediately integrated me into their little group. That surprised me quite a lot, because that is something unusual in my life. I feel at home within the group.
Lately, people tell me on a regular basis that especially young children feel safer with me and laugh more with me than with others. On a regular basis parents have told me that children do not panic with me and that they do with others. This was more or less already the case in the past. But it still has increased.
I have less stage fright. It is much easier for me to give a lecture. I am rather comfortable giving a presentation for a group of students or doctors. Also when I do not know everything. I can more easily accept that I make a mistake in a learning environment. Now I feel like: if I make a mistake, it is not the end of the world, I will learn from that. In the past, I would not have given a lecture, or I would have been afraid of being considered stupid.
I am no longer preoccupied with trying to meet the requirements and wishes of other people, I stand up for myself much more now.
I no longer have to prove myself in order to feel good enough. Now that I am studying medicine, I used to have the feeling that I had to prove myself that I was really worth that, and that gave quite some stress. I do not have to prove myself anymore in this respect, I think I am worth it.
I no longer feel that I am not worthy of all kinds of things, such as being healthy and feeling good about myself. I no longer feel that, when things are difficult, I have deserved that.
I am open about a lot of things, especially about love and sex. In the past, I would sometimes be sorry about what I had said, now I do not mind anymore, it does not bother me anymore afterwards.
I no longer feel the need to exaggerate when I tell something.
I have no more fear of getting really sick. I have no more fear of staying alone.
With respect to my eczema, there are still some small patches on my fingers and elbows this year. The heavy itching on my shin-bone has nearly gone, it is still there, but only slightly. There is still a small patch in my groins. There is however a large, hot ‘eczema-like patch’ on my left leg. Last year, there was such a patch on my right leg. These large patches on my legs have appeared since the start of the LTA therapy.
In September, the eczema on my fingers had come on again, like every year. In the meantime, they have become small patches. In August, my eczema also flared up (has never happened before in August). It has disappeared again.
I no longer suffer from tense shoulder blade muscles. I regularly had cramps in my calves when I was asleep or when I woke up. This has diminished.
I sleep better. I am calmer when I sleep, I am more relaxed when I sleep, I have a deeper sleep. I am less thinking when I am asleep, I am no longer working or studying when I sleep. Despite the fact that I sleep better, I am still tired.
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List of problem issues at the end of November 2007
When the second academic year started, a number of new problem issues appeared. Jan already established a number of problem issues that had not been noticed a year ago, when the therapy was started.
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As from this year, I take the regular medicine courses. I have classes together with the students of the fourth year of medicine.
This year is quite tough, almost tougher still than last year. During the day, I have to go to the university for classes and to a clinical training centre for learning practical skills. Such as learning how to carry out a physical examination, learning how to execute anamnesis, learning how to use a stethoscope, learning how to take some blood, to place an infusion site, learning how to do some stitching …
In the evening, I have to study from 17.00 until 22.00 and in the weekend I have to work. Working and studying, and always having to finish an assignment, put me under pressure.
There are constantly assignments that need to be prepared. Unfortunately, I have but very little time to prepare my exams. That worries me. How will I be able to pass my exams, if I have got almost no time to study ? I feel rushed, because I need to pick up things in a short time. I am afraid that I will have too little time to master everything.
I am afraid that I will not be able to keep it up in the end. Last school year, I often had some rest in the evening, now there is hardly any time for rest anymore. I get more and more stressed and irritated by that. I am fed up with the fact that my life is all about working and studying, with no room at all for a nice hobby or some romance.
When the new academic year started, I noticed that I have forgotten a lot of what I had learned last year. I must be able to retain material for a longer time.
In class, when I need to answer a question from the professor, I get a black-out. For just one second, I know absolutely nothing, I need some time to recover, and then I can more or less remember the information.
I find it difficult not to get overwhelmed by all the knowledge presented and requested during lectures and discussions. I am stressed by the thought that I have to master all knowledge, or that I have to be able to remember or understand everything. I am afraid that I will not be able to remember it all or that I will not know it well. This way, I can get very stressed and then I cannot think straight anymore.
I feel fear of not being able to meet the requirements that are set for me. Or a fear of patients, doctors, nurses being disappointed in me or angry with me or being in danger, because of a possible lack of knowledge and skill on my behalf.
My insecurity in performing day to day tasks has diminished over last year. With respect to new things, however, I am still very insecure and internally stressed. Especially when I have to learn something new that requires some skill. I am afraid that I will do something wrong and will be reprimanded for it. I fear that I will not know what to do.
I am not very skilful and I am not very handy with tools.
When, during the exercises, I have to learn a practical skill, such as learning how to feel the heartbeat in different places of the body, I am already nervous and cramped in advance. I fear that it will not work, that I will not be able to do it. I think in advance that I will not be able to feel the heartbeat anyway, and I am preoccupied with what other people will say of that.
That is why I am bungling a lot during the practical exercises. I keep on bungling when placing an infusion site, taking blood and doing some stitching. I notice that I get easily blocked when I do not see the light for a second, and I do not know how to handle things. I feel like a real bungler then. I notice that my fellow students master everything a lot faster. I am too stressed and forced and I have got too little self-confidence. I worry too much when I do not master something right away. Most of the students are so relaxed and full of self-confidence, that I look at them with respect and admiration. I learn a lot from them, but I again notice how cramped and clumsy I can be.
When practicing conversations with a patient, I am too perfectionist, I easily lose the structure of the conversation, I ask questions that are too long-winded. That is because I am afraid that I would be too blunt, too direct or unclear. I am afraid to say senseless things, (is it correct what I say?). Because of the insecurity about the sense of what I say, I lose control over what I have to say and I say things at random. I have trouble in structuring my way of thinking, talking and writing.
What also strikes me, is my lack of knowledge and clinical reasoning. Clinical reasoning is the process of assessing a patient’s medical status. My memory then lets me down or I clam up when a doctor asks me a question.
In general, when communicating with people, I have a problem in the way that I do not know when to react or that I do not know what to say. What I have always found striking is that other people find it much easier to talk and talk more than I do, and always have more to tell than I do. I cannot always react to what people say, because I do not know what to say and because I am afraid to say something wrong. I find it hard to express myself, I find it hard to express what I want and what I feel.
At meetings, I am full of admiration about the way some younger students are able to present some things for a large group of people, full of self-confidence and with correct usage and humor, and are able to tell much more about a subject that they had just seen before, than I am. I notice that I have a negative reaction towards myself, because I cannot do that and I actually should be able to do that.
Although this has improved a little bit, I still find it difficult to feel love for another person, and to show and give love to another person.
Due to these problems with respect to love and communication, I am curbed in my contacts with others and in developing a relationship/getting into contact with another person.
Because of my contacts with sick people or other people in need, I can feel pretty quenched. I feel like people are extracting energy from me, as if they install a pipeline towards me in order to tap energy. Or otherwise it seems to me that I have to give away energy to my own detriment.
If a woman is interested in me, it is often somebody who is having a very difficult time and who sees me as her lifesaver. I often also had the idea that only children and old people like me.
I cannot deeply relax and enjoy something. When other people go out and enjoy things, I mostly stay alone at home. Without love or friendship in my life. Life can be pretty lonely like that.
I too much focus on what I do not have in my life, and on what is not good. Instead of being thankful and joyful about what I do have and about what I have achieved.
Things tend to go wrong when I want to purchase something. For example, when I order some books, the bookstore would make some mistake so that I do not receive the books I ordered or lose the discount. Then I have to react in order to set things straight, which takes a lot of time and energy. I can get pretty worked up about this. I lose money as a result of another person’s mistakes.
The last couple of months, I have been suffering from a whistling sound in my ear on a regular basis. I constantly hear whistling tones.
During my training, I have been in the operating room a couple of times. After a couple of hours, my ears became completely blocked (as you can experience when deep-sea diving and when sitting in an aeroplane taking off or landing). I almost heard nothing anymore, my voice was all distorted and hard, and it was just like I was being shut off from the world. I could not really follow what happened around me and I clammed up.
Half of the time that I spend in the operating room, my ears are blocked (especially my left ear) and I am not able to communicate anymore. Very unpleasant !
In September I had a cold in the nose and my throat ached. These are the usual complaints in the autumn.
In the month of August, some things aggravated after having improved before. I worried a lot about money (whether I would be able to work enough in the future and whether I would be all right financially in the years to come). Depressive feelings came back. Feelings of loneliness, fatalistic and pessimistic thoughts emerged. I was again more easily frustrated, I felt a little more stomachache because of the stress. I felt frustrations again about not being attractive to women. I was afraid that I would not be able to remember the material in the year to come and that I often would not know things, which would embarrass me … I feared the practical trainings at the hospital that were about to come (this improved soon; Linda tells me that this is because patterns that are activated, immediately peel off on their own, after having received a sufficient number of hours of therapy).
The last couple of weeks of August, I suffered a lot from my back. It was so bad that I hardly managed to work. This was linked to my worrying about money. Patterns related to money (such as fear of not having enough money, and patterns including ideas such as: ‘you have not quite enough’, ‘poverty’ …) were stored in my back and were causing the pain. These patterns were broken down by means of the therapy and then my back was better again.
I was tense, cramped and frightened for the first school day on 3 September. The first two weeks of the school year, I was extremely nervous and I had great fear.
Also in October I was still frightened, insecure, tense. I again had more trouble with my stomach and intestines because of the tensions (belches, windiness, upset stomach). I was suffering a lot from tension headaches.
This all has improved again now.
After a difficult start, I am not afraid any more to take initiative and to take more control over the situation. This way, more activities at the department are drawn to me. I am getting a more solid grip on things. I have the courage to ask more questions and practicing specific skills.
I have got more self-confidence now. I know that I am not worse or less than my fellow students. Contacts with them are easy and very pleasant. I get positive feedback from parents, doctors, colleagues.
