more dreams

i have been having bad dreams lately.

really bad.

most of them involve failure.

i've dreamt that i missed diagnoses and babies grew extremely ill. i've dreamt that there were tons of important things i didn't know (and my brain is making up diagnoses. how did it come up with "pregnant prebiotic vitaminosis" anyway?). i've dreamt that i've gotten sent back to medical school for remediation, and could not perform well there, and the students made fun of me for sucking. and i've dreamt that patients died in my care.

a dream here or there doesn't really affect one, but this recurring motif is really starting to get to me. the dreams are horrible, horrible. it's starting to affect me at work and how i practice. i guess that having this degree of responsibility has never really weighed on my psyche before, and perhaps it's surfacing now. it is a great responsibility, isn't it? a parent does all that he/she can (or wants to, depending), and when they are out of their ken the child is brought to me.

these dreams must stop. don't you go trying to analyze me; i know it's a reflection of feelings of inadequacy. but i'd rather have more of those dreams about having no breasts (which is much closer to truth) than something that's going to affect my work, where other people depend on me.

here's the thing. i am, at least by objective committee reviews, a good doctor.

perhaps i truly am under spiritual attack.