Rajput21
Peer Supporter
Since starting this program have you told anyone about your condition and TMS? Why or Why not? If you have how did they react?
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I haven't told many people because most of the people I know reject anything that involves the mind. They simply believe you can will yourself past anything and wouldn't be able to understand what I am going through.
I did however tell my cousin, who is not only a lawyer but professionally positive. She's the most empowering person I know, unlike most of my family and friends. She had no idea of the extent of my back pain and as I told her what I thought about it and the TMS diagnosis, she was kind of speechless. She knew that I had taken a two and a half year medical leave from school but she didn't really know what my day-to-day was like. When I told her, she said something I'll never forget. It went something like this, over the course of some back and forth between us. I'm putting it all together though, as I remember it:
Last fall when you returned to school, you made the Dean's List for the first time in law school. You missed huge chunks of class time and didn't even complete most of the foundational readings. You are telling me that you were in pain on a daily basis and even had a panic attack that resulted in a breakout of hives. Still you managed to perform better than most of your classmates, at a fraction of your true potential. I don't see why you need to fear law school. It's clear you can do this and if the origin of all this pain is stress, maybe you just keep pushing ahead and you'll get past this because you know you can. You already have.
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I try to keep in mind what she said because she's right. All this stress associated with law school is more a remnant of my first experiences with it. It's functionally obsolete.
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I haven't told many people because most of the people I know reject anything that involves the mind. They simply believe you can will yourself past anything and wouldn't be able to understand what I am going through.
I did however tell my cousin, who is not only a lawyer but professionally positive. She's the most empowering person I know, unlike most of my family and friends. She had no idea of the extent of my back pain and as I told her what I thought about it and the TMS diagnosis, she was kind of speechless. She knew that I had taken a two and a half year medical leave from school but she didn't really know what my day-to-day was like. When I told her, she said something I'll never forget. It went something like this, over the course of some back and forth between us. I'm putting it all together though, as I remember it:
Last fall when you returned to school, you made the Dean's List for the first time in law school. You missed huge chunks of class time and didn't even complete most of the foundational readings. You are telling me that you were in pain on a daily basis and even had a panic attack that resulted in a breakout of hives. Still you managed to perform better than most of your classmates, at a fraction of your true potential. I don't see why you need to fear law school. It's clear you can do this and if the origin of all this pain is stress, maybe you just keep pushing ahead and you'll get past this because you know you can. You already have.
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I try to keep in mind what she said because she's right. All this stress associated with law school is more a remnant of my first experiences with it. It's functionally obsolete.
