I’m writing today on a plane from Orlando to Washington, D.C. A couple hours ago, I gave a keynote speech for the Girl Scouts National Convention, and am now headed to my old home town for 3 days where I’ll be part of a congressional fly-in with The Chamber of Mothers. We are advocating for the Momnibus, a group of 13 bills in support of maternal health, put forth by the Black Maternal Health Caucus. Later this week I’ll see some of my patients in person for the first time in years!
I feel lucky to have a career in which nearly every activity I take part in is deeply tied to what I care about most — women’s mental health. That’s not to say there are not hard or trying days (there are many!). Yet, all in all, I have the choice and the freedom to decide what I say yes to and what I say no to (to be clear, lots of privilege involved in that freedom).
It has not always been that way. Way back in 2017, I was coming up on a powerful crossroads in my career. If you’ve read Real Self-Care, or any of the surrounding coverage, you know that in my 20’s I blew up my life once. The crossroads I approached in 2017 was much less dramatic (or destructive), but it was still a crossroads. Up until that point, I was a newly minted academic psychiatrist focused on women’s mental health and global mental health. I started down the Ivory tower path: submitting grants, submitting manuscripts for peer review publication, and working as an Associate Program Director of the Psychiatry residency in my department. But, it did not quite fit. My grants and manuscripts were rejected over and over. (A reviewer of one paper I submitted said that I spent too long on women’s stories, and that they were irrelevant. Interesting!)
I found myself despondent and burnt out. So, like any good geriatric millennial, I started an IG account, @womensmentalhealthdoc, that focused on educating folks about maternal mental health, my clinical speciality. I made cartoons and graphics — sometimes even selfies — certainly not “serious” academic work. At first I felt silly and ashamed for this, but then it became clear that my social media work was actually helping people. Seeing that made me value my creative inclinations— it gave me permission to keep pursuing them too.
Eventually, after a couple years of trying to pursue both paths, I made a real self-care choice for myself: I would have to let go of research and “serious” academic work. I wanted to do work that “regular” people would read and connect with. I wanted the freedom and space to be just Pooja, not Dr. Lakshmin all the time.
I’m reminded of this origin story today as I sit, waiting to board my flight, and I think about the multitudes of worlds that my work takes me. Yesterday, I spoke on a stage in front of 1,000 people, I sent a sternly worded fax to an insurance company who is refusing to cover my patient’s Concerta, I’m currently reviewing the briefing doc that Dr. Rachel Blake, an OBGYN from Harvard, and Lauren Smith Brody, author and the founder of The Fifth Trimester, have painstakingly put together in support of the Momnibus in their work for Chamber of Mothers. While this multi-hyphenate existence feels overwhelming at times, I feel fully in ownership of it. I actively chose it at my last crossroads moment and because of that, the overwhelming days feel much more bearable (okay, fighting with an insurance company does always feels burdensome but besides that!).
Your Therapy Takeaway
Today’s Therapy Takeaway is about noticing your crossroads moment and moving toward your values