EMS has been all I have known for the last 12 years - the last 4 full time. I'm terrified to leave it, even as miserable as I am.
I'm terrified that I'm not going to fit in at my new job, and that I'm going to find I'm as inadequate and ineffective as a mental health professional as I feel as a paramedic. Not only would that be a continuation of my feelings of inadequacy, but a huge deflation of what I finally feel I'm truly good at - working with people, my sense of empathy etc. It scares me to move from a medium high rung in the EMS ladder to the bottom rung of the mental health ladder. I fear that where I am looking for validation I am going to come up empty.
I'm also consumed with fear and conflicting emotion about my weight and my body image. I have been working with a nutritionist since February now. I have started to noticeably lose weight (or so I'm told). All I've been working on is developing a healthy relationship with food. I got on the scale last month for the first time in over 5 years. It was a monumental step for me. As my next appointment draws near, I almost hyperventilate at the thought of getting back on. Getting on once was bad enough, but I find myself preoccupied with the prospect of my weight changing (even if I don't know what the change is or even if there is a change - I asked the nutritionist not to tell me ANYTHING). I don't know if it's because A. I'm afraid of failure and feeling judged if there has been a gain, or B. because I'm afraid on some unconscious level that there will be a loss. I've identified myself as an overweight person since I can remember, and I feel like in losing weight, I'm sacrificing part of my identity and conceding to my parents image of what I should be. I know I don't have to get on the scale at all if I don't want to... I don't know what to do.
It's funny that a piece of balancing equipment can be so daunting and anxiety provoking.
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