Do No Harm…
It has taken me a little over 38 years to learn that the most important concept in “Do No Harm” is to start with oneself. I was conditioned to be selfless, the typical Christian/Catholic girl, daughter, and now woman. That was my upbringing, to take care of everyone else’s needs, be independent but also a caregiver, and not have any needs of my own. I was privileged as a white person in American with two married parents, a father as a physician, a mom who stopped working to care for us, a “stable” home. Why would I have ever questioned things? Even when my intuition was constantly leading me to something different, I ignored it because clearly, I had it pretty darn good (in many ways I did). I followed all the rules, did all the things expected of me, and it still blew up in my face, but perhaps in a good way.
Life is more complicated than one thing or the other. One can both be fortunate and grateful, while also lacking and yearning. Life is duality, whether people want to understand that or not. It’s easier to filter everything into extremes, black and white, yes or no, pro-life or pro-abortion. Extremism is basic, easy, and the path of least resistance. Our culture doesn’t leave a lot of room for nuance, middles, maybes or neither and the real rainbow and full spectrum of colors that exist between black and white.
I really thought my first blog post would be some earth shattering in the USA post about how royally and phenomenally inane our healthcare system is and how to fix it. HA! I mean that’s true about our system, but not about this first post. This is more personal. It’s about how I’m learning to “do no harm” to myself by learning to be more selfish, to love myself, to stand up for myself and not only those around me. I’m learning to communicate and hold clear boundaries when warranted. And what I’m finding as I am on this journey, with the help of my therapist, a few trusted loved ones, my two favorite peloton instructors, and an even fewer IG accounts I get inspiration from, is that as I take care of myself, I do less harm to others around me. I’m not defensive towards my immediate family. I don’t hold onto the annoyance of staff in a professional context calling me Shannon rather than Dr. Tapia when I calmly correct them rather than brood due to fear I can’t hurt their feelings if I correct them. I don’t take out my frustrations on my son when I’m allowing myself to state my needs and feelings.
I’m realizing as writing this that I was, despite being raised as a typical woman, also raised like a typical man in the USA. It was very confusing. My father Geriatrician was my hero and I was the eldest girl in a family of four but sandwiched between brothers, and my mother did the rearing. I was the care giving selfless daughter while also being the stoic and too cool for feelings tom boy who figured smarts and hard work would get me through. That’s some fascinating duality. Not healthy for me to be sure.
Thankfully, I learn, love, hurt, lose, re-assess my ideas, grieve, learn, love, repeat. I keep going. At this point I mostly keep going for my son, who is the reason I have no regrets. While I personally have no regrets for the hard life lessons I’ve learned, I also don’t want others to even have to learn them with the hurt I did if some education, shared experiences, etc can be what prevents a choice that would do harm to themselves. Although, sometimes people just need to learn and live in their own way. Which is fine. In that case, I hope those that have had the hard life lessons I have may find solace in this blog that they’re not alone in their experience. My darkest times have been when I’ve felt like no one, even my closest family and friends, could really see me because they just didn’t get it. The feeling of loneliness (whether one is alone or not) is actually the worst.
So, this might be the most vague thing I have ever put out publicly. My prior blog always had points to each posts, topics, etc. I tried to either make a ground breaking statement with a post, OR fit my thoughts into 1000 words or less so it might get picked up by a more popular and read blog. This is different. This time is for me and because the selfish part of me still can’t help but want to try to have some positive impact on the world in which I live, work and serve (also change would make my job WAY more fulfilling for me, so, like, ultimately I’m just being selfish here). On that note, I’d also like to make something clear. It relates to duality. I’m only now realizing how problematic for me many aspects of my upbringing, conditioning, and childhood were, despite seeming like I had the most privileged life (ok so my dad was also a Geriatrician, no I did not nor currently have a trust fund and yes I’ve been afflicted by student loans). At the same time, my parents did the best they could, in the generation they were in, with the tools they had. Whatever they did, they raised me to be someone, who even in learning to be selfish, wants to help others. Those are values that stemmed from my upbringing, that helping others, feels like helping myself. And that’s no small thing. I’m just excited that I’m now learning that I can do both.
No doubt I will have more fiery thing to say, more poignant context and accurate assessments of the reality of our derailed healthcare system. I have not figured out any of the blog stuff. So for now, if you want to make requests as to what I write about or topics you’d like to hear more on, follow me on IG at @smurphymd. I think there may be a subscribe section of this site for if you want real time updates on new posts. If you DM me on Instagram with topic requests, as long as you’re not a creeper dude trying to see if we’ll be friends but really more, I’ll blog about it or let you know via IG why I haven’t yet.
And that seems like enough for the first one. I’m ready for bed. Do no harm……sleep when needed, instead of trying to over edit and analyze your first blog post. Goodnight and thank you.
