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Ask Amanda: How do I tell people to stop asking me about my life?
posted on January 26, 2018 | by Amanda Holstein
Question:
Hello!
Your blog has been a wonderful resource for me navigating life and so I thought who better to talk to for advice. I’m 26 and applying to medical school for the third time. So far it looks like I’ll have to apply a fourth time, and I have my high and low moments about the whole process.
However, right now I’m at the point where whenever anyone asks about it—(“Have you heard back? Did you do X, Y, and Z? Is it bad you haven’t heard anything?”)—I feel my heart break and nerves get ground down. I know they mean well, but I was wondering, do you have any advice on how to respectfully ask people to not ask about my life/school plans without biting their heads off?
Thank you!
Shana
Answer:
Hi Shana,
Thanks for writing in! I can’t even imagine how stressful that must be to not only be focused on getting into med school but to also have people on top of you about it constantly. I know they mean well, but that can feel like more pressure and stress when that’s the last thing you need!
I think first it’s important to understand how you’re feeling about this situation. It can be easy to be really hard on yourself when you put in all this work and aren’t getting the results you want. But I hope you’re able to keep your head up and not doubt how smart and capable you are. I hope you have faith that this will all work out in the end, whether that means you go to med school or not. I think if you can truly feel that strength within you and trust that everything will be ok, you won’t feel as stressed out when others ask about the process.
In the meantime, I’d say something like this: “Thank you so much for asking and I’m so appreciative of your support during all this, but to be totally honest, I think I’d rather just update you and everyone on my own time. Is there any way we could just not talk about it unless I bring it up first? That would take a lot of the pressure off of me and make this process a little easier. I hope you can understand that!” Try your best to say it calmly and even with a smile so they know you’re not angry. You can even tell them, “I’m not upset with you at all, I would just love it if I could be the one to bring it up in the future”.
I’d also tell someone who can communicate your message to other people. So whether that’s your mom who can tell the rest of your family or your friend who can tell the rest of your friends, choose a couple people to talk to about this and have them spread the word. You shouldn’t have to respond to every single person with this — that’s a lot. So if you can get a few people to tell others for you, I think that would be ideal.
Good luck!
Amanda
Photography by Tait Campbell
Tina Says
Great advice! This sounds just like me, but just with graduate school instead of med school.
Jill Says
Hi Shana (and Amanda!),
I’m not a blogger and I don’t think I’ve ever left a comment here, but I felt I had to given that I was in a very similar situation last year. First of all, I really commend you for being so persistent, applying to medical school is a grueling process and it says a lot about you that you have continued to work towards your goals despite not getting the results you wanted at first (I personally think this is a fantastic quality in a future doctor!). I applied myself last year and was crushed (to put it lightly) when I didn’t get in. Looking back, one of the hardest parts of this was exactly what you’re describing-people asking about it all the time (out of genuine excitement, which was so sweet, but made it more difficult in some ways) and me not wanting to talk about it because I felt so disappointed in myself. To be completely honest, I found myself dodging a lot of conversations and sometimes even certain people because of it, which I don’t recommend at all, as this was stressful in itself.
In terms of actually dealing with this, I completely agree with what Amanda said about having a few close family members and/or friends tell others that this is a stressful topic for you right now and to wait for you to bring it up. This definitely helped me, especially initially when I was trying to figure out myself how I wanted to deal with all of this. To that point, one big thing that helped me was to make a plan for what I wanted to do next. Once I nailed down what I needed to focus on to improve my application to apply again, I felt a lot better in general and more comfortable telling others. After some time had passed and I came to accept (as much as I could) that I would be applying again, I was honest with some friends/colleagues/classmates, etc. about the situation. I would say that things were not going the way I had hoped/planned and that this was a difficult time for me, but that I had identified some areas I could work on so I could apply again. I won’t sugarcoat it and say this wasn’t hard, but for the most part, I was really touched by how understanding everyone was and it definitely got easier over time.
Everyone is so different, so I’m not sure how much my experience with this might help you, but at the very least I hope you know you’re not alone in going through this (I definitely felt that way at times). I truly believe that hard work and perseverance pay off, so hang in there and focus on what you can do to get yourself where you want to go. Best of luck, I’m rooting for you!