16/01/2026
My first year as a mother was ridden with plenty of anxieties especially as I was closer to finishing my maternity leave! Rather than studying for my paediatric clinical exam as was deemed appropriate by my portfolio supervisor ( obviously not a female 🙄) , I was worried about my little boy not sleeping while I was on night shifts, his long 10 hrs at nursery, how to breastfeed as i never could pump and doing that during our shifts were impossible, missing him for almost an entire day and so on! So once I did finish off my exams a few months later, I made it my mission to find a subspecialty that would give me some work - life balance and yet be interesting enough to make me want to work. I almost decided to pursue clinical genetics but when a lovely consultant mentioned how she missed treating people and making them better, I decided to drop it.
And I realised I was looking for a specialty that I never wanted to retire from! I wanted to keep working as long as I was able to!
And during my search I met someone with the title of Children and Adolescent Psychiatrist and something disturbed me deeply. I panicked!The first thought I had was “have I been pursuing the wrong specialty all this time?”. And I thought it’s too late.And I went back and googled everything to know and I felt a mixture of shame and guilt and embarrassment!
Being a paediatric trainee I knew all about the mentality of other doctors towards psychiatrists! And even towards the children who came with self harm and non accidental poisoning! I was always scolded for spending any time with those children. Just refer to CAMHS and they have ridiculous waiting lists and they don’t do anything anyways! Don’t waste your time!
So even though I knew it was wrong, I felt helpless and pushed that thought and my feelings down and eventually found a 9-5 research and clinical job in respiratory paediatrics which was my first preference as a beginner in paediatrics.
This time I worked with children with cystic fibrosis. With a diagnosis that was genetic and life limiting the guilt of the parents whose genes were responsible for this death sentence to their own children was immense and hardly addressed. A particularly challenging family that everyone avoided (as they gave everyone a really hard time), confided that every hospital visit terrified them! Their way of hiding their fear was by terrorising others! The clinical psychologists we had access to was too minimal and intermittent to make any real progress!
But I loved this job as for the first time i actually had the time and opportunity to build a relationship with those families,children and colleagues. And it was a 9-5 job which meant I could start pretending I was a regular mother and pick up my son in time at least most days of the week. I even got special permission to drop him off to school once a week.
But I couldn’t have this job for longer than 2 years. I would have to go back to training and even commute long distance again. I didn’t look forward to that at all. Plus I really wanted a sibling for my boy who complained how all his friends had brothers or sisters to play with during lunch breaks!
I promised him we could have one as soon as I finished my research project and before I finished this 2 year job!
But along came Covid and lockdowns and I got really sick and ended up with POTS and what is now known as Long Covid!
But at the time I didn’t know that. I just thought it was a post viral syndrome that would last maximum 12 months and I would be back on my feet again.
As my research grants,my technician and equipments were all taken away due to covid taking priority, I thought what could I possibly do while I am sick? ( who actually things like that if not complex PTSD people)And I hopped on and took my personal MD research savings and did RTT- Rapid transformational therapy!
But I became so sick especially with the covid vaccinations and repeated covid that I had severe dissociation, depression and cognitive difficulties! So basically I couldn’t learn the course!
So based on suggestion from a colleague, I stopped the phased return & working from home that was worsening my health! I resigned from my job. I slept long and hard and tried antidepressants as I read research papers that they helped long covid patients in other countries.
They helped slightly but a colleague did some RTT sessions and I got about 60% better and came more integrated to my life.
I realised from those hypnosis sessions that I was reading parenting and relationship articles by a child and adolescent psychologist as a 11 yr old that triggered me!I remember Ask Aunt Alice in Young times and thinking I would love to become the aunt Alice solving everyone’s life problems and relationship problems! But my child brain mistook the columns and writing as my desire to become a writer! And I had no idea what psychologist or psychiatrist or paediatrics meant as a 10 yr old and they all got muddled up!!
I didn’t ask for the universe to give me long COVID! I have not struggled with anything in my life like I did with this one problem! But surely that is the sign that you are meant to evolve and transform a LOT!!
The numerous organ systems affected, losing my own identity, showing me the darkest moments of life and the repeated traumas and terrors are to name a few!
I don’t know if I still have fully recovered! Most days it feels alien to me but some days it grips me and holds me down making me doubt all the progress I have made! But the grips are shorter,less hard and I bounce back easily with much shorter naps and rests.
But Like any illness it did give me some secondary gains though!
I never had a maternity leave so I did not worry about going back to work. I could breastfeed for as long as I wanted and I could put her to sleep every single night and wake up with her! I didn’t need to manipulate her routines to see if it would fit my work. Such a luxury and a gift truly💕
However much as I hate you for taking away my memories ,giving me PTSD,very little energy so I can’t be that superwoman I used to be, I am grateful for you to give me this time with my little girl. And I am grateful as you opened up my eyes and soul to what trauma is all about and I am learning everything about it to help myself and others who have suffered any sort of trauma! I am grateful for you as you made me take notice of my needs which I had ignored for so long!
And since I met you, I decided to throw away my old motto of living life to the fullest and not caring if I make it to 50 yrs!
Instead, I look at my beautiful daughter and think I want to be there when she becomes a mother. I want to be that super grandmother who will take her kids swimming and to gymnastics. I want to tell my daughter that she can always choose both her career and her kids if she decides to have them.
I want to give her the gift of living without a working mother’s guilt!( if that is possible)
And as I do my work as an RTT therapist and a mind - body healer I am blessed with a career that helps make people better, that motivates me to wake up every day and helps me look after my own kids and be there for their most important times of the day-(when they wake up, return from major activities and bedtimes- ) For years I tried to find that career and now after many years that career that was meant for me, has FOUND ME and is TRANSFORMING me to serve it best!
It’s WAY better than I could even have imagined it or visualised it!
The universe always have a way of conspiring to give you your dreams and in the most bizarre and weirdest ways! And I am so so GRATEFUL for this opportunity! I know I have found the right speciality for me finally! And the happiness and peace I feel is so worth the struggles preceding it! And the numerous number of courses and cpds I sign up is a big indicator to me how much I am enjoying learning all this! Nothing since passing my clinicals in 2015 have excited me to learn! So I am happily breaking that wish I had of never to learn or do an exam or a course after MRCPCH!
If I get to learn about hypnotherapy,trauma, psychology, somatic therapy, energy medicine ,psychosomatic, psychoneuroimmunology,neuroscience and all other related fields, I am going to happily say a big YES over and over again!!!
