“I need to take a walk.” I walk briskly away from the workroom to do a lap of the floor, breathing deeply and trying to clear my head from the encounter I just had.

“No problem,” my attending Dr. M replies, “I’ll be here if you need me!”

I had just admitted C, a tween who was suffering from abdominal pain and vomiting. The first thing I asked upon entering the room was what they preferred to be called, because I had seen a few different names in the chart and I wanted to respect the patient’s preferred name. Immediately, C looked at his mom with a defeated face, saying “she’ll get mad if I say.” At first I was confused, then got a sinking feeling as I caught a glimpse of the mom’s face. Clearly they did not have a good relationship, and I felt like I needed to talk to the patient alone to get the truth of the matter.

“Let’s have mom step out for a second, I want to chat about what brought you in.” His mom immediately obliged, and I shut the door behind her.

“Hey, I’m Dr. Nikki. I see that it might be a tough thing to talk about with mom here, but I want to make sure I am addressing you by the right name and pronouns. You’re free to be whoever you are with me, I promise. What would you like to be called when it’s just us in here?”

“I’m C, but my mom uses my birth name L. I want to go by he/him pronouns but it makes her upset.” I sigh internally, already getting upset myself that his mom wouldn’t respect his identity, but I try not to let it show. We talk about C’s symptoms, and as I do my exam I notice a ton of self-harm scars, and his affect is very flat and withdrawn. Eventually I call mom back in the room, using she/her pronouns when C is out of earshot in an attempt to not make things worse for him, even though it pains me to do so.

Back in the workroom, I present C’s case to Dr. M. I can barely get half the story out before I have to take a deep breath to calm the anger rising in me. I’m sure she can tell, because when I finish she offers to go back to his room to finish the admission together. We pull the mom into the hallway to get her side of the story, where she proceeds to tell us that she doesn’t support “the transgender thing,” and doesn’t understand why C is so upset when “I only show her unconditional love.” WOW, I think to myself. Then you and I have VERY different definitions of unconditional, lady. Dr. M steps in, explaining so patiently and diplomatically how we will do our very best to care for her child, and that we all want them to feel better soon. I know I should chime in, but I can’t, I’ve shut down. We finally finish and head back toward the workroom, where I’m supposed to finish my note and move on to the next admission. I go for a walk to clear my head, then eventually finish my work and go home.

I spent most of the night staring at the ceiling, my mind racing, and I just couldn’t stop.

The next morning, I am on the treadmill, trying to distract myself from the thoughts of the encounter which are still swirling in my brain. It’s not working, and I realize I am not going to be able to work through it alone. I have never been good at asking for help when I need it, but it is something I have really been trying to work on. As a woman, especially a woman in medicine, I often feel like I have something to prove, and that I shouldn’t express my feelings in the workplace for fear of being thought too emotional, or too weak. I try to remind myself, though, that I am not a robot, and I shouldn’t have to dehumanize myself to be good at my job. As a queer woman, this one felt especially personal and really got to me, so I decided to reach for a lifeline.

I send off a quick epic chat on my phone, holding my breath for a response as I feel the vulnerability creeping in. “Dr. M? Can we debrief about yesterday? I really appreciate you stepping in to finish the admission, I was struggling.” I have no idea if Dr. M knows I’m gay, and it doesn’t really matter. I don’t need to word vomit my entire life story (though sometimes it just comes out), but I need to talk through the experience with C in order to move past it.

“NIKKI!” Dr. M’s message pops up with a ping. “Of course, I could tell that was a hard one for you.” Later that night, she gives me a call. “Hi,” I say, “this is me trying my best to ask for help when I need it.” We talk about the interaction with C and his mom, and how there are always going to be cases or conversations that are harder than others. Learning to communicate with people that think differently than me or staying calm when things hit close to home is a process, and I am working on it little by little. I feel better after our conversation, and I’m proud of myself for reaching out in the first place. I have been told by many people that I should ask for help when I need it, and while I know that’s true in an intellectual sense, I feel like I am so conditioned to feel like I have to do everything myself. The problem comes when I try, and fail, as all humans do sometimes, which makes me feel inadequate. Slowly but surely, I am learning to trust, and to feel empowered to say “I need you.” We definitely need that lesson in the medical field, especially as women, but for all humans really. Leaning on each other doesn’t make us weak, it makes us stronger in the long run.

I hope C and his mom are doing well now. I hope Dr. M knows how much I needed her and how much it meant that she was there. I hope I am getting better every day at putting my trust in others, and being my authentic self who has a full spectrum of feelings and life experiences. I hope that people know that when they are with me, they can feel comfortable saying, “I need you.” Be there for each other, friends, because life gets hard sometimes, but as cheesy as it sounds, we are all in this together.