A letter to those who want to stay silent.

During my first year of university studying dentistry, I made amazing friends and I really enjoyed some modules of my course. However, from very early on, maybe as early as a couple of weeks in, something just didn’t feel right. 

I remember when I would sometimes think of the future, I just couldn’t picture myself doing dentistry, and I had no idea why I found it so hard to picture myself being a dentist.  

I continued going to classes and putting all my effort into my studies. It wasn’t until 2nd year, where things became more practical, that I knew I couldn’t keep pretending, although dropping out just didn’t feel like an option for me. 

One night during first term of second year, a friend said to me how she had noticed how unsettled I had been for the past while and had asked me about how my uni course was going. I always tried to change the subject quickly when people asked me about how uni was going, but this friend saw past that and knew that I really wasn’t happy doing dentistry. 

Later that month, I knew that I was allowing fear to dictate my decision to stay in the course. 

As the months went on during second year, I began to feel lower and lower, and I knew that I would have to decide what to do, but I was so afraid of what people would say, what my family would think and even just the thought of the future scared me. 

I began to ask myself the question does staying bring me peace and the more I thought about staying in a course that wasn’t for me, the more I felt unsettled and upset. 

How did you have the courage to do this?

In my own strength I didn’t have the courage, and I had let fear dictate so many of my decisions and my actions. One of the ways that really helped me was to talk to my friends and family. I had kept in everything for so long, and no one knew how I was feeling about my uni course. I think it can be so easy to isolate yourself and to not want to invite people into your life, or to believe a lie that no one cares. But the truth is that we were not meant to live life alone, and community and talking to people about how you are feeling can make the world of a difference. Once I opened and talked to the people that I trusted it gave me the courage and I was able to navigate the decision so much more clearly. 

The more people that I spoke to, the more freedom I began to feel. I had listened to so many lies in my head for so long that I felt stuck, and the lies in my head began to sound like the truth, lies like- ‘people are going to see you as a failure’,  ‘so many people will now see you differently’, ‘your family will be so disappointed’  However the more I spoke to people that loved me and that I trusted, the more I felt like everything was going to be ok. 

I remember reading a book called Garden City, and in it the author told a story about his friend who was feeling so low and down and he didn’t understand why he was feeling like this. The author spent time with him, and started to ask him about his job and quickly realised that his friend was so unhappy in the job that he had. The author asked his friend the question, ‘If you could do anything, what would you do?’, his friend replied, that he had always thought about being a policeman, and the author simply replied ‘why don’t you quit? Give it a shot?’.

This inspired me as I realised, I also have a choice to quit and give something that I would love a shot. We have the gift of choosing a career, and so why not decide to do something that you could wake up and be excited about the day ahead. 

Looking back, I am so thankful that I opened up and talked to people about how I was feeling. Talking and opening up was what helped me realise that I wasn’t alone, and that dropping out wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. I now look back with thankfulness, and the whole process helped me realise that we have choices to make in life, and to not be afraid to make a big choice that will result in joy. Sometimes it takes a step without knowing what comes next, but it will be so worth it, and when a door is closed, another one will open. I want to encourage you if you are struggling, know that you are not alone, to talk to your friends and family about how you are feeling, and to be hopeful that life can be beautiful, and to not be afraid to make choices that will result in joy.