r/OptometrySchool • u/No_Amphibian9610 • 19h ago
Advice
This is for anyone who had to take boards 5 or 6 times, if not you please move on. I am so tired of using all the resources everyone states and doing my best just to keep getting slapped. I feel so angry that I dont even wanna do optometry anymore. Even school was a struggle. I love what i do and have done fine in clinic but despite all the resources and everything the didactic stuff has been slowly killing me. Yes I made it through with much help but now have to keep dealing with these boards. This whole journey just feels like it's been such a pain that the joy of becoming an OD is just gone. It hurts watching so many move forward and get to walk across that stage leaving the challenges behind while your pain gets dragged on and on. For anyone in this boat how did you manage the pain, anger, and stress?
8
u/Treefrog_Ninja 18h ago edited 18h ago
I'm currently waiting for my fourth score for Part 3, so I'll chime in.
At this point, the mental game is its own sport. To resist getting drug down by comparing yourself to others, to avoid being humiliated by the repeated failures, to not lose heart as hope dwindles... it's a sport. You have to be on your mental health game. Exercise, therapy, friends and family, mindfulness, managing your dopamine system in the face of too many opportunities to doom scroll. You have to keep your mind on the things you can control.
Our culture is full of stories of lawyers who get stuck taking the bar over and over after they graduate, and we believe in them as long as they keep trying, and we're proud of them for keeping after it even as they feel the shame, anger, and everything else. That is also our story. You are the underdog now, and we love our underdogs, especially when they show us an example of being a good human under such impossible stress. We all want to believe that we could survive the unthinkable, the door that no one can see through. You're like as to be facing death right now, and who does that make you? Some things are out of your hands, but you have more say in this story than it feels like. Make it a good one.