Cognitive Dissonance (From the Archives)

Growing up, my world consisted of good kids like Spook, Ryan, Barry, Jean, and Christy. Especially Jean, she would draw fun pictures and write nice things in a note folded up for me at school: "To Tonya, my friend. From: Jean, your friend." There were bad kids like Eddie - who would come to our street and try to bully the guys. (I had to stand up for them and ran him off our street on more than one occasion.) And there was Dennis, who made little kids on the bus cry and punched nice boys in the noses. (I didn't mess with him as I was pretty sure he would be OK hitting girls too). There were good adults, like Mr. Stevens, who taught us Spanish words, told jokes, and made learning fun. And bad adults, like the weirdo who drove by and exposed himself to my sister. My world was very orderly. I had been socialized to put people in one of two boxes, good or bad. And over the years, through many lessons, I started losing the absolute black and white and seeing the gray. Looking back, my definition of good meant my loyalty was blind to any "bad" and vice-versa. I mean, Spook did mean things to his big sister and broke the rules by climbing our tree. And even Eddie said he was sorry and promised to be nice. Whatever my growth, though, this past week has been the most challenging in regards to cognitive dissonance. Despite that, I made an agonizing career decision on Monday. 

The couple that I've worked for in private practice for almost seven years went on record last weekend as being part of the small percentage of providers that believe mainstream medicine prevention and treatment of COVID19 is misleading people and causing harm while endorsing unproven preventions and remedies. We all suspected this early in the pandemic, but they had allowed all of us to give solid medical updates at meetings and practice how we saw fit. In August, I transitioned to be the fill-in doc since I feel my most important job currently is coaching family docs to enjoy their lives and careers. However, this weekend, they participated in a "community information forum" about early treatment and the 'truth' about vaccines. They endorsed their beliefs in the local paper. Despite the most obvious, the problem with this is that they are genuinely some of the most selfless, kind, and giving physicians I know. I've never worked for better bosses. I couldn't villainize them. I knew too many other facets of them. I also knew, though, I could no longer be okay with being the fill-in doc. Despite how amazing they are in so many areas, I felt I must stand on principle and distance myself by no longer working there. It was a tough decision, but I knew it in my gut, and there was no point in prolonging it. I let them know the genuine reasons, but in the most kindly-worded and heartfelt resignation letter I have ever written. I am holding space for myself to allow the mixed bag of emotions - the overarching one being sadness. Proving again that I still have much to learn about seeing the full truth about people and situations. There is always good and bad. (Although, I'm still a bit unsure about Dennis. JK).

Are there people or situations you can expand your views of this week? How can you allow all the feelings and accept this is part of the entire human experience?