The Ten-Year Plan

The last week of May marked the first time in my post-Afghanistan life I had direction. When something flattens you like a piano falling from the 18th floor of an apartment building, you listen. I was sitting at work doing my normal team assistant/secretary thing that I have grown to be very good at and, in turn, to be very bored with. I turned to talk to my co-worker and the baby grand came out of nowhere. I needed to go back to school. Okay...now? Now's as good a time as any.

What should I study? The golden question. A trip to Washington D.C. confirmed the fate that I would never be a Senator or a Congressperson or President or a Supreme Court Justice. Watching my sister and my mother struggle in the public school system with absolutely no support from the State Legislature didn't blow my skirt up. Manual labor or trades in mechanics was completely out the window. A professional personal or adminstrative assistant would become dull.

I was a student at the University of Utah after basic training when I thought I wanted to be a lawyer. I fell into the social aspect of college rather than the full-time student. I played pool rather than read my Political Science book. I flirted rather than wrote the paper that was due the next day. Thankfully I did well enough in my science, math and writing courses to transfer 23 hours to Salt Lake Community College. It just so happens that those 23 hours became the hours I needed to fulfill most of my general education requirements. It really couldn't have turned out more perfect.

The piano hit me again. This one was an upright. I always wondered why I came home from Afghanistan having nightmares and never wanting to sleep. I would be up until two, three, four sometimes five in the morning. After proper therapy I was able to sleep again but it got me thinking. Why did I go half way around the world, see no combat, sing songs, smile a lot, run paperwork and come back with alcoholism and an acute case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? That's it, Allison. That's what you need to do. What happens inside a person's mind that makes that happen?

I've always been fascinated with how things work. I learned how a car worked. When I was 12 I took apart a VCR, a rotery telephone and a hair drier to see the gears and the boards. What could be more exciting to study than the human mind? What could me more fulfilling than watching and helping someone become a functional member of society? I want to help people do that. Psychiatry.

Now what? I know what I want to do. How do I get there? The only to get there: Associate's Degree in Psychology, Bachelor's Degree in Biology, medical school, Psychiatry residency, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry fellowship while doing volunteer work at the Department of Veteran's Affairs and extensive study in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Acute Stress Disorder.

This usually brings up the question: Will you be my shrink?

We'll see.