The Hardest Gift to Give

The bones of our house rumbled under a spring thunderstorm, a first of the season. The bones of my body quaked under the sheets and weight of today’s essay theme, a first foray for me. I could’ve stayed in bed till noon. But ultimately, I was compelled to write, and soon enough, I was seated before my computer, coffee steaming next to me on its coaster.

If you’re reading this, you probably want to change at least one thing about your life, or you happen to be one of my Facebook friends that got bored at lunch hour and clicked this essay’s link, wondering what their friend from childhood is up to now. Surprise! I psychoanalyze myself professionally.

Okay, back to the reason I didn’t want to get out of bed today: writing about my co-dependency.

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I became a doctor to keep my family’s peace.

A family story had been woven, beginning generations before my birth, and to keep that story spinning, my assigned role was physician. If I stepped outside my role—you know, to say… be authentic to who I was, which at the time I didn’t see as feasible inside medicine—I sensed the collateral damage to my family would be catastrophic. I felt this as truth. In my bones. To abstain from medical school was to jeopardize everything. So, I became a physician and added more chapters to our family drama, enriching and strengthening the self-sacrificing narrative, believing I could find a way to be happy inside a story that no longer contained me.

(Let’s pause. I suspect that paragraph inspired a few worthy questions. Like, why did Ryan have to be a physician to keep the story going? Or how did his family develop the need to sacrifice parts of themselves to keep everyone okay? Great questions with insightful answers. But I’ve chosen not to explore them today, opting instead to focus on the bigger picture because to invest our energy in those answers would only distract from today’s theme and cause this essay to balloon into 25,000 words.)

By becoming a doctor, I was doing the right thing. The loving thing. The selfless thing.

But I knew better.

In my gut, I knew it wasn’t love. Over the following years, I came to personally experience this truth. By going to medical school, I enabled our family’s drama to roll on and gather more strength, further distorting the distinction between love and obligation. It didn’t help any of us. I only added to the tangle of enmeshment and ropes of resentment. I did what I thought was right and what I’d witnessed across my life: sacrifice who I are to love everyone else.

To expand my understanding of love, I needed to become a psychiatrist. To practice that love, I needed to leave medicine.

As I continue to build a life outside the story in my new role, I know that becoming who I am is the best way I can help the people I love. I also know this is impossible while living inside the story. As much as I know this is true and integral, the criticism and ire I’ve received from family and friends since leaving medicine is at times hard to deal with. But it makes sense. Why wouldn’t it make sense? I am leaving the story!

If I become who I really am, I’m one less actor left in the story. With one less actor, the story has less power. When the story has less power, it’s not so damn convincing anymore. When the story isn’t as convincing, a life of aliveness outside the story doesn’t seem so impossible. And that is a scary prospect. But when someone I love looks around for proof that it’s possible to be happy while being who they are, I trust how I’m living (and hope to always live) serves as the proof they need to go for it.  

Because that is the most loving gift I can give.

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Last week, I launched 7 Days of Aliveness, an email course designed to jumpstart your journey to fulfillment. Access is free. Sign up here.)

(Photo Caption: In 2019, on the trail together, taking steps that eventually wrote the next chapter in a new story.)