Pouring My Heart Out: Trusting My Instincts

Today I'm happy to have the opportunity to be linking up with Shell's Pour Your Heart Out over at Things I Can't Say. It's so timely because I really do need to pour my heart out over something that's weighing on me today.

Have you ever been in a situation which left a funny feeling in your gut? A situation which, though innocent enough on the surface, caused you to take pause and wonder if something was off somehow? Did you ever get a feeling about a person - someone who you liked perfectly well, but who said or did something which kinda threw you for a moment?

What did you do? Did you follow that feeling? Or did you talk yourself out of it somehow? Did you ever find out whether or not your instincts were on the money?

A few years ago, I went into the doctor's office for an appointment.  I had been feeling sick to my stomach on a very regular basis and wanted to talk to someone about it (I didn't know it at the time, but I had UC).  This doctor was someone who Rob had been seeing ever since he came home from the hospital after having contracted pertussis.  They had developed a great rapport, and once I moved in with Rob I started seeing this doctor as well.  We fell into a regular routine - I'd go in, he'd remind me that Rob's a bum and I'm too good for him, wocka wocka.  Eventually we'd talk about why I was actually there, and we'd part with a hug.

Except for when I went in with my stomach ache.  He came in and immediately started asking me questions about my birth control pills.  Now, I hadn't been seeing him for very long at this point and I figured that he saw on my form that I was taking them and wanted to know how they were working for me.  It made sense at the time since he was also a gynecologist (he would eventually become my gynecologist).  So I answered his questions, waiting to get to the reason I was there to see him.  But much to my surprise, he took out his pad, scribbled a prescription for refills on the pills I was taking, and started for the door.

"Um...hang on...are we going to talk about why I came in?".  He looked at me.  I explained my reason for being there.  He apologized and told me that he was swamped and that there was a huge backlog of patients.  Crossed wires with his assistant (who I'd explained my symptoms to), etc etc. 

As I was leaving the office, something was bugging me.  It seemed strange that he was so quick to write me a prescription, without asking me if I even needed it (I didn't at the time), and without asking how I was actually feeling.  It seemed rather negligent, somehow.  I told Rob about it and even told my mom - that's how much it stuck with me.  I can't explain why it did, but it did.

Still, I brushed it off.  I figured he was busy, tired, and that there'd been a miscommunication.  I was being overly picky, no one's perfect.  No big deal.  And over time both Rob and I complained to the other about him - mainly about how he was so quick to write a prescription without really attacking the problem at hand - to the point where I said more than once that I wanted to find a new doctor.  But hey, don't all doctors do that? Besides, he was so close to our apartment and we already had a good relationship with him.  We were willing to overlook it.

Then we moved last year - I was sorry to see him for the last time not long before we left.  He was sympathetic to our situation, to Rob's dad's health problems, and wished us well.  We've talked about him since then, and about how it was a shame that we were so far away.

Last night Rob found an article online stating that this man was arrested this past summer when it was revealed that he had for years been writing prescriptions for painkillers in exchange for sexual favors.  Unfortunately, one young woman (a 31 year old mother) died last spring after overdosing.  Her sister had known that he was the one supplying the scripts for Oxy and other drugs, and confronted him prior to her sister's death, telling him that this woman had already been in the hospital twice as a result of overdosing.  He wrote a new script the next day.

There were lots of other details in this article, things that turned my stomach, things he admitted to.  But that's not the point of my telling you this.

The point is that maybe I need to trust my instincts a little more.  After all, how often do you hear after the fact about people "just having a feeling" about someone who did something wrong? Most recently it was a former teacher of the guy who committed the shootings in Arizona - they said that they were uncomfortable around him and even feared that he'd bring a gun in to school one day, that he would laugh at inappropriate times and say things that made the other students uncomfortable.  But rather than taking action, I'm sure they talked themselves out of it.

I'm not saying that there was any way I could have known what was going on in that office after hours, and I'm fully aware that nothing was ever done to hurt me personally and that it's none of my business.  I am honestly praying for the women involved, and for him - clearly in order for him to jeopardize his career, not to mention the ethical issues involved, he must have some serious issues.

Still, I keep going back to that one visit.  My gut feeling was that this was not the right guy for me.  Regardless, I talked myself out of it and kept going back. 

I talk myself out of a lot of feelings.

Maybe it's time to start honoring my instincts after all.

How about you? Do you find yourself going with your gut feelings or do you tend to overthink things?