My other self

I am teaching first year graduate students and remembering what I forgot. How at the beginning I was so painfully self conscious, so earnest to learn and practice. I almost laugh out loud remembering self administering the MMPI, a test of personality. I used the software for an inpatient population to score it. I was shocked and frightened by the results. I was crazy! I sat in that sense of myself for a week before I heard someone talking about scoring and inpatient versus outpatient versions. I can’t say I was relieved exactly. I think the description would be accurate in a more extreme set of circumstances. It let me see the edges of myself in a way I would not have otherwise. I could have empathy, along with relief, for that other version of myself.