Читать книгу The Making of a Physician - Sheldon Cohen M.D. FACP - Страница 6

The first grade must have been good for I became an avid reader. Since I knew what direction my life would take, I spent my spare time reading books about the human body, biology, physiology, health, hygiene, science in general. My personal private life was good, but my home life became an environment I needed to conceal from friends. There were constant verbal battles between my mother and her parents and sisters. “They don’t know what I’m going through,” my mother would say. Apparently, she thought her aberrant behavior was borne of absolute necessity. “Someday people will know I was right.” My uncle, who by now was involved in WWII, left with the statement to the family that “if Sheldon had to live through those family battles, he would probably end up in a straight jacket.”

The battles became so verbally abusive that I would expect to come home in the middle of a fight. So, if I ever would arrive home with friends I would always run ahead of them and fly up the stairs to be able to quiet things down before my friends would arrive. It was uncomfortable and difficult and I was always fearful of having a friend over.

As best as I knew I was the only one of my friends who had divorced parents. In those days, divorce was a rare phenomenon. It made me feel different, and I lived with that knowledge, but my mechanism of handling it was to ignore that it was reality. If people spoke of it, I left the room or changed the subject. I am sure that current thinking would be totally against such an approach, but I think it worked for me. I can recall my cousin Harvey, dumbfounded by my pretense, say, “God, is he dumb.” I ignored that comment by pretending I never heard it. Harvey’s sister, Sheila, was my good friend and youthful playmate as was Marshall, my aunt Rose’s son.

Although my upbringing and parental relationship was different from my friends and relatives, I had the support of an extended family. In those days, families lived in close proximity and provided mutual support for each other. On one block of Sacramento Boulevard, I had my mother, grandparents, all my aunts, uncles and an assorted collection of cousins.

So this is the way I grew up, an emotional loner, but finding the strength to resolve problems by myself. I did very well in school, but thought that the more I knew about the human body, the greater would be my chance of becoming a doctor, so I concentrated on subjects I thought necessary, but made an error by ignoring two subjects I disliked—math and English. “I don’t need math. I can talk so why worry about these grammar details.” Even if someone had told me I was wrong, I would have probably ignored that sound advice. I focused on my scientific interest. It was almost a fatal mistake—but more later.