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Hey everyone! I felt like doing something a little different from my normal medical analogy articles, so I decided on a story series for this week. In this series, I will focus on stories of overachievers with emotional dysfunction in different stages of their life. Part 1 will show the story of a college student, part 2 a graduate student, then part 3 an adult in the workforce.
Hopefully this series will be helpful for some of my older subscribers and illustrate how emotional dysfunction is more common than most people think.
Enjoy!
Part 1: The College Student
Anya, a third year engineering student, defined herself by her transcript. She had a perfect 4.0 GPA and spent hours perfecting every assignment. In her free time, she worked with her engineering friends on a robot she had been developing since the start of college that she hoped would win the VEX university-level robotics competition.
She felt prideful about the fact that she was able to balance her rigorous engineering schedule with her extracurriculars, and all of her friends knew that her self-worth depended on her achievements. But the pressure to maintain this relentless schedule and flawless image would result in bad decisions that Anya would regret for the rest of her life.
One Tuesday afternoon, while reviewing feedback for a major project in the beginning of her physics class, Anya flipped the paper assignment over to the front and saw her final project grade: A-.
Although the grade was still technically an A, it felt like an F to Anya; she had never gotten below an A. She felt an instantaneous surge of shame and an overwhelming jolt of frustration. She couldn’t control the expression of her feelings, and tears began to fall from her watery eyes.
She wanted to dwell on the grade forever, but she knew she had to move on: she had a forces and kinematics midterm at the end of the week.
But there was one issue: she couldn’t. As much as she tried to wipe the tears from her eyes, focus on the teacher’s presentation, and study at the end of class, the A- – nor the uncomfortable feeling of frustration and sorrow – did not leave her mind or body.
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After Anya walked out of the classroom door, still feeling the strong emotional effects of the grade, her friend Maria approached her.
”What’d you get?” Maria asked with a smile on her face.
”I don’t want to talk about it,” replied Anya.
“Come on I’m sure it’s fine, you’ve never gotten below an A. I’ll go first…I got a 96,” said Maria.
”Of course you did!” replied Anya, aggressively. “You only wanted to tell me that to brag about your grade so that you could feel like you’re ahead of me!”
Maria recoiled, deeply hurt and confused by Anya’s uncharacteristic cruelty. Anya watched Maria slowly walk away before she could explain her reaction, feeling deep regret and guilt for yelling at her friend.
After realizing she might have just destroyed her friendship because of an A-, Anya knew something was wrong, and she wanted to improve her behavior.
Anya decided to build in daily habits that would help her better control her emotions. She started dedicating 5 minutes each morning to deep breathing exercises to manage stress, and began practicing acknowledging small setbacks (like a low score on a practice quiz) as information to assist in improving her next exam score, not as catastrophic failures.
Through small, daily acts of self-care—like deep breathing and reframing her thoughts—Anya slowly rebuilt her ability to temper her reactions, replacing impulsivity with intention and protecting the relationships that mattered most.
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