The battle of who could care less

It is always strange when one's brain is doing battle with itself.
The old thoughts, smooth and comfortable as silk, slipping through the troughs of my mind, while the new thoughts, rough and unburnished as coal, like an atherosclerotic plug, blocking the artery of thought.
I would go back on my meds, but I know how they affect my ability to think, and that is not a luxury I wish to sacrifice for an artificial boost.
I don't really need them, anyway. I will find the strength, somehow, to withstand, withstand and withstand. I don't know any longer whether that is a statement of fact, or whether I am merely attempting to convince myself of something that has never been true.
It makes me feel queasy to think of J, to think of how much hope and optimism she had for me; a kid she had known for a measly few months, but whom she was sure could conquer the world, if she'd only eat. I remember a day when a doctor walked into the ward, chattering excitedly about a short story or an article she'd just had published. J smiled at me, and told me that that could be me. I was, and am still, utterly perplexed and amazed by her unadulterated certainty; her unthinking, unquestioning, assuredness that I could make something of myself.
I wish only to somehow grasp a small portion of her hope, her faith in me, harness it and hone it; maybe then I could be someone.

Ideological rejections.

I am tired of having my white guilt played on. I have this unit at university at the moment, Diversity and Health, or something. Basically, its goal is to create a cohort of nurses capable of holistic care, but the way it is trying to achieve this is perplexing, to say the least. I have sat through many lectures that were 2 hours of 'why the white man sucks', essentially, and I recently sat through a 2 hour lecture of why science and scientifically-based medicine is wrong. I mean, I get that science isn't the only answer and it isn't even always the answer at all. But I don't agree that I'm going to be made a more competent nurse by having some 20 year old sociologist tell me that everything I've ever believed in is completely wrong, and that I somehow am to blame for the state of Aboriginal health because I 'carry the heritage of cultural imperialism'.
Ugh.
Apparently, science is biased. Apparently, by being white and heading towards a career in medicine, I am perpetuating colonisation. Apparently, I'm not culturally safe with my mindset of treating everyone equally, because apparently we can't do that. Apparently, I shouldn't go bush and attempt to treat people with my biased science-based medicine, because, despite the presence of LEPROSY, to do so would be to press my culture onto another, and we can't have that.
I like science. I like logic and algar plates and microscopes. I like medications.
I don't like the idea of watching a woman die because she insulted her Elders, and I don't want to be the privileged imperialist playing domination.
So you'll have to excuse me while I go back to my biased cytology.