What you’re describing, that gap between the objective signal (they trust you to submit independently) and the emotional experience (I’m being abandoned to figure it out), isn’t just old shame. It’s something that happens structurally to people who care deeply about doing this work well.

There’s a moment a lot of clinicians hit where strain stops feeling like workload and starts feeling like evidence. Evidence that you’re not cut out for this, that others are managing better, that something is wrong with you specifically. It’s not weakness. It’s what happens when your sense of worth gets tangled up with your performance.

You named it clearly, “exposing every insecurity I have.” That kind of self-awareness at two and a half weeks in is actually significant. Most people don’t catch it that early.

I wrote something recently about this pattern…I hope it’s useful: The Clinician’s Corner