Over on my newsletter, my readers kindly fill out surveys from time to time and provide feedback ... and then I give away prizes. (Hey -- sign up for my newsletter over on the right side of the page if you haven't already!) Recently, one reader asked what made me want to become an author. Interestingly, it's a question I don't often get asked. I am more often asked why I became a doctor.

The answers are in some ways ... similar.

I have a condition called "habit-tic deformity" which where my thumbnails to look weird. It's been an issue ever since college. Habit-tic deformity is basically where a person focuses all of their anxiety or OCD or stress or perfectionism into a tiny area of the body where they constantly pick or poke at. In many cases, it's the thumbs. Even as a doctor, I understand what it is and what's happening, but it's largely an unconscious act. If I catch myself doing it, in my head I'm like STOP but then my lizard brain says JUST A LITTLE MORE. Recognizing what it is and trying to remove physical triggers has helped some. The research says I should work on "stress management," which only makes me laugh/cry a little bit. (because, of course!) For the longest time I thought it was just me and my stress causing this -- that I was an outlier. That no one else had this kind of thing.