I'm not stressed - beyond the stress induced by your telling me how stressed I am

For some curious reason I thought that Adult I, the term I endured last fall with my father's death three weeks into the term, would be my toughest one. The tests were hard, the midterm brutal, a quarter of my class didn't pass the term, but somehow I got through on emotional fumes and managed to get high honors. Well this term, which is my critical care expereince, is kicking my ass and making me long for the seemingly easier pains of fall. I don't know what has gone wrong for me mentally, emotionally but I'm doing so poorly this term and it's killing me. Okay, now I'm not failing but my grade it's nowhere close to that high honors zone I usually shoot for. And I do that for a reason I need a huge cushion from being near the failing zone so by my final I can be like, I can miss 60 questions out of 120 and still pass. And the thing is, having solid footing with the academic, testing part of the schooling, well it made clinicals (which fill me with panic) bearable. Like I didn't worry quite so much because at least I had the 'I'm doing well with my tests' in my back pocket. Now I have nothing. I have cried way too many times at clinical already this term. All my clinical instructors keep talking about is how I need to relax which brings to mind the house quote I titled this post with. I've cried too many times in front of too many different instructors. I feel like I have no reserves to put forth in terms of getting through this term. I have a midterm tomorrow which I've been studying for but part of me wonders if I should back off on the studying because I usually get many a question wrong by completely over thinking the answer. Going above and beyond the black and white type in front of me. I don't know where my head is lately, just know I want to successfully complete this term and have it behind me already. And the ICU experience, it's killing me. I feel like an alien with all the nurses there. Almost all of them are in their early to mid twenties and have the type of personality, well I doubt I would have fit in even at their age but now it's painful how different I am personality-wise from everyone else and then there's the 15 + year age gap on top of it. I just don't think the same way. I don't find the ICU thrilling, I think it's terrifying and dehumanizing. My patient would have painful things done to her (procedures, nothing intentionally painful) and no one even looked at her or really talked to her, aside to make a joke like 'oh that must have hurt, like a bikini wax.' I held her hand and would look in her eyes and squeeze her hand gently when I could see that she was scared or in pain because God knows I'd want someone to do that for me if I was in the ICU and my family wasn't around at the time. And why do I wind up feeling like I'm the only one who thinks that stuff matters. I'm good at hand holding and listening, not so good at the other stuff. It's so fucking lonely. Like being an outsider in high school without a friend to commiserate with over how fucked up things are. All the other students are just loving this term, I guess when you're young it's sort of an adrenaline rush. And yes ICU is a great place to be in terms of increasing your critical thinking and the skills attached to reacting quickly to crisis situations. But all of that completely enervates me. I just want to help the geriatric (or possibly pediatric) community with mental illness. For whatever reason the psych stuff doesn't scare me and I understand the information I learn very easily, I just get it. Fortunately there are instructors who look out for me, one in particular helps me feel better when I'm teary and overwhelmed with not fitting in. I'm sure she thinks I'm neurotic as all hell but she's very nice to me and helps me out. Keep your fingers crossed. Seven weeks down, seven more to go.