 I battled a lot in 2019. I battled myself, I battled at work, I battled at home, I battle with health issues and I would say I even battled with the cats this year. As I happily bid ado to 2019, I am looking back on this year and wondering what I can take with me as I enter 2020.
In AA, we share our courage, strength and hope with each other with the idea that a person who is struggling with addiction can see something different from the hell they are living in. For 2020, I want to focus on courage, strength and hope. I got a jump start in late 2019 with the courage to say “I need to move on to protect my sobriety and my sanity.” I am finding strength to return to school for the 4th time to complete the goal I really wanted to achieve when I was 17 years old – being an RN. I have spent the last five years of my career, spreading hope wherever I could. I talked about hope to my clients in the jail. I spoke about hope to a person coming to me for money for residential services. I impressed hope upon those who were about to give up and give in. What I lost in 2019 was the feeling of hope for myself. I want my hope back. I can feel hope returning. I am willing to take these huge leaps of faith now because I have hope that is it all going to work out for the best. Happy New Years Everyone!
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 What a process this has been! The few days before Thanksgiving, I resigned my position with 7 weeks of notice. For the week following, I was going back and forth about the decision I had made. I found myself 2 hours late for work on the first day back after the weekend. That is not me. However, it has been me for at least 3 years now at my job. I felt huge anxiety about facing all of my co-workers since the news was out and announced. I wondered what I would say when the inevitable question would come about: “What are you going to do?” I’m not sure what I am going to say. I am not sure what I am going to do. Holy crap, did I just screw everything up by quitting my job????
Today, two weeks later, I am OK. Better than OK, actually, I am relaxed, smiling for no reason and feeling like something huge is happening. Something big is happening and I am excited to share what this all looks like now. So the answer to the question, “what are you going to do?” has become pretty simple to answer. One of the very first things I learned in nursing school: I don’t know everything AND that is OK. So, when people ask, the answer is “I don’t exactly know.” I took a huge leap of faith that I could make a big change in my life. I wasn’t excited about anything. I wasn’t even excited about putting in my notice. Yet, as the reality of my choice is starting to sink in, I am excited. Last week, I was up before my alarm and at work 15 minutes early. It was one of the first time I felt well rested for more than a year. I didn’t consume 1900 calories of food after stepping in the door at night. I didn’t worry about feeling overwhelmed. During the past two weeks, I attended a scrapbook weekend after Thanksgiving . I had a great time and I was present. I was laughing authentically. I wasn’t worried about work. I talked about so many other things besides works. It was liberating. The co-worker and friend that I go with for this annual weekend even said to me that she is looking forward to talking with me about my life outside of work. First entry on the checklist? Get a life outside of work. That is going to be a process, however, a process that I am actually looking forward to now. For the first time in 5 months, I did some crafts at home and enjoyed myself. For the first time in about a year, I just went out and did nothing. I was enjoying being out. I wasn’t just laying in bed waiting for motivation to come back. I didn’t dread my first day back to work after the weekend. I made the right decision and I think people are able to see it on my face and in my actions. So, what am I going to do? I have been wildly productive over the past few weeks. In a previous blog, I referenced the year 2012 as one of my most successful and happy years of sobriety. I am really hopeful that 2020 might top 2012. If not, the hope is enough to keep me motivated to make it through all of the changes. I obtained a part-time job at a treatment center (16 hours a week). I have enrolled back in school to complete my RN. I crushed the entrance exam and found that about a year from now, I can be done with the LPN to RN bridge program. I met with the entrance counselor, she saved me a spot, enrolled me in all online classes (generals) for this first quarter so that I can finish up with my current job and get a handle on my job situation. It will only take 2 quarters to knock out my generals and in the spring of 2020, I will start the nursing courses and in the summer, I will be all nursing courses and done in winter quarter. I also interviewed with a pediatric home care nursing agency today. They had a very interesting/great offer for me. I will sit on this as she is checking my references, etc., to see if this also might be a good opportunity for me to get back into skilled nursing. My skills are a little rusty! I will wait to hear from them and see how things play out. I am not desperate to take on more work. I have income through the end of March with what I have going already. Transplant will always take me whenever I want to work so finances are fine ongoing. I found insurance on the exchanges so I am covered. All the major barriers to quitting my job are taken care of. It’s weird, I am not worried. This is one of those “Higher Power” moments. I feel calm and excited about the path that is laid out in front of me. In preparation of going back to school and working as an LPN for now, I completed a re-certification for my CPR. My class consisted of nurses and nurses that were going back to school. I felt at home. I didn’t feel out of place doing the simulations. My partner and I were talking shop about transplant and the differences between the U of Minnesota and Hennepin County. I was on this weird cloud 9 walking out of there. I felt like I was at home. I, then, went uniform shopping today. As lame as it sounds, I felt like a kid in a candy store. All the colors, the prints, the shoes, the stethoscopes and the SOCKS! I had to limit myself some. I was thinking I had spent the last 5 years building a professional wardrobe and now I have no scrubs to wear! Ha! I will build again. With many situations we experience in our lives, it is hard to see the reality of the situation until we can get some distance from it. I know that I have been unhappy for the past couple of years. I was told about 3,000 times over the past 3 years to work on my self-care because I look stressed out. The more stressed out I became, the more I was blamed for my own struggles. I really did believe that there was something intrinsically wrong with me. One of the skills I learned in DBT that pretty much saved me from myself was “don’t should on yourself.” I should be this, I should be doing that, I should be able to handle this, I should, I should, I should. I still cringe when I hear that word because it can be very loaded with shame and judgement. The fact of the matter is, whether or not I should be able to handle things better, I am clearly not handling my job stress well. I tried the self-care (craft retreats, bathes, presents for myself, being with my family, being with friends) and it did not work. I was drained beyond what these activities could replenish. In the world of AA, there is a saying, “If nothing changes, then nothing changes.” Pretty simple, right? I tried to make some personal changes to support the struggles that the career of substance abuse counseling brought into my life. I tried to push through the feelings I was experiencing and ended up shaming myself for not being “stronger” or “better than this”. I have been working for months toward the biggest and probably only change that I really make to save myself which was to leave my job and the career for now. There are valuable things I learned from this experience. Most importantly, though, I learned that there is nothing wrong with me. My job was too stressful for me and that’s OK. My job was consuming my life outside the walls where I work and that’s not OK. I felt defeated, unhelpful and exhausted nearly daily for at least 18 months, if not longer, and that’s not OK. The demands exceeded my abilities which does not translate into me being an outright failure. The way I experience depression is multifaceted: I sleep A LOT (15+ hours a day), I have no motivation, there is very little good in anything, I experience a lot of negative messaging, I get stuck in all or nothing thinking patterns and I become excessively avoidant and defensive. As I look back at the last year, all of these symptoms were in force nearly every day. I would arouse some excitement in some things; however, I found myself being so short-tempered and irritable. I spent many years of these symptoms while I was drinking. I fought so hard to rebuild my life in sobriety. In the past year, I feel like I was backsliding into that life again. I certainly didn’t miss it. I don’t want to be that person anymore. I found myself dreaming about using alcohol at least weekly. Those dreams are so vivid that I feel like I am using when I wake up. Those dreams wreak my day. And while I am not drinking or using, I felt those triggers and feelings creeping back. In the past 6 months, I stopped taking care of my recovery. That was one of the major turning points for me. If I do not have my recovery, I literally have nothing else. I cannot function. If I lose that, I very well may lose my life. That is not an exaggeration. I was so far advanced in my addiction that I skirted death a few times. My odds to survive a relapse is minimal which is why I work so hard to stay and be in recovery. There is such amazing joy in my life and when addiction is active (even without using), I lose touch with that. So, two weeks after putting in my notice, I feel alive again. I feel like I am in touch with my calling again. School was not my first choice when I was thinking about what change to make. Yet, I was lead to a program that fits with my desires not to be in school for another 4 years. I can accomplish yet another goal of mine – be a RN. Most importantly, I got back in contact with my recovery. I found a Recovery Church in Richfield that I am going to check out. My Higher Power has been extremely active keeping me away from temptations. I would like to find that outlet to continue my spiritual recovery as well. Thanks for all the support, my dear readers, in this change. I haven’t been the biggest ball of joy for the past many months. Yet, you have all offered your support and encouragement. Grateful for you all! Julie  It has been an interesting couple of weeks since my last post. The contents of my previous entries were made known to my superiors which set a series of actions in motion. I was shocked when I was confronted with my own words in my professional setting since my blog is very much about my personal processes. Alas, I took it as a moment of empowerment. I talk with my supervisor about how unhappy I was; how burned out I was. There were offers to change up my job to other things that I used to like to do. As we continued our planning of restructuring our department, I still was not able to find my light or passion to continue moving forward. My feelings have not changed despite knowing that things would change as soon as January.
It was uncomfortable for me knowing that my superiors knew of my unhappiness. My biggest issues with my unhappiness was really trying to find something that would make me happy again. The pressure was placed back on me to find that, and quickly, so that changes could be made. My words were used against me especially in context of why I can compartmentalize what I do in nursing and not what I do with counseling. I don’t know why and I couldn't answer that question. I wish I knew because I would be a lot happier in general if I could finish my shift and leave it all behind knowing that the next shift has my back. I worked myself up so much it tripped a migraine that had me in bed for nearly two days. I finally left the house after three days of sleeping and trying to feel better to meet with my therapist. He was shocked about the series of the events from the previous week I saw him. He let me say my peace about everything from nursing, to counseling, to writing, to future and the need to make a decision as soon as possible. I felt increased pressure to make a commitment to either staying or leaving. I re-read my own words and felt at peace for the first time in a long time. I made the decision to resign. I did so on Tuesday. I have talked in a previous blog about to contradictory things existing together. Well, this holiday week was totally full of that. The resignation process was completed with in 15 minutes of my arrival on Tuesday. I found myself very emotional about the situation. What I am not entirely sure about is whether it was sadness or relief. I think it was a bit of both. There are things that I am really going to miss about my work. I will miss the connections with and progress of clients. I will miss my co-workers A LOT. It was the hardest thing to tell them prior the rumor mill hitting them first. Most of the people know that I was struggling whether through this blog or with personal conversations. Lots of people were worried about me as it was apparent that my health was turning poor and my ability to keep up was fading. Now that I have made this decision, I started reaching out to figure out the next adventure. I was interviewed and hired within 12 hours for a nurse position at a treatment center near to my home. Never in all of my years as a nurse, did I ever think of working in a treatment center. Part of that was the fact that I was drunk myself so working in a treatment center would be pretty challenging. What I remember is that when we were doing our clinical rotation in nursing school, my absolute, 150% favorite rotation was at the Anoka Regional Treatment Center which is a long-term mental health facility. I was assigned to a male unit with severe behavioral and mental health issues. I thought I would be scared. I was not. I was able to sit and talk with each patient and hear their stories. I was asked to complete a chart review while there and I selected a very complex patient who I read all about before meeting. When I met him in the day room, he was totally different than I expected. He was human. He was suffering with severe mental health issues. He wanted to get better and go home. This experience was a profound one that I have never forgotten. When I started with transplant, I had forgotten about these experiences. It never dawned on me that I could move into chemical dependency/mental health as a nurse. I missed the boat there and maybe misunderstood the calling. However, I don’t regret getting my masters degree as that I was goal of mine. I carry my regret in getting such a specific degree that offered only a few different paths. I gave the counseling gig 5 years. I think that is a reasonable attempt to work in the field and see if it’s truly my calling. Now I feel like I have found a better connection to the field in a capacity in which I feel confident to perform my work. I never did find that confidence in counseling. I felt like a fake. I tell you all this great advice and follow none of it myself. I didn’t feel authentic with my clients. I felt like I was trying really hard to put on a show. I did that for years when I was drinking and it was exhausting. I have been hired part-time in that position. I will continue with my work with the transplant team. On Monday, I have an interview to work as a causal staff with a pediatric home care company. As I scrolled through all the ads for LPNs, I saw many that reminded me of places that I didn’t like working at prior to starting with transplant. Part of me wonders if I would be better at these positions now because I am actually sober. However, I thought, why not try something new? If I don’t like it, I just don’t pick up. I have surprised myself over the years about being pretty decent with kids. Also, it’s something very different, something I have never done and I have a base level of skills to be successful. Looking at these options, I will be working a few different jobs which is something that I like to do. It will allow me flexibility in my schedule to have more control. My income will match what I am making now if not slightly more. I will also be afforded the opportunity to continue to pursue completing my RN degree. I will find out more about that in a few weeks. While it may seem crazy to some that working 3 part-time jobs, I am most excited about this. Having the ultimate control of my schedule, working the hours I need to or want to is incredibly empowering. I hoping for a little more time off and having the opportunity to get back into nursing skills. While part of me doesn’t know if this whole situation was ideal, I am feeling relieved. I really don’t feel that if I limped along for a few more months or one more year, things would feel any different. The hardest part is leaving people behind. I hope that I will be able to maintain these friendships throughout the years ahead. Most of all, I need to get back to me. I used to laugh a lot more. I used to have more happiness in my life. I used to be more connected with others. I opted to marry my job in the hopes of filling a hole in my overall purpose. While I might have served a purpose for some things and at certain points, deciding to allow my work to consume my whole life has left me feeling emptier and lonelier. I felt less hope. I felt my recovery start to shake. I watched my physical and mental health continue to decline despite a clear understanding that they were declining. In some ways, this feels like my divorce. I tried so hard to be someone I thought others would want to have around. In all that effort, I lost who I really was. I remember my ex-husband saying to me the day after I asked for a divorce, “Wow, this is the most of ‘you’ I have seen in along time.” I feel that way today. I started diamond painting again after having stopped for several months. I organized my craft things because I have events that I will be going to. I went out and window shopped like I had done every weekend for the past 5 years. I am reaching out to others to do things. I feel like me again. My therapist noticed a distinct difference today when I popped in to catch him up my decisions. “You look good.” I wasn’t angry the whole session. I wasn’t there to release a whole bunch of stress. I was there to talk about how to manage my time in a way that is effective and keeps me true to myself. While my divorce was hard, it was the right decision. I feel that way now about my job. I got so far down into it that I could no longer see the light. While I was at the bottom arguing about whether or not the light existed, I never saw how far down I had really gone into this hole. Initially, I was frustrated and upset that my blog information came seeping into my professional life. That is a risk that I run writing my truth and sharing with others. I have been blogging for about 8 years and this is the first time it has happened. I have been cautioned in the past that my words could come back to haunt me. So, I guess they did on some level and I am upset by that. However, in the long game, I spoke my truth. I needed to honor my truth. It didn’t maybe happen on my timeline, but it happened. I am feeling a great sense of relief about it all. I truly appreciate the support of all those who reached out to me in the past few weeks and also the support of my family who offered thoughts and some prayers as I made this journey. The big take away from this all: If I choose to go the path of not being authentic, I will suffer. If I choose not to honor my own feelings or experiences, I will suffer. The active alcoholic in me was constantly dodging and weaving around the truth of my life at that time, I suffered. When I got married and tried to be something I wasn’t, I suffered. When I struggled in this field to deal with the trauma I see on a day to day basis, I started to deny my own experiences and feelings. I started to turn the blame on myself. “There is something wrong with me. I am not strong enough. I don’t feel right here but I should because I am good at it.” And……I suffered. Recovery was this amazing process of finding myself and honoring me for me. I started to go back into old behavioral patterns and it was a glimpse of what life is like when I don’t do what is right for me. There is nothing wrong with me. I am who I am and that doesn’t include being an addictions counselor. It does include the opportunity to share recovery in a way that feels most authentic to me. Julie  I think I end writing just about the same thing every year when it comes to holiday season. Years ago, I hated the holidays. I found the holidays so stressful with trying to manage different gatherings. I was so addicted to alcohol that if alcohol wasn’t available at a gathering, I would start going through withdrawal. At the time, I didn’t know that’s what was happening. I just thought I had severe social anxiety. Nope. Turns out I love social situations and generally have little anxiety about them. I just needed alcohol.
My first Thanksgiving after getting sober happened in 2010. I had been sober for about 90 days. I was still in treatment and had made a big deal out of the holidays and not in a particularly positive way. Thanksgiving rolled around that year and I was exposed to what is now my normal. It was a time to be with family, eat too much and just relax. I could hardly deal with the non-dysfunction of the holiday. What is this? Where is all the stress? Hmmmm….maybe this is something that I could get used to. My family was always kind enough to reschedule holidays for me too when I had to work. This year will be my 10th sober holiday season! Whoo hoo! There are so many things to be grateful and thankful for in my life now. There are so many things to celebrate. When I think about the past 10 holidays seasons, I think of all the wonderful memories I have of my niece and nephew. I think of all the time I am able to be with my family. Our lives are so busy that for November and December, I get to see them almost weekly with all the holiday shows and gatherings. Works for me! I think of the tap on the head I get at 4:00am on Christmas morning from my niece…..”Aunt Julie…..Santa was here!” The quality of my holidays has just about everything to do with my sobriety. My family is awesome, don’t get me wrong. My sobriety, however, has given me the opportunity to be present. I don’t have to worry about the next drink. I just worry about who gets to play what game with Aunt Julie first. I only have to worry about making coffee for the adults since I am usually the one the kids go to first on Christmas morning. I try to keep a gratitude list in my head at all times: 10 things I am grateful for at any given moment. As I roll into my 10th holiday season with sobriety on board, here you go!
Happy Holidays! Julie  I can feel a burden starting to be lifted with all of this career stuff. It has been a stressful six months of getting serious about making some change. I think I had a telling moment last week when I was offered the opportunity to design my “dream position” as we are looking to restructure our department. Sadly, I did not want to do any of it. None of the groups jumped out at me, none of the other assignments jumped out at me and it was clear that the position I am now will not be broken up for any circumstances. Today is the day when we will find out what our new responsibilities are going to be. I don’t think my job will change all that much right now. I have been trying to wait to make any decisions until I know what I am going to be offered. As I am going through this process, I am flooded with pros and cons thoughts about this whole ordeal. I thought my blog might be a good place to actually get them down on paper instead of rattling around my head.
PROS – Staying at my job/position/career in SUDs counseling
So, this is where I am today. I am still seeking out my options. Next Monday is my entrance test for nursing school. So far the practice tests have gone well. After that, I will be able to sit down and look at transfer credits and the plan if I choose that route. I have a few applications out to test the waters back in the medical field. One response was “uhhh….thanks for applying…..you can come in for an interview….you are qualified…..actually over qualified…..I think you would be bored.” I did decline this interview because I think that she is right. I am taking some action which seems to relieve some of the heaviness of this situation. I haven’t felt in control of much recently. I feel like I am taking some of that power back by being more aggressive in my off time seeking out other possibilities. In terms of my recovery, I am remaining strong and smart about that. I see my therapist regularly to process my decisions and learn more ways to cope with the stressful nature of my job. I have friends that I am seeking support from as well along with my amazing family who will support me in whatever direction I am going. Drinking is not the answer to any of this. Of all the unknowns in things right now, that is one “known” thing I got for sure. Relapse is not an option. As far as the dreams are concerned, I will continue to monitor these. I believe that dreams do tell a person something. In one of these dreams, I was excited to call into work to say that I had relapsed because in MN at least I lose my license for 2 years if my substance use disorder is active. In WI, I don’t think that is the case. However, I called in “drunk” to work and was excited to explain that I wasn’t coming back for a while. Yeah, that is an option I suppose – drink and not be able to work. There are many more constructive ways to move through this process. What I took from that dream is that I am at my maximum stress level right now. If that is even remotely a thought, it’s time to go. I appreciate all the supportive messages I get from my amazing readers. I thank you for reading and participating in this journey with me. If you look at the 12 steps of AA – “We” is always used. Because “we” are not alone. “We” believe in recovery. “We” believe in supporting each other in good time and in bad. “We” includes people both in and out of the program. You all serve a purpose in my life and for that I am grateful! Thanks for being part of my “we”. Julie  I have had a few people approach me since my last blog entry wondering if I have come to any conclusion about my future career endeavors. I don’t know why I always feel shocked when people come to talk to me about what I wrote. I guess part of me is surprised that people read this 😊 It’s a great thing and I thank those who do reach out to see if I am okay. Part of my process of being OK is writing. I need to get my thoughts in order and I need a good solid place to vent them. Welcome to my blog! Ha!
I am in a process of acceptance right now. Day in and day out I see this phenomenon of the head saying one thing (the intellectual part of us) and the heart refusing to hear it (the emotional part of us). I would have to say that is where I am today. My intellectual part of me gets that this career of counseling may not be for me. It’s not that I don’t have anything to offer, I just can’t handle the stressful nature of dealing with addiction every day. I see too much of myself and I have yet to figure out a way not to internalize the pain of others. I don’t know how to walk away. I don’t know how to care less. And maybe that is not what I need to learn to do, however, on a professional level I feel like this is what I am being asked to do. “Don’t take it home with you.” “It’s their problem, not yours.” “You can only do so much, then it’s on them.” My head knows all of these things. I can even be as bold as to say these exact things to my co-workers and fellow colleagues. “Ya know, we can only do so much…..” Let’s take a look at what the heart has to say. First, my heart has some pride – some really sticky, yucky type pride that is preventing me from making a decision one way or the other. My heart says I need to do this. Yeah, the work is hard. You work harder. Yeah, you are stressed out but what does that mean if you leave? You can’t hack it? You weren’t strong enough? You didn’t listen to the 10 other people who told you 6 years ago that you have to be careful about your intentions entering the field? Ouch. How annoying. Just like many others I went to school with, I felt different. I felt I had the talent and it wasn’t just because I was in recovery that I wanted to do this program. I thought I had a strong knack for understanding people and would be good at this. Oh, I was warned about the implications of being too close to the field and pushing on anyway. “You are training to be a clinician, not a glorified sponsor with a degree.” Now, let’s be clear. I am a clinician. I exercise clinical judgement every day. I didn’t miss the boat there. Hell, I don’t even sponsor people anymore because I can’t shut off the clinician trying to diagnose everyone in my path. (I am super fun to have at parties by the way…..sure! Tell me all about your drinking habits…..just keep talking, I am over here diagnosing.) My heart doesn’t want to be wrong about having gone this path. I see moments when I have made a connection or helped someone along in their journey. Honestly, I struggle to get to work in the morning, but once I am there, I am 100% on and wondering what the fuss was about getting to work. Then, I start the drive home and feel the anxiety start to creep in. I don’t look back at my day thinking, “yeah, good job!”. I look back thinking, was I wrong to say this or that? Did I make the wrong call on that assessment? Man, that person sure was angry with me, I wonder what I could have done better. The absolute worst for me is this constant questioning of my abilities. I can rarely see the good in what I do anymore because I am so plagued with self-doubt. That self-doubt then turns into anxiety. Anxiety is a straight shot for a relapse in my depression symptoms. My head is telling me – this is it. You are at your limit. Go find something that makes you happy because this sure is not it. Your health is declining. Your mental health is declining. You no longer see the good in anything and you are complaining all day long. Now, if one of my clients were to sit down and have this conversation with me, I would be saying “Good Lord. Move on. No job or career with worth your mental health.” So intellectually, I am there. I am so there. I get this. I look at jobs every night, sometimes until 2:00 in the morning hoping that “the job” is waiting for me. I have offers that will keep the money train on track while allowing me to look at other opportunities, so much so that I was even able to find a decent insurance plan to get if I elected not to return any where full time for a while. Last week, I even went so far as to attend an orientation session to return to complete my RN. I am signed up to take the entrance exam in 2 weeks. I don’t know if I will actually do it, but it’s an option. In chatting with friends and family, I am only going to make the decision that is best for me which I will be greatly supported in doing so. The world does live and die by me, so I don’t need to make decisions as if it did. Intellectually, I am there….. My heart hates the idea of leaving my job. My heart hates the idea of looking at my coworkers knowing that I wouldn’t see them every day anymore. My heart doesn’t want to admit that maybe this whole counseling this is just too much for me. My heart is pleading for me to stop thinking this way and give it all one more good college try to see if I can change something. This stubborn heart, however, does know that I cannot make myself care any less. This heart is big and squishy which means my empathy and sympathy will always be on high alert for the next big thing. This heart, though, has been through some difficult times from screaming clients, to aggressive and unfriendly criticism, to unrealistic expectations to those “what the hell am I thinking” moments that are getting more and more regular. While my head has it all figured out, my heart is remaining confused. There is always more good than bad right? What I am learning through this process is to find trust in myself. When I think about the time I was the happiest in the past 10 years, it was 2012. I have had a lot of great times since then. 2012 really stands out because I felt in control. I was two years into recovery. I was back experiencing the world at a whole other level I could have only dreamed of. I knew my job, inside and out and took pride in working with the University of Minnesota transplant center. I felt competent in my job. People trusted me with a lot of things and just knew that if they gave that task to me, it’s done and it’s done right. I was finally in place not to take every word in my direction personally. I grew as a person. I felt empowered. My heart and mind were both very sound and very happy. I was ready to achieve my goal of getting my masters and I thought I heard the calling loud and clear. Since that time, the ups and downs feel extreme. On one hand, I am doing a Tedx Talk. Amazing! The following week I walked off of a job because I found a hidden camera in my office. Neither the clients nor I were aware of us being filmed. That’s illegal and I won’t stand for that. I find what I believe to be my dream job! Only for there to be licensing problems and conflicts that made my life pretty miserable for several months. Early on in my career, I would think – wow! I made a difference. Tonight, I hope my anxiety won’t keep me awake for too long because I could really use some rest. My therapist has gone in circles with me. He will never tell me what I should or shouldn’t do. He waits for me to get there on my own. Last session, I did tell him that I knew what he was doing. He smiled. I told him if it didn’t work I wouldn’t keep coming back. What he said to me this past week that caught my attention was “I sense the hesitancy” with regards to making a decision. When I made changes in the past, I felt inspired and motivated. When I think about going back to school, I can feel a little sense of that but nothing like I previously experienced when I decided to get my LPN or go to grad school. Part of me wonders if it is my age and the idea of school, again, is just getting tiresome. What my head is telling me, though, is that I am depressed and anxious. I have retreated to a “numb” place where nothing is good or bad. It just is and I have to figure out how to get from one day to the next. It’s a survival mode for me. If I can’t deal with strong emotions, I won’t deal with any – good or bad. When I have historically felt this way, I am straight out the door. I think I have been in this place for just a little too long now that I missed the window to leave when I could muster the motivation and enthusiasm to do so. (aka March 2019 when I applied for 9 jobs in the matter of 3 days and attended 7 interviews in a month time.) To be clear to all my readers, I really am OK. I am going through a difficult time at the moment in terms of work and what I do with 40-50 hours a week of my life. When I get to the weekends, my life is very different. I look forward to working casually with the transplant team. I look forward to taking my niece and nephew out on the town. I enjoy meeting up with friends and going out. I totally love crafting retreats. These activities are not the majority of my time, unfortunately. These things used to be enough to refill my tank. I believe my tank has sprung a leak and I am running on empty all the time no matter how much time or effort I spend tending to self-care. This numb place I use to cope with my job is now starting to seep into my life that I do love. I can’t turn work off. I can’t turn off the self-doubt. I can’t seem to stop this job from invading every part of my being. So, my head is getting awfully mad at my heart for not fully reaching the same conclusion – it may be time to leave the field. My head says go back to nursing. My heart says “???”. Acceptance for me is when the heart and head see things the same way. It took my heart a long time to get on board with recovery. Intellectually I always knew I had a problem. Since I was about 19 years old, my head knew this. My heart just wanted so badly for that not to be true. There was always more good than bad, right? Yeah, until there wasn’t any good anymore. I would like to not bottom out the way I did with accepting that I am an alcoholic. That damn near killed me. Sadly, I feel this field is doing the same to me right now. I am not physically dying as I was when I was drinking fortunately. I just feel like I am losing myself more and more. I am being consumed by my career. The stress levels continue to rise unabated. I have asked for help or a reduction in my responsibilities and that was denied because of a lack of resources. I think my heart might be finally getting it – I have done all I can at this point and there is no sign of positive change in near future. My heart needs let go of pride piece and know that surrender is different than failure. I lasted 5 years and I will never lose what I learned. Even if this doesn’t work out for the long-term, I will always use the education I received whether directly or indirectly. I always saw myself as being a public speaker, advocate or educator about addiction. I can still get there. Maybe my heart will feel better if I can say that I actually need to move on from this part of the field in order to get closer to what I believed my dream to be in the beginning. So, if you were curious about where I decided to go…..no luck tonight. I remain on the fence. I will continue to try to make things work until I can see a clearer path for myself. If I had to say where I am leaning tonight, I would have to say, returning to the field of nursing is where I am at today. Tomorrow could change. As I mentioned before, I will make a decision that makes the most sense for me. What I know today is that change is going to be coming – one way or another. In the words of Tim Gunn “Make It Work!”  On August 9, 2019, I celebrated my 9th anniversary of recovery from active alcohol addiction. My recovery is probably one of the most important things in my life because, honestly, without it, nothing else in my life really exists. For so many years, I lived only half alive, wandering through life hoping it would end versus being curious about my next big adventure.
With my recovery, there are a few things I try to be very mindful of especially my thinking patterns and my mood. I can tell when certain things are off and I need to pay attention. Black and white thinking it a huge cue for me that things are not going particularly well. When I start to approach life with the perspective that only two ways are possible, the world becomes limited very quickly. There are things in life to me that are black and white. I cannot drink and live. That is the fact of my situation. There is no wiggle room there. I am not capable of using alcohol in any controlled way. Black and white = no drinking, I get to live; drinking, I would be working on dying. Where I am struggling the most right now is unhelpful black and white thinking regarding my career. In the world of nursing, I struggled at times with my perceptions of my work. If a situation didn’t go well, I would often apply this one situation to my entire nursing career. When an upset family member would ream me out, I started to think immediately (and for several weeks afterwards), I am a terrible nurse. I should just quit. Over the years, though, my nursing career has now become my part-time career. When I do the work with the transplant team, I have a reasonable sense of confidence about my abilities. I still have that shudder when things don’t go well or I missed something. I have my initial “God, I should just quit” moment for a few hours, decide that the world will move on, make a note about what to change the next time and pick up my next shift 2 weeks later. In general, I am able to rebound quickly from the immediate insecurities about not being perfect at ever aspect of my job. In the world of counseling, I haven’t been able to get to the point where I have that reasonable sense of confidence in my abilities to do this kind of work. In general, I think I am good at what I do. I talk well with my clients and communicate well with my coworkers. I have let my temper flair at times out of passion or frustration. I advocate. I do my best to understand. I work to pull rabbits out of a hat when I am stuck trying to make things work in a very broken system. I know I have made a difference in people’s lives. I have provided education to those about what addiction is and what recovery can offer. I get good feedback at times. Yet, here I am at 12:15am on Saturday morning, wondering if being in this field is a good thing for me. Can I really be successful here? I ran into a situation this week that got me emotionally shaken up. The distress I felt on Wednesday, Thursday and through the end of my work day Friday felt eerily like my first year in nursing when I questioned every move, every decision and wondered if I even had the capacity to do what was being requested of me. I am now five years into my career as an addictions counselor. I had noble intentions seven years ago when I decided to apply for graduate school. I had hopes and dreams about what I potentially could be able to accomplish. When I made the decision 17 years ago to return to school for nursing, I also had this naïve dream of being “super nurse” who saves the lives of others. I had a slightly more realistic perspective joining the counseling field knowing that there is only so much that I can really do. And I really felt like I could make a difference in people’s lives like I had in my nursing years with the added bonus of having some perspective going in. Anyway, this situation caused me to lose sleep for two nights. The emotions are taking days to wind down versus hours. I wonder about continuing to stay in the field. I have had these thoughts for the past year or two about leaving the field, feeling that I had made a grave error in allowing my early recovery optimism to guide a huge educational and financial investment to move in this direction. My black and white thinking says, “be done.” My grey mind says this whole situation is much more complex than one bad day and to cautiously approach decisions about future career options. My black and white mind is really loud right now because I am still in distress and I want that feeling to go away. If I give the career a big “I am outta here”, I will have the immediate relief of doing something to change quickly to get myself feeling better fast. What I am struggling to identify at the moment is the exact nature of my career dissatisfaction. Like any work environment, there are challenges. In general, though, the one thing that keeps me from running out the door with my hair on fire is my co-workers and the position that I work. We are a family, a pretty decently dysfunctional family, but a family nonetheless who really care about each other. I think my position is pretty unique and I won’t find anything like this again. I have even said to myself, if I leave where I currently work, I will be leaving the field. When I applied for the position, it was my dream job that I didn’t think I even had a chance at a job offer. There have been some major struggles in my time there. In the end, though, my coworkers have been there for me. I have been able to experience things over the past five years that I only would have dreamed of when I started. Tonight, I feel unhappy with my career, not the job. I have been going back and forth between this love/hate relationship with work for a while now. I actively pursued other employment opportunities earlier this year only to stay where I am because nothing that was offered to me could touch what I have in terms of benefits, pay or atmosphere of where I am at right now. I was able to see that changing jobs wasn’t the answer. That is leaving me with whether or not leaving the career is the better answer. What I am most unhappy with is the lack of energy I have for my private life. If work went well, I can stay on top of my laundry and cleaning my home. If I have a bad few days, the rest of the week will be poor for me and my exhaustion level is so high, I will minimally put forth efforts to keep myself organized. This is no longer an issue of just self-care. Believe me when I say, I have tried to be good to myself. I go scrapbooking, I spend time with friends, I hang out with my family, I go shopping, I get my hair cut, I get a tattoo, I work on my house, I snuggle with my cats, etc. etc. I just noticed on my last scrapbooking weekend, I was only half there. I had fun and laughed a lot and I felt listless and exhausted. I found myself being excessively irritated by nothing. I found myself being more stressed out by something I truly love doing because I could not get out of grips of stress generated the week prior. One year and 8 months into recovery, I made a decision. I made recovery my career. I cannot say with 100% certainty that I made a poor decision. I think I made a reasonable choice for where I was in my recovery and what made sense in terms of my goals at that time. What I can say today is that I have buyer’s remorse. There are things about this career that I never would have anticipated. Dealing with active addiction on a daily basis is stressful, at times sad and I see only a small portion of my encounters result in clients being able to make the changes they needed to. Addiction has cost my clients a lot in these five years. I have watched person after person go to prison. Clients have died from overdoses. They lose their children and I stand by them while their parental rights are severed because they couldn’t get sober fast enough or long enough to prove the courts they were on the right path. I have seen clients who have now succumb to permanent brain damage because of their use and the odds of recovery fall into the single digits as they live their lives on the streets or in jail. The acuity of what I see on a daily basis only seems to get worse. The future of people’s lives are dependent on getting connected to services and resources, often which are scarce. And, I can only offer, I cannot make a person change even if I am literally watching them die visit after visit. So, I guess that is where I am at today. One big “I don’t know”. There are a lot of things to consider and I will have a lot to think about after the beginning of the year. I told myself that I will make no career based moves until after the beginning of the year. I have the next three months to write out a huge pros and cons list to make the correct move for myself. In the meanwhile, I will keep trying to stay afloat and try not to let this career consume me whole.  I am attending a conference this week for my continuing education credits for my counselor’s license for substance abuse. I have been in the field for about five years now. You may have been able to sense from my other blog entries that there are times that I feel as though I may a bit of a hasty choice in pursing this career, especially making the decision to go this route with less than two years of recovery under my belt. When I attend a training like the one I am at this week, I do get a little sense of being re-energize about my passion to look at addiction and the ways it can be treated.
One of my recovery heroes is C.C. Nuckols. He has done amazing work in the field with regards to the brain, attachment, addiction science and most of all spirituality. I have not had the opportunity to see him present in person. When I saw my options for this training, I took his track. He is extremely knowledgeable about the brain and how addiction works on the most intricate levels. All these various experiences we have from the minute we join the earth contribute to development. Our development in addition to our genetics can create all sorts of fascinating outcomes – good, bad or otherwise. It is an honor to listen to him. The amount of information is almost overwhelming but I would never ask him to slow down or stop. It’s a rare opportunity to learn every last bit of information I can. When I arrived on Sunday, the topic he was discussing was “moral injury” and effective treatment interventions. I hadn’t previously heard the term “moral injury”. Even before he started speaking, this term made complete sense to me. I talk with my clients regularly (mainly based on my personal experience with addiction) that there are to Me(s). There is me – sober. The sober me has a value system. I know what is important to me. I know who and what is of value to me in my life. I know that hard work makes me feel proud. My family’s relationship to me is of the utmost importance. I want to have connection with others and feel accepted. I value volunteering and offering help to my fellow brothers and sisters whether this be professionally or personally. I feel that giving back is something I have to do. Then…..there is me – drunk/high. Everything that I listed above is thrown right out the window. This me knows how to use those relationships most important to me to get what I need to stay sick. This me exhibits impulsive, poorly thought out ideas to keep secrets or to manipulate others. Drunk me has a whole bunch of ideas about how the world owes me something and I am tired of working so hard for so little. Using me is just looking for the next high, the next relationship, the next “thing” that will make me whole. I will chase the wrong goals, I will cast my family and friends aside for a quick fix to meet my immediate needs. There are many times that two contradictory things can so-exist. In fact, this concept is the whole idea behind Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. I can be right AND you can be right while thinking different things. I can be having a tough time AND still be doing OK. I had to learn this concept when I first got sober. Black and white thinking is notorious among those with addiction issues. It’s all or nothing; living in the gray just does not happen. To this day, the time in my life in which these two “me”(s) are fighting, they cannot co-exist peacefully for me. My value and moral system just cannot tolerate what the using me considers appropriate. What I participated in when using caused me “moral injury”. The following are some of the quotes from his presentation regarding moral injury: “What we cannot acknowledge, we cannot process. What we cannot process, we cannot transform. What we cannot transform, haunts us. ” Moral injury, he described, has a long acting effect on a person (spiritually, behaviorally, emotionally and/or socially) who has taken actions which are against the individual’s own moral code or outside of what a person’s expectations of oneself. We talked about various populations of people who could experience moral injury (with his main focus for our educational session being those with military backgrounds). At any point, I can experience a moral injury by betraying a strongly held belief which, in turn, will create an internal conflict. When I have betrayed this value/belief, I may have also altered my perception of what is right and wrong. I may have caused confusion with my own boundaries. And depending on the type of injury I engaged in, I can feel the weight of betraying societal expectations as well. When he was presenting about all of these concepts, I couldn’t help but think about my two me(s). I created a lot of moral injury to myself. My value and moral system are partially based on societal expectations (go to work, be a good neighbor, follow the law) while the other part in based in personal expectations (contribute, be generous, be accepting, honor your family and friends). Although I am often accused of keeping my expectations too high for myself, I have a strong pull to be of help to others. The drunk me knew of no such thing. People were to be used and discarded if not helpful. I help others, not for the betterment of the world, but to fill some empty void in my soul. “Maybe if I help this lady across the street, I won’t feel like such a disgusting human being…..now that I did that, let me tell the world so the world can tell me how great I am!” Moral injury describes so much to me. What I have felt in the past few years in terms of my recovery are my moral injuries coming to the surface. I am trying to reconcile some of my past behaviors with the current me. It has not been the smoothest of processes. When I think about doing spiritual work, I am seeking a deeper connection and understanding of the world I live in. There is a lot of bad out there, but I believe that there is more good. I want to be a part of the good and make a difference. While that has been a core value of mine before alcohol got its hands around my neck, I feel like some of my intentions to contribute have become unclear and misdirected. As I learned more about moral injury, I could see the characteristics of my recent journey starting to surface. There is some existential sorrow for all the things I lost because of addiction. I carry strong regret about what I missed out on, what I put my family and friends through and all that could have been had I not made some of the decisions I did. My therapist works with me a lot on being a “shame-based” individual. If you tell me that I am in trouble, watch me flip out. It’s for real. I absolutely despise being in trouble. If I did something wrong, I will immediately become defensive and try to blurt out 14 different reasons why I am not wrong. I am working hard to not be so defensive because everything related to my response is about me. I am shaming myself for not being perfect so I will try to make the issue about the other person’s misunderstanding of my intentions so that I am not in trouble. Because, you know, if this person didn’t UNDERSTAND my intentions, then I did nothing wrong, this person just misunderstood. Let me tell you, it can take a lot of energy to think of all the different ways to explain myself when I could have just taken the situation at face value: “Oops. I did that wrong. Thanks for letting me know. I will know for next time.” Because I lived outside of my value system for so long (give or take 15 years), I have yet to resolve a lot of my past conflict. From time to time, my addictive personality shows up in the present and I can feel the pull to do something out of my value system again because there will be some immediate gain. I have had to watch myself because I know I can persuade people easily. When I find myself doing that, I feel uncomfortable now. I think that starts to bring up the hurts of my past behavior I haven’t yet been able to resolve. Instead of facing that head on, I do what a lot of people with moral injury do – avoid. I keep a distance from others. I will isolate more. I may have a shorter fuse. All of this in a misguided attempt to avoid situations that might result in seeing my moral injury. If I am unwilling to see it, I can tell you that I am even more unwilling to address it. I know that continuing education is suppose to be an opportunity to learn about information to help me with my practice and not necessarily to help me with my own stuff. However, I couldn’t help but sense that maybe this is the universe offering me a little bit of direction. This session was an elective session and I had signed up for it because of who was presenting, not necessarily the topic. Honestly, when I sat down on Sunday, I didn’t even know what I was sitting down to listen to. I was too busy going all “fan-girl” about the presenter. I am, however, so grateful that I did. Although the concepts around moral injury and the treatment thereof has been around for a while, I hadn’t heard the discussion presented in this way before. It was tremendously meaningful to me and gave me so very much to think about.  It has not gone unnoticed that May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Apparently, this has been in place since the 1940s and I think about all of the the progress that has been made in reducing the stigma around mental health over the past 60 years, even 30 years for that matter. I am part of a family that is wholly accepting of mental health issues and something that we can talk about when things are tough. Never a judgement. Only acceptance. How fortunate am I?!!?
I have noted in my Facebook feed that several of my friends have taken the opportunity to talk about their specific experiences with sensory disorders, depression, autism, anxiety and panic attacks. I have an infinite amount of compassion for mental health concerns. Even in the most difficult of circumstances when mental health symptoms are at play, I try to have compassion because if you ask the person that is struggling, they often would not choose to experience the world the way that they are. Mental health is often invisible, misunderstood and judged more harshly than most other medical conditions. I thought I would follow the lead of my friends and be a little more open about my personal experiences with mental health. I believe my diagnoses are major depressive disorder - severe, persistent, generalized anxiety disorder and avoidant personality traits. I was officially diagnosed with MDD and GAD back in 2004. I was never honest with my doctors about how much I was drinking so much of what I was experiencing in those days was enhanced by my alcohol use. Let me tell you, the frustration I felt about the depressive and anxiety symptoms not abating when I stopped drinking, was pretty profound. Good grief, the symptoms got worse in a way. Not only was I depressed and anxiety, I experience anhedonia which is this lovely inability to find or feel pleasure in anything. That lasted for a year after I stopped drinking. It was seriously painful. Fortunately, I had more wherewithal to get help instead of trying to end it all after I stopped drinking and was in treatment. That was the most major complication of being dual diagnosed: Every time I would drink, I would get relief from paralyzing anxiety and dark depression for about 15 minutes. Then the my view of the world changed at minute 16 and I started planning on ways to end it all. Most nights, I would be too drunk to make a move. A few times the courage broke through and I would land in the hospital. If you were to look up the symptoms of depression and anxiety, you could make a check mark next to just about every symptom for me. I have experienced them all from the lack of energy, excessive sleep, thoughts of being better off dead, irritability, restlessness, crying excessively. Again, most of these symptoms were exacerbated by my use and lead to some bad decisions. Therapy was not super helpful back then. I wanted to whole world to be wrong and for me to be the victim. I didn't want to change anything about my life. I would convince my therapist of all the horrors I experienced on a daily basis including bad coworkers, people being "after me", changing jobs because people were after me, etc. I continued to go though, because someone was listening to be even if I was full of shit. Fast forward to today. It took 3 years and a lot of adjustments, but I finally found the right medication combination to give me some relief from some of the most debilitating features of my depression and anxious. I have tried over the past 8 years to reduce to stop certain medications. It never goes well and I am finally in acceptance that I will have to take antidepressants for a lifetime. If I don't, depression takes over my whole world, leaves me listless, anxiety ridden and wondering what is the fastest way out. I would be highly likely return to drinking. I believe to this day that if I return to drinking, I will not make it out again. I have another drunk in me, I don't know that I have another recovery. I have no problem talking about the fact that I see a therapist. There are a few very important things that he helps me with in regards to my mental health. He helps me to understand what is symptoms vs efforts to self-sabotage myself. He reinforces (regularly by the way) to show myself the same compassion that I show others with mental health issues. He challenges my thinking when I am in a lost place and wondering what the next steps are. This is my 1 hour per week that is all about me. How was the week? Am I feeling burned out? Am I anxious? Did I have some really cool things happen? I can get out of my head because it can get pretty busy in there. I have a conversation about my mind without judgement. I can process decisions and situations. My therapist is currently helping me work with the personality traits that I have developed over the years. I was unhappy when we talked about my tendencies to avoid a lot of things in life. This is how I know he has hit on something. He told me once that I am quick to get defense which my response was "I am not defensive, how could you say that?" Ahhh, the irony. We worked on that for several session too. If it hurts my ego a bit, it's something to look at. So, back to avoiding, part of my issue with depression is feeling like I am incapable or lack mastery in getting through my day. By avoiding, I don't allow myself a voice. I create additional anxiety by not taking care of things. I will start to sleep more so that I can shut off the internal conversation about how stupid my own avoiding is. Thanks to working with a therapist, we have changed the direction of most of this. I still avoid some things but I am able to see my patterns. By seeing patterns, I am empowered to change them if I so choose. There are times that I am happy to talk about my mental health concerns especially while I was drinking and in early recovery. I haven't talked about it directly in a while. I have eluded to it here and there in my writing but never really talked directly that I still have issues to this day. I realized during my session with my therapist today -- I carry my own stigma about my own mental health. By saying that I am having a tough time or feeling depressed, I assume that others will see me as incapable, compromised and/or not in a good place to do my job. I preach all about being compassionate to one's self when feelings of anxiety or depression are present. I really believe that. I really do. I just don't believe in extending the same compassion to myself. My self-talk includes a lot of "shoulds". I shouldn't feel this way. I need to grow up and get out of bed. I am too old to sleep all day when "I don't feel good." (This one really bugs my therapist.) I talk with my client frequently about shame and I go home and shame myself for being anxious for "no reason" or not feeling up to being around people. Somehow I hope that shame will get me to change. I keep getting the message that there is nothing "wrong" per se with me so shame isn't going to cut it. Intellectually I know this, but my heart is a little slower to come around. I have been in depressive episode (more mild with times of being more moderate) since last fall. I upped the contact with my therapist since this time. He reminds me that I have made weekly appointments, religiously, since September of last year. Obviously, I am wanting to be better and be proactive in making changes if I continue to show up week after week even when he says things I don't really want to hear. If you think about it, having an avoidant personality, I don't avoid this. Success. Sadly, since last September, I have seen myself as weak, unable to cope with daily life and acting like a kid. In reality, I am doing a lot better than that, it just doesn't always feel that way. When I am in these depressive episodes, the severity can change rapidly - something I feel very annoyed about. I can have an amazing week at work and then do nothing for 3 days straight because the idea of getting out of bed is too overwhelming. I can spend my 42 minute commute wondering what I might have done wrong in the past 2 weeks because I have need to be prepared for something bad in my supervision. I can feel my irritability get the best of me and lash out in inappropriate ways (this one bother me a lot). I have adopted this as part of my personality to my co-workers because the idea of people knowing that it is because I am in a depressive moment and my emotions get the better of me is painful. The way I experience depression: black and white thinking, lack of self-compassion which results in a lack of self-care, irritability that quickly flows over into outright hostility and increased anxiety. The way I experience anxiety: racing thoughts about everything I have ever done wrong, ever, anticipating the worse case scenario, doubting my own decisions and thoughts and a total lack of desire to get out of bed because I am going to screw it up all anyway. Even as I write this, I am feeling like people will feel different about me, pity me, feel sorry for me. That is not at all what I am after in writing something like this. These symptoms I feel, the mental illness I have are things that I deal with on a daily basis. Most days, I do very well in managing my symptoms. I rarely miss my medications. I try to access my DBT skills. I reach out for help. I am getting help. I am remaining sober. I am working to find purpose and meaning in the activities of my life. I show up to therapy and go to uncomfortable places and say "I am not OK today" and no one loses their minds. Maybe it's worth saying how it really is to not feel right even when there is nothing wrong. I am a big "why" person. And I will be honest, I don't like the answer to "why" to be "because you are symptomatic of your depression" or "you anxiety is triggered and you are in too emotional of a state to be logical". It feels like I have to surrender control to things that upsets me. I don't like the idea that I am not able to control myself. Weakness, right? Excuses, maybe? Unhealthy, possibly? Incapable of managing, yeah, it feels a lot like that. When I think about the years of drunkenness, my memories are often at night in pitch blackness. There is a cloud of gray that hangs over those memories. My mental health was so incredibly unstable during those years. In my mind, alcohol caused all the mental illness for me, so there is a mild sense of frustration that I am still dealing with the depression and anxiety all of these years later. However, I also remember being anxious as a kid. I was terribly avoidant for years and years. When I left home to study abroad in high school, I was in a severe depression for almost the entire time I was there. I was unable to put words to what I was feeling. I started with the negative self-talk back then "this is what you wanted, so be happy about it." Almost 25 years later, I am having the same conversation with myself, just a different topic -- becoming a counselor (this I am actually writing a book about, stay tuned.) Well, I guess that is what I wanted to say. I have thought about this entry for quite some time. Those who know me pretty well, know about me having depression and anxiety. I proudly wore the dual diagnosis tag when I first got sober and have slowly shied away from conversations about. I felt compelled by the strength of others in my life to step up and be honest. I have compassion for your mental health struggles and not for my own. It is sort of freeing in a way to be honest That kind of illogical thinking is something that I can change. Lots of love, J |
AuthorJust a girl in the world trying to live a sober and happy life. Archives
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