Changes

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????
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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