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!”
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AuthorJust a girl in the world trying to live a sober and happy life. Archives
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