Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Hello Up There

I don't know if anyone is out there still, but I have so missed the community and I haven't been on for ages, let alone written anything creative.
I found a job that is both challenging and salaried.
I won't lie, I could stand to make about five hundred more a month to be safe but I like what I'm doing.
Being a therapist is harder than the person in the chair makes it look and I get tired of critical thinking all day every day or being chased out by teenagers, making my case to probation officers, etc.
Something else new happened...I got engaged!
Definitely couldn't be more happier.
Sooooo yeah. I know this isn't long but I would love to talk with everyone again, that is, if anyone is still around. :)

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

The Box

This community has been there for me before and I know I haven't written or read much lately, and I'm sorry, but I have to ask for support again.
I graduated and I ended up finding a fantastic job with a company that has a fantastic reputation in the community and fantastic benefits and time off.
I have my own office now, two in fact.
I should be so happy right?
My dream of being a therapist has come true and yet I've been two of the last four nights sobbing because I am depressed despite taking my low dose antidepressant and I'm beyond anxious.
I cry and cry and then an hour later I want to again.
Sleep is my only reprieve.
Sitting in various chairs looking at my two supervisors and my clinical director of my program as they go over the documentation system, secure email, mandatory reporting, the support group information I have to get together, the domestic violence male and female offender groups I'll be cofacilitating, the number of direct client hours I'll need...
so much information and I can't see clients until my provisional license comes back, whic I couldn't send in until now when I was able to find a job and supervisors.
On my lunch break I shut my office door and laid on my couch curled in a ball. Five comes around and I'm exhausted.
Gone is that promise of working out right after work.
I can't seem to clean.
I get tired , too tired to cook.
I just curl into my dog or boyfriend and cry and miss my job with low responsibility where I wasn't so scared and overwhelmed.
This feels like I'm trapped in a box of hurricane anxiety and empty sadness of depression and I'm pounding on the walls to let me out.
I'm begging my boyfriend to make it stop.
I'm burying my face in my dogs fur holding him tight.
And the next day I go to work with a fake smile on my face, the picture of a put together new therapist.
Coping skills, meds, self care routines that aren't working.
And it won't go away.
Looking around, I see I'm still in the box.

Monday, January 2, 2017

Is Anyone Out There

There thought that maybe I wasn't able to connect with people because I was in school and I had this idea that I needed to pursue my passion before anything.
Finally I succeeded and I graduated with my masters in counseling and then come the job hunt, which I'm still on. 
My days have been filled working at the treatment center giving everything I can (in a healthy way) to the substance abuse population. 
I look around a realize my life has become just that: giving. 
I go to work my eight hour shift with teens that don't care about consequences yet and adults who know all too well. 
Stories that could fill pages and interactions that have had me holding back teas. 
I come home to my loving boyfriend and dog and he reminds me of why I chose this path when I'm down and reminds me of how proud he is. 
Then I look around. 
I spent all my time giving and yet everyone I can be friends with has their own lives. 
Boyfriends.
Husbands.
Children.
I long for a girl's day and yet only see how people are through a facade of social media. 
I reach out when I'm struggling with my depression and lack of money hoping for encouragement and am told that they're busy hold on. 
Truth be told I play therapist to a lot of people who say they're my friends. 
And I'm an idiot because I want so badly to connect with people that I can have a two way relationship with and so I listen. 
I listen and listen and then they have to go or they can't talk because of work or this and that. 
I find myself empty. 
The people I do talk with and have a fulfilling relationship with are friends that live back in my home town four hours away and I wish that I could just see them. 
I wish that the people I know here would treat me as a human and not just as a therapist. 
When I draw the line they apologize and promise and yet it never changes, but I don't want to be alone with only my boyfriend.
He's my best friend but I want to just have a female friend I can rely on to put in that effort and come over. 
I know it's silly and I know I'm whining, but I look around and wonder how life got so empty.
I wonder how everything became instagram and Facebook.
How we didn't have to remember birthdays because Facebook says it and we don't have to ask about something because I think deep inside we crave someone caring so we post a photo or a status. 
We don't connect and we don't give our most valuable resource: time 
How did it all get so empty?
Is anybody out there?