My official Announcement

a typical English shoppe :)

Now that I have told the people closest to me about my decision, I feel it is ok for me to write it all down here.

The news - I have decided to move to England.

Yes, that is correct, I made a huge life decision and am announcing it here.

My plan is to graduate from Stout in December and then move back to Iowa by the end of the year. I will spend roughly 2 months in Iowa selling my things before I move to England in February.

From there I will try to find a job. I am hoping to get something in the mental health field, but am being realistic in the fact that I will not be ready to be a therapist over there right away. They run things differently and I think it would be best to be a case manager or work in crisis or adoption. We shall see tho, I am keeping a very open mind. My best bet it to find something in the social work realm (which does include some mental health jobs over there) working with children and their families. This is posted by the UK as a "high need job" and would be the easiest for me to get a visa for. Otherwise I will need to find a job that cannot be filled by the employers of the UK. This is why I am looking into crisis, as this is an up and coming field in which I have multiple years experience. Also residential work has a high turn over rate and I have many many years experience in that. 

I am in a wedding in June (yay Sara and Matt!) so I will be back in the states for a few weeks for that. I am hoping to have found a job by then so that my visa can process and I can send more of my personal things over. 

Once Alex and I are back in the UK we plan on getting a place of our own and starting a life together.

I know the economy is bad everywhere and still recovering from minor depressions. This is working against me a bit cuz there will be less jobs available and more people looking. A plus is that getting a masters is less popular in the UK than it is in the states. Hopefully my education and experience boosts me ahead of everyone. If not, the Alex and I are looking at getting married. I know I know, some people are against that idea. It is risky cuz we haven't been in the same country for long and blah blah....But we know our relationship and do have a very strong one despite being apart. It will work, if it comes down to that. The doubters will see :)

And that is pretty much it atm, as far at the plan goes. I am keeping it free of small details so I don't get caught up in being stressed or pressured or whatever. My detailed plans never work out anyways.

Alex and I are very excited about all of this. It will be 5 years we have been together before we have lived in the same country. How crazy. It is more than time for that to happen! I know there are several people who are less than pleased about this decision I am making, for a variety of reasons. I will further detail my reasoning for this in a future blog, I promise.

Job Journal for Internship

 

unrelated photo, but Alex recreated Jimmy Johns at his house!

These past two weeks have been a test of my ability to set professional boundaries for myself with co-workers. My caseload has grown to a very respectable 13 clients and I continue to work 30 hours a week. My meditation practices continue to be helpful in managing my stress levels at work and helping me to focus on my clients. Completing them before I leave the office has continued to help me keep work at work. 

Last week I was offered full-time hours at the Eau Claire Academy and a pay raise. This was very complimentary and came out of nowhere. I was very flattered and made that known but was hesitant to accept the offer. I was assertive with my boss and requested the weekend to think the offer over and evaluate whether or not I would be able to handle the extra hours and maintain school. I decided I could not and declined the offer.

Additionally, I had to assert myself with my boss and tell her that I could no longer accept additional clients to my caseload. I am very busy with the client’s I do have and do not want to compromise the quality of my therapy for quantity. At the same time I informed my boss that I if I was going to keep my most recent client on my caseload that I did not feel comfortable completing as much office work as I have been this semester. 

This is a positive development for myself as a professional because I have the tendency to make personal sacrifices for the good of others or the group. Particularly because I am the lowest on the therapy totem pole at the Eau Claire Academy, my intentions all along have been to learn as much as I can and get through without making any waves. This changed once I got hired on and I now feel much more comfortable with the other therapists in the building. I am very proud of myself for standing my ground and asking for what I need from my co-workers. 

My next task at work is to let my boss know that I will not be staying on staff after the end of the year. Since I have officially decided to move overseas post graduation, I have decided that I need to let my boss know so that my clients have time to be transitioned to other therapists and she has time to find another therapist to hire on. I just found out today that she is under the assumption that I will want to sign a full-time contract with benefits once I graduate. My current contract only goes until the semester is over and when I was hired on the plan was to reevaluate my performance at the end of the year. 

My plan is to inform my boss of this information during our next supervision meeting later this week. I think she will be fairly understanding but am somewhat concerned based on what I know that happened to the last therapist that left the facility. Some of my co-workers have said that they would not want to tell our boss so far in advance, but I think it is the right thing to do. I think she will particularly appreciate this because there are two other therapists that are close to going on maternity leave. No matter how it turns out, I think it will be more good practice of my ability to be assertive towards authority figures.

Another advancement in my professional life is what I am doing to fulfill my personal life. I have recently joined a non mental health related club on campus, gotten more involved in my church, and started doing more sewing, cooking, and art in my free time. These have greatly enhanced the quality of my personal life and served as helpful coping skills when my personal life is stressing me out. I am currently logging my recreational activities and coping skills in a journal so I can keep track of which ones are more helpful in a variety of situations. This has been very beneficial and interesting for me to explore. It has helped me to further define my coping skills list to help me effectively manage my emotions.

Domesticated Gal

This is a photo from a recent scavenger hunt Alex created for me. An emo photo one. I had to have the dinner set for the two of us. 

I have chosen this photo due to my recent drive to be a bit more domestic. I have been putting a lot of effort lately into these types of activities. I am better about making an actual, healthy, balanced meal in the evenings after work. I have been doing a lot of sewing and artzy stuff such as painting and crafts. 

I find that these things are really helpful to make my life more meaningful. Sure, sometimes I am really lazy and don't follow through with my intended plans of making an elaborate meal or find the energy to paint at night. But when I do, I find myself to be a bit more fulfilled.

These things are not only helping to further my housewifing skills, keep myself well fed, or to make something pretty while wasting my time. They are also doing more for me. I am using these things as a coping skill. They soothe me and give me a create release at the end of a long, stressful day. They do not always 100% work, but they are helping to make my time here more more quickly. 

I have noticed the weeks flying by lately. I am nearly halfway done with my last semester already! Am I ready for it to be done? Am I ready to transition back into the working work? I think so. This semester has given me the oppertunity to be in a unique half work half school situation. It is a balancing act, and I continue to learn alot about my field and about myself. And I think this is a good thing. I want to be as prepared as possible to join the mental health field in full force. I have no doubt I will succeed, but the more prep the smoother transition. Part of this preparation includes bringing more specification to my coping skills list and finding hobbies that can make my out of work life blossom. I already have coping skills for work (the meditation I spoke about in previous postings continues to go well, thank you for asking) and now my domestic skills seem to be part of my hobbies. I am finding it fun to experiment and am pleased at the success I've been having. I hope to continue these practices to after I complete school so I can carry the level of focus and content I am trying to build in my home environment.

This means a lot to me because if I only live once then I want to make this life worthwhile. After school I will be fairly satisfied with my education level and can begin to build a meaningful career for myself. The rest of my life must follow suit and I think these practices are a big part of that, particularly for someone in my field where others are putting their woes on me all day long.  

Job/Internship Journal

First of all, I have decided that I am going to add a photo to every blog entry, just for fun. So enjoy that. Secondly, my update is on how my big people job as a therapist/my internship. Hope that's ok.

             As my caseload at work/internship continues to grow, I find myself getting more and more busy throughout the work day. Because I am limited on how many hours the ECA will pay me, I often find myself without enough time to properly plan my group therapy sessions. This leaves me to doing it outside of work time. I do not have a problem doing some of this because I know that as I accumulate materials, curriculum, and experience, it will become easier for me to plan group therapy quickly.

            With the addition of added clients comes additional paperwork. Several of my clients are new to the ECA as so I am responsible for administering various evaluations and tests so that I can create treatment plans and recommendations. I do not have much experience in this so it takes me awhile to complete the write-ups, recommendations, and treatment plans. So far, other staff members have been very patient and supportive in helping me as much as they can in this process. However, with the environment being chaotic and everyone being busy, I do not get a lot of assistance in completing these documents.

            Being that I am new to all of this, and the only intern in the building, it is difficult not to compare myself to other staff members, particularly the other therapists. I know this unreasonable of me, but occasionally I do find myself getting stressed out due to thoughts of self comparison. This has not been helpful to my stress level, the work I am doing, or to the clients I serve. This stress was even beginning to affect me outside of work. I was finding it difficult to leave work at work. I would worry about what I had done with clients or what I would be doing with them in my next sessions. I was not providing bad practice and I had not done anything wrong to be so concerned about. Upon reflection, I realized that it was all due to me holding myself to unrealistic standards.

            Due to being surrounded by professionals that have their degree, license, and additional certificates or trainings, I was also holding myself to their same standards without realizing it. I was expecting too much of myself and putting too much pressure on what I was doing. In reality, I was and continue to do good work with my clients. I am putting in my best faith effort, doing no harm, following ethics codes, and maintaining sound boundaries while conducting therapy with my clients. I am not yet graduated and still have much to learn about adaptive what I have been taught at Stout to the adolescent residential setting. The work I am doing has been getting positive feedback by peers and superiors, and I am able to ask for help when I need it.

            Since realizing all of this, I have begun to see things in a different perspective. I continue to keep my eyes open for all opportunities to learn, I seek out additional resources as often as possible, and I do not allow myself to compare the work I am doing to the work of my experienced co-workers. Additionally, I have began to use additional coping skills of my own to stay focused while at work and to leave work at work. Specifically, I have begun to utilize some relaxation and meditation techniques before and after work every day over the last week and a half.

            The routine of my day now starts off with a brief 5 minute meditation to get myself centered and focused on the day and doing my best work. On the way to work I listen to a specific song and recite positive affirmations. Such things as “I am doing my best faith effort to help my clients as much as I can in the time I have them, with the resources available to me”, “I am still learning”, “I can only learn from, not expect myself to be, those professionals around me”, “nobody is expecting me to re-invent the wheel or cure my clients”, and “The choices my clients make are not a direct reflection of my capabilities as a therapist”. After work, I do an additional meditation exercise where I let go of all the loose ends from the day and stressful situations before I leave my office.

            I have found this to be extremely helpful for my own stress level. I have been more relaxed and focused throughout the work day as a whole, increasing my ability to give my best to my clients. I no longer think of or worry about my clients outside of work. I also am sleeping better and no longer dream about work or my clients. I am not getting overwhelmed with paperwork or feeling pressure to perform at the level of my co-workers. I intend on continuing this practice and additionally exploring my other coping skills further to refine them for maximum assistance for me in my practice.

Drugged Up Inspiration

Been overly active lately and I guess must have overdone it last night at Zumba cuz I woke up sore today. The good kind of sore that means you have had a great workout. Then I worked a day shift at the crisis center and sat at a desk with less than supportive computer chairs. My back was getting to me so I decided to take some of my pain meds upon getting home......

Its been about a half hour since I took them and I gotta say that I get why people get addicted to this kinda stuff.