Running out of steam...

Last week I made a lot of progress... this week I've been running out of steam. This is in part because of my potential job. I mentioned in the last post on 'progress' that I'd gotten a job. It's not a job I particularly want, but it would give me financial stability as I start up my practice. I originally wanted to work 3 days/week, but they pushed for four. This would only leave one weekday (probably a Monday) for my practice, and maybe a weekend day.

I'm still in negotiations over salary, but I've found that my spirit is already somewhat broken, at least temporarily. I'm afraid I won't have the time or energy to really focus on my practice the way I'd like, and there's something about being forced to sell your time for money that just squashes the soul. In that mindset, it's hard to put a lot of energy towards something that feels like it's going to get pushed aside.

This job would entail some travel, and while they agreed that I could request to not travel on the day I have free for my practice, there's always a chance when they will "make" me go if it's an emergency; or, I might have to be in Nebraska on a Tuesday morning, and need to travel Monday night. This would seriously mess with my practice schedule if I have sessions on a Monday evening.

What to do? I think I still have to take the job, but I'm nervous. Maybe I should consider just doing my practice on a Saturday. I wish I knew if there was much demand for therapy on a day like that. Does anyone know? Where would I find out?

Also, my supervisor - the one I was really happy about finding - fell through. I have some more options, but I haven't had the energy to contact them - I need to find out what my work situation will be first.

So, that is all. Oh, and my business license came in the mail. I taped it to my office wall, and I also went to the thrift store and bought an in-out box. So that's progress, right?


At times like this, I wish I were independently wealthy. I recently saw, randomly, on Facebook, that the mom of an old class-mate had gone into private practice late in her life (all the kids in their 20s and 30s). She can rely on her husband's work and just take it up as 'lightly' as it were.

Not that I'm suffering - I'm very lucky overall. But I have to make sure my family has insurance and enough money first, and in this country that involves working in a salaried position. (remind me to make a tangential rant about insurance in this country, even though it's been made a million times; in brief: This country's healthcare system is fucked up!) My point is that it would just make things a lot easier if I could focus on my new business 100%.

I'm hoping once the job is worked out, or not, I'll feel more able to really focus on the business again - hopefully in couple of days.

Where I am starting from, more or less

Hello!

Everybody is in different circumstances when they decide to take on a big project. I figure it my be helpful, as I start out, to lay out my own particular situation, and how it has let met to start a private practice. There are a few big reasons I came to this decision at this point in my life:

1. I recently moved to a new state, leaving a stable clinical social work job, after two years, to find that I can't find a job at an agency in my new town (trust me, I have tried for the last four months). But I still need to accumulate hours to get my clinical license here! 
2. Even if I were to find a job, I don't really want one! The idea of working at an agency again (except maybe an imaginary perfect agency) - working for a boss; going to staff meetings; huge caseload; low pay - does not sound very appealing (this is, of course, why so many social workers, and psychologists go into private practice)
3. Meanwhile, I need money!

One event finally pushed me over the brink and led me to decide that 2012 would be my first year of practicing privately. Having spend a few months applying to many jobs and interviewing at fewer, in November, I applied for a position that I really wanted; I interviewed for it twice, it seemed hopeful, and I waited patiently through the Thanksgiving lull to get news. Weeks passed. I remained optimistic. Then, after a month of hoping, the job fell through: They cancelled the whole damn position due to funding (which was, somehow, more frustrating than outright rejection).

It was at that point that I decided to take matters into my own hands.

It is true that pride is involved. I didn't go into social work to get rich, or even to start a private practice. I just wanted to work for an agency that I like, doing work that I felt was valuable to others and earning a decent living. Being rejected for positions that I feel I am qualified for is disheartening. Worse is when you don't get a job for a position you don't really even want: that's just demoralizing - no, I'm just going to call it soul-killing.

I feel some guilt for what feels like cashing in and abandoning the essence of social work by starting a private practice (throughout the field of social work, in school and beyond, there is a very weird attitude towards private practice and money in general. Social work has a foundation in social justice and service, and, if we are being honest, private practice is to a large extent about money and comfort of the therapist; yet tons of social worker go into the field with private practice as their goal - even if they don't admit it).

Despite the pride, after a while I just felt like saying to the whole world of mental health agencies, the following:

"Well, if you don't want me, then fuck off!"

It felt like the whole job hunt was demeaning, like I was begging agencies to give me a job I didn't really want, and I was being rejected (I think a lot of people feel this way about "going into the office" - it just doesn't seem like the right thing to do, it's not natural, but we are conditioned from early on that that's what we do when we grow up).

So (setting the guilt and the pride aside for another day), I am also kind of glad to be pushed to this next step, because, in a lot of ways, agencies are not nice places to work in. More generally, work is not a nice place to work in. I want a life I feel good about - where I can have a flexible schedule, take my own initiative, make my own decisions about my life. I want to be free, but also to survive. That's not too much to ask, is it?