Career Therapy: Getting professional help when the going gets tough

Intro: Deciding to get therapy

Have you ever considered getting professional help for your quarterlife crisis and general career confusion?  Maybe my personal experience will be helpful to you.  Recently, something at work triggered my search for a therapist who specializes in career counseling.  Partially for the sake of exploration for this blog, and partially because I really think it will be  helpful, I’ve started this “column” to document my experience with the counselor anonymously.

The other day, an event occurred at work that made me loathe my work environment more than usual.  It wasn’t so far from the usual things I deal with, but it was just a bad day that made me reevaluate my purpose at work and where I wanted to go with my career.  Typical stuff.  Granted, I’ve been going through the quarterlife crisis for months now.  In general, I’ve dealt with it quite well because of the resources at my disposal, including this blog, as well as a strong support network.  In any case, for reasons beyond disliking my job, I decided it was time to take real action.

Here’s how I got started.

A very close friend studies psychology and is a practicing therapist.  This friend suggested awhile ago, long before I seriously considered it, to reach out to a professional therapist for career help.  I didn’t take the advice too seriously at first because I thought therapy would be expensive.  When I reconsidered recently, the friend provided references.

I reached out to the therapist that was most highly recommended.  The therapist has a Psy.D. and has practiced for years, with one of her specializations in career guidance.  Again, I was worried about cost.  But here comes the big surprise.  It was news to me that therapy is covered by many health insurance plans.  In fact, after calling mine, it turns out that each session would cost me just $30.  Out-of-pocket, the sessions would have been $150+.  I don’t think I have to point out the obvious irony, but I will: My company’s healthcare plan is helping me figure out my next career steps.  It makes a lot of sense for companies to provide therapeutic support for their employees.  If this works out, it would theoretically make me a more productive worker.  Happily, I booked my first session with Dr. R, who was accommodating enough to schedule me for the next day.

Here’s a few suggestions on how you can get started.

If you’ve done career exploration on your own already, and you feel like you need someone else — a coach, therapist or counselor — to help you sort through all of it, I would encourage giving counseling a try.  Start by looking for a general therapist who specializes in career guidance and life transitions, or look for a specialized office dedicated to career counseling or coaching.  They should be able to provide references or statements from their past clients that will give you a better idea of their background and experience.  If you do not have a friend who can give you personal recommendations as in my case, definitely do your homework.  Compare your options carefully.

Next, if you are on a budget, check to see if your insurance covers it and what the co-pay is.  The therapist should be able to give you a general idea, but only your insurance company can give you a definite answer. Then, book your appointment and give your new counselor a try.  There is no promising that the relationship will work out, so make sure you are comfortable.  My therapist offered the option of a complimentary consultation session the first time.  See if this is the case in your situation.  Once you try it out and find the him/her to be a good fit, then decide whether or not you want this to be an ongoing relationship.

Lastly, I want to point out that going to a counselor/coach/therapist doesn’t mean your personal exploration ends.  Professional help is only a guiding force, and I realize the powers of change are within me and within me alone.

If you decide to give this a try, good luck!

Stay tuned…my next post will focus on the experience of my first session.

Dr. Paidlove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Flu

Recently, I was victim to a nation-wide epidemic: I came down with the Swine Flu. Before you reach for the anti-viral wipes to scour your eyeballs with lest reading this article gives you the dreaded Swine, let me share a few things I learned.
First off, our health care system sucks. I have health insurance through work, and supposedly this is a real benefit to me. I pay into the system bi-weekly and should, therefore, be able to see a doctor while I am ill. That’s what I was told at the informational meeting, anyway. However, it turns out that’s not really true. I guess because most of my ailments over the years had been minor: colds, rashes, the usual gambit of discomforts that could bloom into medical problems if not tended to, I hadn’t noticed that it had been nearly a decade since I’d seen my primary care physician. Always handed off to a nurse practitioner, I was getting care by proxy. I wasn’t even sure what my doctor looked like at this point – or if he even really continued to exist. Like some sort of Emerald City wizard, his orders and prescriptions came to me, but I never saw the man behind the curtain. So, it was a little bit shocking – though it shouldn’t have been – when my primary care physician told me it would be four days before I could see someone in his office even when I reported symptoms of fever, body ache, and vomiting. I remember in a delirium of daytime cold medicine and acetaminophen feeling the sore rub of getting jipped when my physician’s office recommended that I go to a walk-in clinic because I couldn’t be seen there. Not in the amount of time that was necessary to treat my illness. If my employers and I are going to pay such steep health care costs, then shouldn’t the benefit be that I don’t have to wait in line to see a doctor? Furthermore, shouldn’t I ever be able to see said doctor – in the flesh? Wasn’t this exact same scenario – long waits for care and sub-par service – what all of those ravenous anti-universal-state-health-care (though that’s not even what’s being proposed by the current administration) town hall attendees were so against?
The second eye-opening experience I had was in the actual walk-in clinic itself. Still ripe with fever, my breath had a warm pull to it that felt like illness. My forehead was coated with a thick layer of perspiration that bled into my eyebrows until they were too burdened with flop sweat and let a waterfall of stinging, biting moisture into my already irritated eyes. Constant body aches and chills and a dry nagging cough had me wrapping myself tighter and tighter into a contorted mess as I sat in the waiting room chair. My mailman could have diagnosed me at this point for the symptoms were so obviously all screaming in unison one word: flu. The nurse who weighed me and asked the standard repertoire of questions even looked me in the eye and said, “Oh, honey, that’s some flu you’ve got there.” So, everyone could see I had the flu. Everyone but one person: the doctor who saw me.
“I’ve seen the flu before, and this isn’t it,” were the first words out of his mouth. He proceeded to ask me if I watched a lot of television and if I had heard about the Swine Flu on television. I told him that of course I’d heard of it, and that several people I knew had recently come down with the flu. After some back-and-forth he finally agreed to do me the favor of testing me for the flu. Fifteen minutes later, my test results for H1N1 were positive and I was donning a medical face mask and prescription for Tamiflu. It was reassuring to learn that I wasn’t victim to media suggestion only and suffering from some sort of illness created in my mind, but it was also disheartening to learn that my walk-in clinic doctor was little more than a middle man between me and the care that I needed. I diagnosed myself. I ordered the test. He just granted permission and wrote the prescription for the medicine that I knew I needed.
The pharmacy was a whole different experience. Whereas I’d been getting less-than-optimal medical services up to this point, nothing really expedites the handling of your prescription like a face shrouded in a virtual poster reading, “you don’t want what I’ve got,” and a prescription that proves it. The exact words of the pharmacist upon handing her the prescription were, “Wait. Wait right here.” Less than three minutes later, and fifty dollars lighter, I had my pills and was out the door.
However, the final – and perhaps most shocking thing – that I learned while home sick with the Swine flu was this: it’s not that bad. I mean, it wasn’t exactly how I wanted to spend my Labor Day weekend, and I wasn’t thrilled about using up so much sick time the next week while it worked its way through to completion, but overall it was just a regular flu for me. I was miserable, but there were no horsemen of the apocalypse coming to my bedside warning of end times. In a way, it was almost like a vacation. A chronic non-sleeper, the flu forced my body to surrender – often – to unconsciousness. I caught up on some sleep that I’d been missing. Also, as a workaholic, I was actually shocked when after a few days of being too ill to concentrate on my occupation shifted from mortal dread to respite and calm. I actually started to think about things besides work. This produced an infectious desire for me to get out more, do more besides just set my proverbial nose to the grind stone once feeling better. What started out as a disheartening, cynic-producing journey through the health care system has ended with a most rested, rejuvenated me. For that, I guess I have the flu to thank.

Got a light?

Urban Outfitters (what is arguably the toy store for our generation) has started carrying bubble gum cigarettes. When I saw them next to the candy “grillz” and the “grow your own boyfriend”, I got excited. My experience with candy cigarettes was through our ice cream truck. My friends and I would buy an Astro Pop or a Snow Cone and a pack of cigarettes for later.

None of our parents ever freaked out. In fact my mom was with me when I saw them and we had a moment of gushing over this lost artifact. No one ever considered that “smoking” candy cigarettes would lead to a life of addiction. And they haven’t. File that correlation under Marilyn Manson makes kids shoot other kids and Global Warming is a natural occurrence; Bunk.

However, it did make me consider what we are addicted to. Sure, there is a large sector of our generation addicted to smoking. Most of us did our fair share of experimenting as teenagers or in college and it either stuck or didn’t. It’s unhealthy, we know the repercussions, and we’ve accepted or rejected them. But beyond a nicotine fix, what else are we medicating with?

At a point when things are the most confusing, the most challenging, and the most difficult- sometimes you just need something to make yourself feel better. Maybe that’s food, maybe it’s shopping (Etsy.com should be regulated by the FDA), maybe you jones for an imported beer, maybe you find solace in sex, or maybe it’s an illicit substance. Those things that make life a little more manageable sometimes take over and that’s all you want.

So is that what is happening with us? Are we falling into patterns of addiction instead of lives?  At a time when so many of us are searching for that next meaningful thing to do, we may turn to those things we crave to dull the growing pains (be honest- how many blogs have you read today). Addiction is incredibly easy today. Recently, I had to take my car in for some minor repairs and when it took longer than expected, they gave me a rental car. Twelve hours later with no GPS, no iPod, and no satellite radio, I was starting to twitch from withdrawal. I’m addicted to engineering my environment to reflect my mood. But without the crutch of my addictions, I was pushed outside my routine and into uncomfortable places.

I didn’t have any earth shattering experiences from being forced to listen to shock-jock radio, but I did see the benefit of breaking the addiction now and then. It’s easy to become complacent. When jobs and housing and relationships are so up in the air for quarterlifers its easy to turn to bubble gum cigarettes for a break from thinking about the next step. But maybe now and then we need to put the pack down and pick up something else. Who knows, you may just find a new addiction.

Bridge Over A Troubled Cervix

You know what I hate? Getting cancer. It’s really low on my list of things to do in my life. Because of that, on Tuesday, I will go to get my last HPV vaccine. This shot has been a great point of contention among political parties, schools, and parents. Being 27, I was fortunate to squeeze in under the age cutoff and have not had to deal with the social ramifications of being told that getting it will increase my promiscuity. In fact, waiting to get through the six-month series of three shots has actually reduced my promiscuity. Eighty percent of sexually –active adults have HPV, meaning that I was extraordinarily fortunate to get to my mid-twenties and still be STD free- especially since HPV can be transferred by contact alone (read “penetration not necessary”).

HPV, or the Human Papillomavirus infect your mucous membranes. While it expresses itself as warts, many strains of the virus have no showing signs at all. This is particularly scary when a few strains (about 13 of the hundreds) of this virus have been linked to [Read more]

My Bout With The Gut

That’s right, dear readers. I have a gut.

Well, it’s a slight gut, and so I try to use the term very loosely. I can look down and see my feet just fine with no revolting-looking mass of fat obscuring the view. The funny thing is that I was skinny when was much younger, and so while growing up, even at my physical peak, I always had some “baby fat” around my stomach. At the time I didn’t give it much thought. When I became a teenager, however, that “baby fat” grew up into real fat.

I could easily get rid of the gut if I wanted to. It’s just that I never had a real issue with it. If anything, I’ve always been more embarrassed about my various moles and scattered strains of hair on my back than I have been about my handles of love. I can only suspect that my hair and slightly beige completion have somehow made my gut more aesthetically tolerable than your typical pale, pasty, beer gut variety. Never felt insecure about wearing tight T-shirts around the house; never had any apprehensions about going to the beach and walking around topless. Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t mind having a six-pack (what sane man wouldn’t), but I refuse to dedicate the time and work to get it; I’d rather use that energy for something else. That’s the choice I’ve made and I’m sticking to it: slight gut and all. [Read more]

A Half-Full Glass of Airborne

I’m sick. I get to write this laying in bed, drinking tea, and watching old seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. Regardless of this relaxing scenario, I’m torn on the whole sick issue. Feeling ill is one of the worst experiences ever. You aren’t yourself and nothing that you want to do can happen. I would rather be clear headed and focused on my homework. I would rather be running around eating fun and exciting breakfasts at my local greasy spoon or drinking my sugar free hazelnut soy extra-hot latte from the ‘Bux. However, my body has taken a leave of absence and requires that I lay around like deadly sin number 4.

So I ride the emotional roller coaster of illness; feeling momentarily joyous that I have an excuse to lay around and watch Buffy save the world over and over (sue me, she’s a kick ass role model) and experiment with my newest concoction of green pomegranate and raspberry sangria tea, and then facing the harsh reality that I have three classes worth of homework to do, some boning up on my new job training, food to buy for the week, music to study for my voice lesson, and, oh yeah, a blog post to write. [Read more]