Hello and welcome to my first ever blog post! So please be kind if I haven’t figured out the best way to do this yet, but I’m sure that in time I’ll improve. I figured that the best way to start a blog would be to explain who I am, why I became a therapist, and why I’m starting this blog in the first place.
Who Am I?
As of 2021, I am 29 years old and I was born and raised in a small town about 40 minutes north of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I spent most of my childhood playing Nintendo video games (Super Mario World and Legend of Zelda: Windwaker were my favorites), reading pretty much everything I got my hands on (from Harry Potter to Stephen King), listening to Weird Al Yankovic, and playing outside with my friends. As an adult, I still enjoy doing all of those things, although now, when I hang out with friends it’s usually indoors.
I’ve spent most of my adult life being a college student, and now I’ve recently started the post-college phase of my life, which includes starting my career. Which brings me to why I chose to be a therapist as my career versus the other options I considered. Like most people, especially nowadays, I considered several different career paths before landing on the one I’m in now. Here’s a look into the careers I thought about pursuing and why I ultimately decided not to pursue them:
Accountant
When I started college, the first job I considered trying to take classes for was being an accountant. This was never a serious consideration, but I remember back in high school thinking that being an accountant would check several of the boxes that I thought might fit me well: (a) having a stable, solid income (b) being good at math and (c) working primarily by yourself. The income sounded great and I was very shy growing up, so this seemed like an excellent fit for me. I went to college having no idea what I wanted to major in or what I wanted to do for a living, so I tried to take a variety of classes that interested me or I thought I might be good at. So when I saw Intro to Accounting as an option, I jumped at the chance to see if I could see myself doing this for a living. Maybe I just had a lousy teacher, but I struggled in the class and didn’t enjoy learning about it either. I took that as a sign that this just wasn’t for me, so I decided to give up on becoming an accountant.
Teacher
Being a teacher was something I had dreamed about doing as a little kid, and I even went as far as to write down all of my classmates in a notebook so I could take attendance and give them grades for assignments. As I got older, this dream started to solidify in more realistic ways. I loved helping my friends when they couldn’t figure out their homework, and in high school I volunteered to help my mom teach Sunday School at our local church.
So in college, I kept the dream of being a teacher in the back of my mind, and after more people asked me what I was going to major in, I started trying to make this dream a reality. I shadowed my friend’s sister who was an elementary school teacher for a day and realized firsthand the challenges of teaching such young students. You had the daunting task of breaking down concepts for their level and helping teach them social skills. Ultimately I realized that I didn’t love the reality of what being an elementary school teacher would entail, so I decided to shift my sights to older students: high schoolers.
I found out that to be a high school teacher, you had to first major in the subject you wanted to teach and then apply to the education program. I loved the idea of teaching psychology, but unfortunately that’s typically taught by social studies teachers, which would mean majoring in history. The only problem was that history was one of my worst subjects. So I decided why not become a math teacher? High school math came pretty easily to me, so I decided that would be the best fit for me and that maybe one day, once I’m already a teacher, I could look into teaching psychology too.
The problem became two-fold for me: college math was beyond difficult and it turns out that commanding a classroom full of high school students isn’t one of my strong suits. High school math can be challenging at times, but I always felt that I was capable of solving the problems once it’s been explained to me and I’ve reviewed the concepts involved. Then I started taking college math courses like Calculus (math majors had to take three different Calculus classes!) and Linear Algebra, and I was blown away by how much more difficult it was for me. The concepts quickly became more abstract and more about proving the fundamentals of math (try having to write a mathematical proof for why 2+2=4). I was really struggling in those classes and I found myself dreading those classes, which didn’t sit right with me considering this was supposed to be my major.
At the same time, I also found myself in social situations where I had to talk in front of a group of people, and I found time after time that I hated it. I kept flashing to myself as a high school teacher having to do that EVERY single day teaching a subject that I didn’t love. I eventually asked myself why I would do that to myself? Or to my future students, for that matter? Who wants a teacher that isn’t passionate and struggles to talk confidently in front of the class.
Psychologist
After my high school teacher dreams were dashed with the reality of the job, I turned back to the one subject I’ve consistently loved even at the college level: psychology. The only problem was figuring out what I wanted to do with a psychology degree. I loved learning about psychology, and even though it was challenging, I also really enjoyed reading about and participating in psychological research. As a part of my major, I had to create and develop my own psychological study, which was both extremely challenging but also very rewarding and enjoyable. It was a puzzle that I knew I was capable of solving. I even briefly volunteered as a research assistant, where I got to help run a psychological study by instructing subjects on what to expect and later converting the raw data into measurable data points.
So naturally, this felt like a good fit for me and it’s something that I wouldn’t mind pursuing part-time in the future. What ultimately led me away from this path was not having a clear direction for what kind of research I am passionate enough to study. I love learning about a variety of topics, so to force myself to pick one idea and spend months, if not years, pursuing this one topic sounded very limiting to me. It also didn’t help that my only exposure to this type of research is from professors who do research part-time. While I considered becoming a psychology professor and teaching at the college level, I still didn’t feel confident or comfortable commanding a classroom of students.
While I was coming to all of those realizations, my time as a college student was ending and I had no idea what I would do next. I had the psychology degree but had no idea what, if anything, I wanted to do with it. I figured I should do some soul searching before applying to graduate school.
Therapist
So how did I go from all of that to becoming a therapist? While I was doing some soul searching, I had begun volunteering and later working at a crisis pregnancy center that helped provide support for pregnant or moms with young children. We gave out diapers, formula, wipes, clothes, car seats, cribs, and other essential baby items to struggling moms. We also recognized the immense stress these women were experiencing and offered emotional support by providing a listening ear. Most people don’t have anyone to talk to about everything they’re worried about, so we tried to provide some version of that for them.
It was a challenging but eye-opening experience for me. I ended up realizing that although my life was very different from these women (since I didn’t have any children or even a partner at that time), we can all relate to the struggle to balance work, family, a social life, and taking time for yourself. This was an uncomfortable thing for me to realize: that deep down, I assumed that because I’ve had certain privileges and experiences in my life, that somehow made me different from someone with a different set of life experiences. Now I would never have explicitly said that I ever felt that way, but I realized that my surprise at being able to connect to these women I was meeting with so easily meant that I wasn’t as prejudice-free as I thought I was.
The experience also had another positive effect on me. I found myself putting the pieces together and realizing my talent in connecting and listening to other people’s stories (even if I didn’t know how to actually help them at that moment). Another aspect of my work there was educating first-time moms about what to expect during their pregnancy, how to breastfeed (if that’s what they want to do) and answering questions about caring for their baby. This experience helped me realize that my desire to become a teacher was more about helping people than about grading papers and keeping a group of people in line. I loved the process of helping them figure out what part of the problem they were stuck on, identify the issue, and use that information to show them their misstep and guide them to the answer.
It turns out that my biggest strengths volunteering here were the building blocks to being a good therapist. As a life-long people pleaser, I’ve learned how to read people and ask clarifying questions, so I know what I need to do next (to either do the task at hand or avoid causing conflict with them). I’ve always been curious about why people do what they do, which is why psychology has always fascinated me. I’ve always loved reading because it gives you a window into someone else’s thoughts and perspective.
I realized that maybe I was going about this career thing the wrong way. Perhaps I should be looking at my strengths and weaknesses first and then deciding what types of jobs I would be best suited for instead of picking a subject matter first and then trying to fit myself into that career path. It took me a long time to get there, but for once I finally had some confidence behind my career path: I was going to become a therapist!
Why Am I Starting This Blog?
So hopefully, this blog has given you a small insight into who I am and how I ended up as a therapist, but I know there are so many more things that I want to share with you, which brings me to the question at hand: why am I starting this blog? I’ve never had a blog before, but I’ve always loved sharing my story and insights with others, so this is my opportunity to do that.
My goal is to give my personal experience with counseling and mental health topics. I also want to share with you some of the tools I provide my clients, and hopefully, you will find them helpful too. I plan to explore a variety of different topics, and I hope that this blog can be both fun and informative.
