Six weeks ago, I started Spring quarter feeling exhausted. Winter quarter had been extremely demanding and draining in almost every area of my life, and the week between the two quarters felt overwhelmingly insufficient.
Five weeks ago I began practicum. It felt like taking a drink from a firehose. Everyone at the site was so kind, but I came home from my first day of supervision and training feeling overstimulated, underprepared, and even more exhausted.
Five weeks ago, I also received my first client referral and subsequently experienced a panic attack—the first in several years. I was terrified.
The two weeks that followed are a blur. I went to class, went to practicum, and (eventually) completed my homework, but the most prominent things I noticed were the red flags I had come to know so well from my previous struggles with anxiety and depression. I knew I was not doing well.
Three weeks ago, we went home for the weekend to attend a wedding and for the first time in . . . well, it felt like months, but at least since the start of this quarter, I felt peace. I enjoyed time surrounded by family and friends. I went on a bike ride in the foothills of my childhood neighborhood. I leisurely worked on homework in my favorite tea shop while sipping on lavender creme earl grey. Time seemed to stop for a bit, and I finally felt like I could breathe. I did not want to come back to Pasadena.
Also three weeks ago, on our drive back, I received a voicemail from my practicum site that I was not expecting or prepared for. The time-stopping bubble of peace and rest instantly burst and I was thrown into panic mode again. All I could say was, "I want to go home."
The next day, I was ready to go home. I think I had known that this was not a sustainable way to live and that second anxiety attack seemed to block any last hope of making it through the rest of the quarter, let alone the program. I realized that the "home" I longed for was not only the familiar, family-filled fields of Central Valley, but also a sense peace, safety, and stability.
That Tuesday, I had long talks with a trusted friend in my cohort, my integration formation group, some of my closest friends, my therapist, my pastor, and, of course, my husband. I received supportive, nonjudgmental listening, prudent and practical questions, and prayer. My own prayers were more along the lines of, "Help. Help. Help."
The following Tuesday—my 28th birthday—I met with the clinical director of training with every intention of leaving the program and Pasadena. I expected to feel shame and her disappointment but was willing to face that for the relief of freedom. What I received was beyond what I could have imagined. She listened patiently, helped me sort out the decisions and options I actually had, and affirmed her support of me. I had not realized it was possible to delay practicum even though I had already started. I could take a step back to have the time and energy I needed to get the overbearing monster of anxiety under control so that I could make a more informed decision about the future. She helped me to realize that it is almost impossible to make the kind of researched and meticulous decision I was wanting to make (something she caught onto when I mentioned it took me five years to even decide to apply for grad school) when anxiety is in control and safety outranks any other goal or objective. I was not only consumed with anxiety, I was also burnt out. I had an epiphany moment when I realized that this kind of experience is the very one I came to grad school to learn how to help with. When you're feeling completely drained and then pile on stressors, or trauma, or fill in the blank, of course you feel like you just want to quit, get away, and go home.
So for now I am pausing. I am resting. I am healing.
I don't know what the future holds, I may still end up going home before finishing the program. I may delay practicum until finishing classes. I may start up practicum again in June. I don't know, and for the first time in a while, I am (mostly) okay with that.
Sam has been reading The Lord of the Rings to me, often times to help me sleep, and the following quote grabbed my attention a few weeks ago as I was drifting off. I made him go back so I could write it down, feeling like there would be a time and place for me to come back to it. Seems like now is the time.
"The future, good or ill, was not forgotten, but ceased to have any power over the present."
-John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
