Crossroads

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

I have arrived at a crossroads concerning my career. I took this year off from teaching to focus on healing and it's a good thing I did, too, since I was still at an inpatient facility when school started and would have missed the whole first month.

Teaching is all I ever wanted to do. I always knew I wanted to teach 4th or 5th grade and I fought my battles along the way and settled into being a 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade teach or some combination for the past 14 years. It was so hard to make the decision last June not to return to the classroom this year. I cried with the loss. And when I returned home in September, I cried as I packed away boxes upon boxes of stuff from my classroom so that it would be out of my sight.

Now enter the crossroads. Since sometime last year, I realized that I want to be a public speaker that talks about what it's really like to live with mental illness and how it is to live in this society with mental illness. I want to write books. I want to speak to groups of people. But I didn't (and still don't) know how to go about doing that. Then, one therapy session my therapist suggests going back to school to get a masters in social work to become a researcher and that could lead to what I want to do. So now I have an application half completed.

Yet, I don't know what to do. I live in this world with black and white thinking and the believe that every choice I make is going to be wrong. And so I am paralyzed at this crossroads. Should I go back to my old job next year? Should I go to school? Should I look for a different teaching job that focuses mainly on reading and writing? How do I make these decisions? How do I become strong enough to choose one and never look back even if it turns out it wasn't the best choice? I know I can do this, but I welcome encouragement or opinions to help me in this process.

 

[Deleted member 19804]

I think your dream of becoming a public speaker and raising awareness on mental illness is absolutely beautiful. And so is being a teacher: you can have a major impact on people's lives doing either thing.

What do you love about being a teacher? And what would you love about being an activist and a writer?

Perhaps this is a silly question, but why would you have to choose between the two career paths? Would it be possible for you to work fewer hours at the school and fill the rest of your time with your other dream job?

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

Perhaps this is a silly question, but why would you have to choose between the two career paths? Would it be possible for you to work fewer hours at the school and fill the rest of your time with your other dream job?

I don't know. I would have to find the perfect combination and that is hard in the school system, but it is something to think about.

 

[Justmehere]

What a neat and great desire to speak and write on those issues!

My suggestion: Do more homework on how to best pursue your goals, and if you do have to suspend being a teacher to do it. Look into in-between steps other than quitting teaching or staying a teacher.

You may find a less drastic step or steps that could help you explore this possible new career more without giving up teaching just yet.

Talk to a career counselor at the university or college you are thinking of going to. Your therapist has good advice, but she is not a career counselor. She is speaking from her experience in the education system and it's leaving a lot of possible options out. If you are looking to speak to professionals, yes you may need a social work or other degree. If you are looking to speak to the general public, I have seen a number of speakers on the issues you speak about and not a single one of them had a social work degree. If you want to write books, then again, consider the audience and what kind of writers are credible to that audience.

A degree in social work may not make it easier to become a researcher. Typically, someone needs a Ph.D or Ed.D to do any kind to research that would lead to a possibility of public speaking on that research. A social work degree and years of experience as a therapist might help give more credibility, but I don't know if it is necessary.

Also, check out something called Toastmasters or other public speaking groups. Watch Ted talks. Notice the wide variety of backgrounds and experiences of the speakers. Try joining a public speaking or advocacy group and begin to build up experience speaking on these issues. This experience will help you become better at any path you choose. It also may make it more clear what direction you really want to pursue.

You could take a longer break from teaching after this year off and later return to it. You could stick with teaching and volunteer in advocacy and begin to build a solid public speaking career that way.

You could continue as a teacher, and begin to write and speak over this next year and see how it goes. Join a writers group where other people would read and respond to your work. Start a blog. Public speaking clubs give lots of opportunties to speak on issues someone cares about in front of smaller groups. This may help test out the waters and see if this fits for you more than teaching.

 

[Suzetig]

It sounds like you're at a crossroads indeed and while I get that it can be challenging, it's also full of opportunities. One option might be to teach or work part time and study part time. I did my social work qualification thought a combination of distance learning and practice placements while working full time. It wasn't easy but was possible. I'm also doing a Masters while working full time. That would mean you were earning something while changing direction - you might also find that you like social work practice (tbh I think social work is a hard area to study if you aren't interested in practice). Could you build on your education qualification to give you a grounding in research? I know in the UK a good degree would open doors to doing your research Masters.

I agree with the previous poster who suggested getting some experience in public speaking - it just doesn't suit some people and better to find out early if it's something you're not going to enjoy. Also think about how much of your own experience you'd want to share and how much research, both can be very triggering in ways you can't really predict. I hope you're able to unpick where you want to be - exciting times for you.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

I have some experience in public speaking and I really enjoy talking to larger groups of people. I haven't done it often, but I know it is something I could and want to do. I have been doing local opportunities to speak about a self-published book of poetry related to PTSD and have one coming up in February. The thing is none of that will pay the bills.

Some of you raised good points about seeing if I can build on my educational degrees. I also thought about teaching and taking classes, but it seems like I wouldn't be able to balance all of that. Right now I don't know if I can balance anything, but I need to have some hope that there is a future waiting for me and some way to get there.

 

[Friday]

Yet, I don't know what to do. I live in this world with black and white thinking and the believe that every choice I make is going to be wrong. And so I am paralyzed at this crossroads. Should I go back to my old job next year? Should I go to school? Should I look for a different teaching job that focuses mainly on reading and writing? How do I make these decisions? How do I become strong enough to choose one and never look back even if it turns out it wasn't the best choice? I know I can do this, but I welcome encouragement or opinions to help me in this process.

You don't have to. :) You can not only do both, teaching and public speaking aren't mutually exclusive, nor is teaching and working on your masters... but ideally we really should be both looking back & taking stock & making course corrections as situations change.

If you set out on one direction, and it turns out it wasn't the best choice? You don't have to keep going in that direction. You can correct your course. You can make changes. And the choices that you make then? Further down the road? Will be better informed.

 

[barefoot]

A crossroads is an exciting place to be. Yes, sometimes challenging and confusing, for sure. But...so many options and potential opportunities! There's no one right way. And none of the roads are wrong. And you might end up exploring all of them - and others - at some point.

Try not to see it as an either/or option - there are plenty of choices and the opportunities for making different choices are on-going. This isn't a be-all or end-all decision. You don't have to put yourself under pressure to make the one right decision now or regret it forever.

There's an exercise you could try... If you can, mentally fast-forward one year/five years/whatever timeframe works for you and try to imagine what your ideal working life would look like. Really try to bring it alive and focus on how you'd really love for it to be. You don't need to work out how you'd do it for now. You just need to aim to find a strong future vision that really resonates. If it helps, try to imagine what a typical day/week/month would look like for you. How would you split your time? How often would you want to do speaking engagements? How much time would you like to spend working with young people (as a teacher or maybe in some other way)? What downtime (if any) would you ideally like and how would you choose to spend that time?

If you can reach a point of finding that very alive vision, it generally then becomes a lot easy to step back and make some decisions around your next steps because you're then operating from a place of resonance and alignment within yourself as opposed to being driven by anxiety and confusion and pressure to fix your problem/solve your dilemma.

Not sure if that sounds a bit fluffy - it's easier to talk someone through the process of it than write it down for someone to then go and do themselves!

A career coach could be a really useful option for you. It probably wouldn't take many sessions for you to start gaining some real clarity around what you'd really like to do and to have some support around getting a bit of a plan together for next steps.

Identifying and exploring what you're good at (both work/job skills and non work-related strengths) and what you love about your current/past work (and also outside of work) are also really good starting points.

Good luck - and enjoy this opportunity to write your next chapter :-)

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and advice. I haven't decided yet, but here's what I have been thinking. I don't think I really want to go to school for social work even in research. I might go back to school for something related to the degrees I already have in education or something else. If I go back to teaching next year, I will probably go back to my old job and give it a year before I decide to apply to other teaching positions or if teaching is not something I want to do. In the meantime, I will look for as many opportunities to do some public speaking. The reason I am looking at this as an either go back to school or teach is because teaching was already too much for me and going back into teaching would be my limit. I couldn't balance teaching, family, and healing. That's why I took a year off. I have also come to terms with the fact that I do not have to decide right now. Sure there are deadlines for going back to school, but I am not ready to make a clear decision so I am not going to rush into that scene. In the meantime, I can keep revisiting this topic while I am focused on my healing journey as well.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

Since I already started this thread and I am back to this very same crossroads and it's keeping me up tonight, I thought I would try posting here again. My school district called earlier this week. Apparently I was supposed to let them know by the 15th if I was planning on coming back. I thought I'd have at least until March (missed that "little" detail in the contract). Anyway, it's really thrown me into a deep, dark pit. I have to make a decision, but I can't. My therapist gave me two great suggestions for answering, but I feel like one would be a lie and the other puts up red flags where none existed before. Either tell them I am planning on coming back (and change my mind later if I need to) or ask for more time. In a letter I received yesterday, it says that I have until the 15th of February, but I can't imagine knowing by then either.

I don't know the right thing to do. I think I am going to tell them I plan to return at this moment. It was true as of a month ago. It's no longer necessarily true. I have too much going on internally to even think about it. I saw an online, accredited masters degree option for creative writing with the ability to have a concentration in poetry. This is now on the table since this is what I have been working on. I have other ideas for writing books as well as poetry books and maybe a degree would help me in that.

My fear is though that I will close a door and regret it later. There's always that chance in life, I know. I need to make the best possible decision I can in that moment and never look back. Only, I don't work that way...yet. I need to sort out my right and wrong thinking that drives most of what I do in life and try to figure out what I want and what is best for me and my family and not think about what everyone will think of me for those decisions. However, I have recently figured out that my right and wrong issue is also what often keeps me alive in the darkest moments so I am afraid to challenge it. Therefore, I am considering going back to an in-patient trauma treatment unit. I would be safer there to challenge this deep seeded part of me. I also have other dissociative identity disorder issues that are going on that I need help with, too.

How do other people make decisions in their lives, specifically around work or school? I appreciate the advice and support above, but I need to hear empathy, advice, and support again if anyone is willing.