I Was in Denial About Changing Careers Until Anxiety Came to the Rescue
It was 3 am and I was sitting on my couch, hugging a pillow. I tried to focus on the sounds coming from the TV, or the constant purring of Ludwig, the lovely cat next to me. It was useless. My heart was pounding on my chest. Agonizing fear kept crawling up my body. I was trembling. I was aching. I was broken.
I buried my face on the pillow and poured tears on it. I inhaled and on the exhale I screamed. I did it again, and again until my throat hurt. Then I remained motionless on the couch, wishing with every fiber of my body that I would never feel like that again.
Contrary to what many people believe, panic attacks don’t just happen out of the blue. Certainly, they can come suddenly, but there is always a cause. By cause I don’t mean one specific event, though it could be. Often it is the result of cumulative circumstances in our lives and the way we think about them. In my case, the panic was also a wake-up call.
I had been working as a nurse practitioner for about 6 months, and I hated every second of it. Before that, I had done fairly well for several years as a dialysis nurse. I didn’t love it, but most of the time I liked it enough. And I was good at it. I was good as a nurse practitioner too. At least that was the feedback I received. I learned quickly and worked hard. I was the first one to arrive and the last one to leave. I diagnosed and treated correctly. I wrote excellent clinical notes and billed accurately. But I felt I was a fraud. I felt I did not belong. I felt I had wasted four years of my life getting a master’s degree in something I wasn’t passionate about.
I pressed on. I kept telling myself this was part of the process of adapting to a new role. After all, it was a great job. Especially in a city where the competition for healthcare jobs is fierce, and opportunities for new graduates are slim. Plus as a child I often dreamed of being of service to others in some sort of healthcare environment. How could a child’s instincts be wrong? I kept telling myself that things would get better, refusing to accept defeat. I was oblivious to one fact. In the professional arena, we often blur the line between making the best out of a career and loving what we are doing.
I know this is not a novel realization. Yet many of us continue through life battling to love a profession, instead of fighting to do what we love. It sounds like a quirky line out of self-help books, but it is a reality. And we have all sorts of answers to justify this behavior:
It is a good job and it pays the bills.
It was my childhood dream.
It was my family’s dream.
I’m too old or I’ve come too far to switch gears now.
This student debt can’t be in vain.
Defeat is not an option.
Life happens.
Luckily for me, the paralyzing anxiety was just too much to bear. It had been a dark, heavy cloud over my head for many years. For several different reasons. But I understand now it was this career denial what caused the cloud to get bigger and burst as a raging storm. And I was finally moved to come out of the trance.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not yet on friendly terms with anxiety. However, I can recognize that panic has been, at least in my case, helpful. It sounds crazy. I’m cringing at that thought. But it is my truth. I even see panic now as the other me (granted, a scary version), yelling from within that it was time to wake up and join the right battle. And I did.
I haven’t found the job that makes me jump out of bed in excitement. However, I’ve found more enjoyable roles with my transferrable skills and education. Have I acquired a clear-cut picture of my passion? No, I haven’t. Maybe I misinterpreted my childhood dreams, or maybe I just never had one. Either way is ok. Most of us don’t come to the world with a calling. Some stumble upon it. Others claim to have been found by it. But all of us can try to chase the right job, profession, or calling, no matter the circumstances. Often, just trying yields enough peace.
We all get a wake-up call (or several) at some point. So start paying attention. It can come from the strangest place.
For me, I wish it would’ve been the relentless purring of lovely Ludwig (he worked hard at it). But anxiety was louder, and I’m thankful for it.
