crossroads

Some of the ‘emotional turmoil’ (for want of a better, less stuck-up term) I’ve been going through in the last few months has been about my job and, more generally, about where I am going with my life.

At the end of law school, I applied for (and was eventually successful in obtaining) employment as a graduate lawyer in a top-tier commercial law firm.  It should have been all pretty amazing.  My fellow graduands were in quite a tizz about applications and interviews and blah dee blah.  Most were wined and dined by top firms hoping to recruit the best.

But I basically pulled myself out of the process the year before, when I didn’t bother applying for the usual 3-5 vacation clerkships, and when I took the one clerkship I did get and ran with them, as a 1-day-a-week Research Assistant in my final year.  I was basically part of the family by the time it came to applying for graduate jobs, and I didn’t bother applying for some places because I knew they would look at me as ‘taken’, and one of the two other places where I did apply did just that.

The other place?  I pulled out.  I was so scared about having to make a decision between two places that I just went, nope. I’m here now, I’ll stick with it.  I just didn’t feel as if I had the capacity to make such a big decision.

I’ve done this before.  At the end of high school, after working my tiny little arse off for 5 years, I could have had the choice between law school and med school.  But I ran away from the choice, by just leaving myself with the choice of which law school to go to.  I suppose, by doing that, I really did make a choice, i.e. Go To Law School, but what I’m trying to say is that I hate making choices.  I freak out at them.  Because somehow I feel incapable of respecting my ability to make the right choice.

Probably because I often wondered if I made the right choice in regards to which law school to go to.

But I now wonder if I chose the wrong fork in the Med/Law intersection.

A study last year found that lawyering is the most depressed professional field in Australia, so it looks like I’m about to add to that little statistic.

Not that I’m saying that by choosing med school, I wouldn’t be depressed.  Because that choice wouldn’t change my genetics, or my family, or any of the other causes of my current state of emotional-being.  I guess I’m just wondering if I should have done law.

In my first session last week, Dr H asked me why I chose law.  Blank look.  “I don’t know.  I’ve always wanted to do law.”  “But why have you always wanted to do law?”  Shrug. 

I could never answer that question truthfully in interviews, either.  Here’s one I prepared earlier: “I love solving problems and being challenged.  I know, obviously, that there are many fields in which I could be challenged and solve problems, but I like the idea that as a lawyer, you solve problems that people have in the day to day life in Real World.  Those problems might be about their business or a relationship or about their actions, depending on which field of law you’re in, but they are still everyday, real problems, and I think that helping to solve them through the law is an interesting and fulfilling career path.”

What a load of cock.  Anyway, they fell for it.

I am clearly conflicted by all these lies and deceptions.

I used to want to save the world when I was younger, and I think that was a reason I put in my law school application letter.  There’s a group of Facebook called “Law School: Where Idealism Goes to Die”, and I couldn’t concur with the accuracy of that statement more. 

Sometimes I still want to do that (save the world) but I don’t think I’m strong enough to do that anymore.  (Like my psychological analysis said, I don’t have delusions.)  But there’re all these thoughts I have about the fact that I have proved myself to be being a very capable person, and from values that have been instilled in me from my family, I feel as if I should do something with that capacity, for other people, for the world.  But, back to the top of this paragraph: I don’t think I can do anything.  And I freak.

This quote from Professor Geoff Gallop pretty much sums up my problem (at least on this issue):

The guilt that depressives feel in the face of their and the world’s many imperfections also works against their own liberation. They want to please and isn’t everything that happens their responsibility and theirs alone? The more they do, the more they have to do. It is for others that they act and it is to achieve at the highest levels that they work beyond reason. To do otherwise – and to put themselves and their well-being first — is to fail the test of life that has been created in their own minds. Herein lies the problem for many of our professionals and high achievers — they have lost control. 

That which drives them also has the potential to destroy them and, tragically, all too often it does. As Dr Mamta Gautam said of the legal profession in her Tristan Jepson Memorial Lecture last year: “These personality traits are all very socially and professionally valuable, but personally very expensive”. [link]

So  I went to law school, and then I finished it.  Mind you, I took as long as possible to finish it, because I think I knew I didn’t want to actually Do Law, but then when I did, I was faced with another horrible crisis of confusion.

The big step towards the Big Bad Legal Jungle is not an easy one to take.  Which is why I have actually pussy-footed around in front of it.  I haven’t taken the leap yet.  I dipped my toe in, waved to the people on the other side, and then said, “just wait a sec, I’ll be rightback,” as I walked along on the edg.   I deferred my graduate position and took a 12-month job, which is still in law but not as a law grad.   The Firm were totally fine with it, because it’s a fancy-schmancy job, and it makes me an even better graduate to have in their troop.

This job is my way of justifying going to law school without having to be a lawyer, because I wasn’t ready for that at the end of last year.  I thought the holiday M and I took would refresh me and prepare me but I’m still not ready.  I hate this job.  It is so boring.  I am not being challenged, I do not like it.  Plus. My boss scares the hell out of me (he’s a male Miranda Preistly, I am not kidding, and sometimes he calls out to my co-worker and all I can think of is Merryl Steep going “Emmilyyy” in that deep, low, scary voice).

I should be going to work for another fellow soon, and I know I will suck it up and not just quit, but what I am now wondering about is whether I should go to The Firm next year.  Because it will probably be worse. 

I don’t know.  Obviously I should cross that bridge when I come to it, but I’d really like to be prepared for dealing with the Troll.

There’s an idea that I’ve been thinking about for the last few weeks, which I think is probably pretty stupid, but this post is way too long so I’ll look into it later.

writing your way to happiness

The Black Dog Insitute is doing a study on how writing affects people’s mood:

Over the centuries, many people have been naturally drawn to writing about their life and their experiences, through journals, creative writing, and other forms of written expression.   Day to day life can be stressful as people strive for balance between family, friends and work.  We are interested in whether certain kinds of expressive writing can be helpful for people in managing their moods, stress levels and general health. The ‘Writing and Mood’ study is investigating whether particular ways of writing about our lives and our experiences can offer benefits for our moods, emotional and physical health.  We are also interested in whether people with certain personality styles find writing in certain ways to be more helpful than others.

I thought it was quite fortuitous that I found about this research the week I decided to start blogging in an attempt to work though my depression treatment. I’ve signed up for the study, and I’m looking forward to going through the exercises. It’ll probably help to do more structured writing tasks than me just blathering away about random stuff.

There was a pretty intense questionnaire that I had to do, which left me with some thought-fodder to work with later.  But it involved lots of thinking-about-myself and I think that’s enough for now.

yoga makes people happy.

And happy people just don’t shoot their husbands. They just don’t.
– Elle Woods, Legally Blonde

An interesting study (which was discussed on another wordpress blog) suggests that doing yoga increases the levels of the neurotransmitter Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid (GABA) in the brain. Apparently this GABA thing is important in brain areas involving emotion and anxiety.

The study was done with teeny sample groups (8 who did yoga, 11 who just read) though so I’m gonna take that with a grain of salt, but I reallyshould do yoga again.

I always feel really good after going to a class, it’s just the lack of momentum to actually get there that’s the problem.

But, knowing the thing about exercise that my doctors/psychologists/psychiatrists/websites have always said helps in the treatment for depression, I dragged myself out for a quick walk this morning. It was very quick, but better than nothing.

I’ve signed up to do a bootcamp with a bunch of law-school mates, which starts next week, so I have 2 sessions of exercise a week for the next 4 weeks booked out. There’s a pre-course fitness assessment at 6am tomorrow morning and I RSVPed that I’d be there, in the hope that having committed to someone else, not just making a mental note to myself, will make me get out of bed.

And maybe, just maybe, I will get to the yoga school that is literally up the road from me.