An introduction to my career change decision

Back in January of 2012, I wrote this:


I have depression.  It tends to flair up after very justified crises, but it hits hard and fast when it does.  As each crisis hits, I got a little more “down” until I finally hit my bottom.

Twice before (divorce, job loss), I was depressed enough that I took an antidepressant until I felt well enough to go off of it and continue my life without depression.  But all it took was one more crisis to throw me back into the depths of sadness.

For the most part, I’ve not quite been myself for the last couple years.  I’ve performed as an actress in a few fantastic shows, gotten involved in bicycling when I was unemployed, and then found a job as an associate merchant for a hardware store.  I thought that last one was a good thing.  But my mind played tricks on me.

Setting the stage:  I wanted to be a professional actress since I was in first grade.  I majored in acting in college, moved to Los Angeles, and went to acting school.  While I did not break into professional acting, I did do well on my “day job” working as a merchandising assistant in the toys department of a large company and loved the idea of staying in merchandising and getting to be the merchant who gets to choose which toys to make and put on shelves each quarter.  Sadly, the company I was working for was sold to another company, and this new company moved me over to the sourcing department as a production manager.  I made sure the toys were made on time and to the right specifications and reported directly to the buyer.  There was no creativity in this job, and I tried repeatedly to move to a different area where I could be more creative.  I thought that talking with the HR department would be a “team work” thing where a good employee could have assistance in switching to a new department.  I guess I was wrong.

The problem was that I was very good in my job as a production manager.  I ended up moving to the the table top and home decor department and helped train all the other production managers.  I was the computer super-user, and several buyers mentioned they’d love to have me as their production manager.  And when the company was sold again, back to the original company, I was so excited to be moving there where I thought I’d have those opportunities again.  Instead, because of my previous discussions with HR about switching departments, I was part of the first wave of employees laid off in the game of merging companies.

So after trying to find work in a difficult economy and moving back home with my mom to save some money on unemployment, I finally got a job as an associate buyer in the merchandising department at a hardware store.  I thought I’d get to do what I’d wanted to do back in the old company and learn to be a merchant.  Instead, I realized this company offered no real training.  They just throw you in and hope you learn.  I did pretty well with this, thought I was certainly frustrated.  I also realized I was not as passionate about hardware as I was for toys or housewares.  But I worked my butt off when we opened a new store, staying as late as I needed to and killing my feet walking on the cement floors all day trying to load the store shelves in the two-and-a-half weeks we’d been given before opening.  About two weeks after opening, I was told the company was removing the position of associate buyer, and I had a choice to take a demotion to a merchandising assistant position or leave the company.  In this economy, I knew I could not quit my job.  All my friends and family echoed this sentiment.  But I had one last hope: I had applied for a position in the new global sourcing department.  Sourcing was now my area of confidence as I’d been doing that for the last four years of my last job.  I felt confident that I could get this job, a promotion from the associate position I was being forced to leave.

While all of this job upheaval was going on, I was also dealing with a good friend, my ex-husband, as he spent a year in a manic and depressive state.  He attempted suicide twice, and I tried to pull him out of his depression with little success.  And right around the time of his second attempt, another friend of mine succeeded in committing suicide.  By this time, with my demotion in sight, my depression hit hard and I, too, was feeling suicidal.  After a month of dealing with the sadness, I finally saw my doctor and got back on that antidepressant.   One thing he said to me was that if I ever felt imminently suicidal, that I should go to Good Samaritan Hospital’s emergency room and tell them so.  He asked me to promise him this.  I did, but I figured the antidepressant would do its work.

All was not well.  It takes a month or so for the medicine to take hold, and in that month I held out hope for that promotion.  Then, on a Friday in early November of 2011, I found out that another assistant was leaving and they wanted me to take over her work in addition to mine until they found a replacement.  So now I was making less money, had no feelings of accomplishment, and I was supposed to do two jobs.  That same day I was told I did not get the promotion as they wanted someone who’d actually travelled to China before.  Also, there were still three people working as associate buyers, so obviously they had not gotten rid of the position.  But no one ever told me if I did anything wrong.  Indeed, they told me I did a great job.  But why the demotion?

That weekend passed quickly.  I considered taking up an addiction to drugs or alcohol, as other family members have dealt with in the past and present.  But my logical mind said that would be worse.  I would spend money I didn’t have and feel much worse in moments of clarity.  So a slow death by drugging myself was out of the question.

By Monday morning, I was completely distraught.  Everyone told me I couldn’t quit.  But I couldn’t go in to work, either.  I could not put one step over the threshold of my job.  I had one thought only: suicide.  I was stuck in a job I hated; I no longer felt accomplished in a diminished position; I was making less money so the idea of eventually owning a new car and a new home seemed further away than ever and were a weak attempt of replacing the dream of an acting career, anyway.  I had a plan in my head that I would go out to a beautiful hiking spot, very high up, and have a few moments of flight before ending it all. I also knew that I would not do an “attempt” as I’d spend years of anguish living with my ex-husband’s threats and attempts at suicide, and I didn’t want to put my family through that roller coaster.

The good news is that I followed my doctor’s advice.  Instead of driving to work that Monday morning, I drove myself to the hospital and told them I had a suicidal plan.  It was quiet in the emergency room that morning, and they took me right in.  I was asked a bunch of questions for intake.  I cried a lot.  I was given my own box of tissues and taken back to a bed in the emergency room.  A guard was brought in to the outside door of the room to be sure I didn’t hurt myself.  They asked me if I had anything dangerous on me, but I had only brought my keys, cell phone, and wallet.  So they didn’t have me change out of my clothes, but just let me rest there in the room, with occasional stops in for things like getting my blood to make sure I had no alcohol in my system.

While sitting there on the bed and ruminating about my fate in life and how I had nothing to look forward to, I texted my mother to let her know I was “fine” but in the hospital.  Not the best way for me to go about it as I think she still panicked a bit.  She drove straight there to be with me while we waited to hear from the doctor.  I felt her support more than ever that morning.  And, indeed, my whole family rallied round via phone calls and texts.  It helped to feel the love.

After a few hours in the hospital, they decided I was dealing well enough that I could be discharged, so I went home with explicit instructions to call the PHP program at Good Samaritan’s Mission Oaks hospital a few blocks away.  I was also given a note by the doctor that I didn’t have to go back to work for three days. I got home,made the call, and got my appointment with intake for two days away, Wednesday.

After a day and half of relief at not going to work and yet misery in depression, I made it to two appointments that Wednesday.  I saw my primary care doctor who doubled my dose of anti-depressant, and I went to intake for the mental health program at the hospital.  I was to start the program there the next day, Thursday, at nine in the morning.  And I was to go on disability so I would not have to go back to work for a couple months.

The next two weeks was a routine of making it to the program at nine a.m. Monday through Friday.  The first fifty minutes included a guided visualization to bring us into the moment of being there each morning and a check-in for each of us in which we answered such questions as what level was our mood (on a scale from one to ten), have we taken our medications as directed, and what topics did we want to bring up in group that day.

After a ten minute break, the ten o’clock class was a group process class with the therapist in which we would discuss our topics and jump in with comments, examples, or advice as needed.  It was a fantastic place to work through the problems that beset us.

At eleven in the morning, we had our class.  The therapist would go over our thought processes and how to change our way of thinking and looking at things by using cognitive behavioral therapy.

We got an hour lunch, then another process group, and then one more class, often in dialectical behavioral therapy.  We were done by three in the afternoon.

After two weeks of this routine, in which we also developed goals and worked through the problems we were dealing with, I was moved to half-day, which meant I was out at noon.  I had three weeks of half-days.

Also, throughout this time, I would occasionally be pulled out to be seen by the nurse, or one of the therapists, or the psychiatrist I was assigned to while in the program.  We fine-tuned my medications, and I was glad to only need two (and one, to help me with sleeping, is only temporary).

I bonded with everyone in the program.  We had people dealing with depression, schizo-affective disorder, bipolar, post-traumatic stress, and anxiety.  I was amazed how I would click with someone I never would have thought I would.  Many of the other folks were dealing with vocational stress, and we all supported each other.  I was able to help others while getting help myself.  And, slowly, I started to get my energy back.  Things no longer seemed so overwhelming.  I felt I could start looking for work again, since I knew I did not want to go back to the hardware store.  And I did.  But even better, I started to look at what I wanted a new career to be.  I was not happy in retail.  I didn’t feel creative at all, and I needed a career that either gave me that creativity or allowed me to feel as though I was contributing to society in some meaningful way.

Now that I was ready to start facing the world again, I thought about how I was touched by mental illness so much in my life.  So many of my friends and family suffer from depression, manic depression, and chemical dependency.  I’d like to help people dealing with these issues.  I considered becoming a therapist, but I also knew I wanted a career where I could make some real money, and if I just went that extra step, I could be both therapist and doctor.  Only about one percent of psychiatrists also do therapy, but I could be one of those.  Or, at the very least, I could be a doctor with a little more “heart” than some of the psychiatrists I’d met over the years.  I always loved science, though the last such class I’d had was astronomy twenty-two years ago.  But with my new energy, I realized I could go back to school, get my science prerequisites, and apply to medical school.  I can be a psychiatrist by the time I’m fifty-one.  And, while I complete my prerequisites, I need a job that’s truly nine to five and still pays well.  Well, by golly, I have one.  At the hardware store.  Instead of looking at it as being stuck in a demotion, I now look at it as choosing the job that gives me the money and time to get to med school.

I graduated from the therapy program today.  I received a bright yellow certificate that states I completed the process.  Everyone in the group spoke up and mentioned how I’d inspired them.  They loved my smile and my laugh and my positive temperament.  They hope to be in that same mental place when they graduate.  I told them they will be.  Everyone I’d seen graduate before me was in a better mental state than when they arrived.  The program works.


I have the tools, now, to put up needed boundaries and put myself first so that I can truly help others.  I know how to talk myself out of negative thoughts.  I know how to take baby steps to not allow myself to feel overwhelmed.  I know how to say “no.”  I’m excited to begin a new journey in my life.  While I will miss acting, as I won’t have the time to do so while preparing for and being in med school, I know I’ll get back to it after I graduate with twice the passion for it as I have now.  And, more importantly, I have a new career ahead of me. It’s a fantastic one.