Bye bye Facebook

I made a commitment to myself this week. You see, I've found lately that whenever I was feeling overwhelmed at all I had to do, I'd pick up my phone and start looking at Facebook. That's right, I wouldn't buckle down and get to work; but instead spend time doing one thing that would definitely not make my house any more organized or put food in my fridge or help me get out the door tomorrow. I'd simply bury my head in the quicksand that is Facebook. This in turn would leave me with less time to do what I need to do and feeling even less competent as I read shares by my mommy and non-mommy friends alike about the cookies they were going to bake for the poor this afternoon. 

So, as a result of this realization, I made a deal with myself.  I may check Facebook once a week if I deem it to be absolutely necessary to keep up with baby pics and the overt opinions of others. The rest of the week, I will have a deactivated account and I will use my time to do something.... anything... more productive! Including writing here. I've been meaning for years to make a habit out of writing and I can't seem to make it happen, mostly because I have been so distracted. 

So here goes, once again. Hopefully this time it sticks. :)

Student Loans (part one - the back story)

Today, I need a place to rant about student loans. I have three degrees. As a result, I have huge debt. If not for the fact that I work in education and should be eligible for loan forgiveness at 10 years, I would have debt for the rest of my life. But even the promise of forgiveness for some of my debt doesn't make this sit well with me. Here's why...

As a youth I attended New Jersey schools. My parents are life long NJ residents and have paid taxes all of their adult lives to give my brother and I access to a great education offered in public schools.

When I graduated from high school, it seemed an easy answer to move on to attend Rutgers University, another NJ school, where my father and my grandfather each got their degrees. My family helped me greatly and my tuition was paid in full to earn me a bachelors degree in Psychology plus a minor in Childhood Studies.  I left Rutgers excited about my prospective career, and feeling like there was decent value in the many thousands of dollars my family had spent for me to have college level training.  That was the end of my shiny happy view.

After college, I searched for a job that was both professional, fulfilling, and well-paid. With only a bachelors in Psych, there were not too many options. Instead of finding lots of opportunities to help others and be paid for my "skills," I first found a job as a child-care worker at a camp for at-risk kids where I acted as an officer and bouncer more than a friend or help to them. On top of all the horrible, sad things I saw and was exposed to, I made very little for the long hours and the heartache. It quickly became clear that I couldn't do that forever. 

Next, I got a position in medical sales. The pay was better. I was working in the professional world with mostly educated people. But something big was missing. My days were about pushing the bottom line when selling durable medical goods like transport chairs, shower heads, and commodes.  Life was more about earning an extra penny off the portable potty than helping the person who needed it.  To me, this was less than fulfilling.

To attempt to make a long story short, it became clear that I needed to go back to school if I wanted to be able to practice in the field that was most desirable to me. And so after much ado, I enrolled in yet another NJ State program for 3 years of graduate work at Rowan University. This time around I wasn't as blessed to have family primarily footing the bill. This time I was on my own with how to pay for my classes. And so, like many have before me, I applied for Federal Student Loans. 

After 3 years I hardwork and interning and two seperate degrees later, I had completed my studies and now could finally make use of my Psych training in the way I has always wanted to.

This is all the back story needed to understand my exact point of view regarding our student loan system and my own personal student loan debt situation. And this is already a pretty long entry, so I'll save my opinions for another quiet moment and continue my rant in part 2 of this entry.

To be continued...

On depression

I'm not as strong as people think I must be.  Sometimes I think people hear that I am a counselor and they automatically assume that I'm able to handle an unlimited amount of crap. I hold my meltdown in until they leave.

"Call E, she might be able to help you solve all your problems instantly."  Let me promise you that if I could wield this power and solve the world's evils, I would. But I can't. 

Part of this assumption made by others is that I really try hard to be calm and compassionate and to be kind in order to appear professional. Often when faced with too much nasty from someone else I, fall apart once in privacy. I spend a good portion of my time listening to other people talk about their problems and thus helping them feel less stressed about them.  Beyond that I am powerless. A lot of times, I can only listen. By this I just mean that I can't change your paycheck or how your kids behave or the fact that your grandma has cancer. In fact, powerless is how some of my own problems make me feel too. 

Sometimes, when I am not reminding myself constantly about all the beauty and love in my life, that powerless feeling creeps in even closer and starts to take over. Sometimes I don't want to get out of bed. Sometimes I don't want to speak. Sometimes I want to just scream.  And every once in a while the feeling gets amplified just a little bit by some disappointing event or hurtful comment and I wonder if I even want to breath.

Please accept my genuine promise that I have no intent to hurt myself. As someone trained in psychology, my logical brain takes over here and reminds me that what I'm experiencing is just a bit of the blues or a patch of depression. Everyone hits a patch of it from time to time.  Sometimes it's caused by stress or loss or unfortunate events. Sometimes it's caused by hormones or lifestyle or substances. Sometimes it's just habit to see the glass half empty.

It becomes more than a bit or a patch when this type of sadness continues for weeks or months or years.  

I just had a baby about 9 months ago.  A boy. My second boy. Both my kids are awesome. My blues have been pretty constant since then. It's a lot to adjust from caring for and being responsible for yourself and one child to caring for multiple children. People around me seem to be avoiding discussing it with me and no one seems to know what to say or do to help.  My family and friends just avoid talking about this elephant in the room, my unpredictable mood and my extreme negativity and sadness at times. Instead they tell me about birthday parties and life events, which makes me feel worse. When asked how I'm doing, it's clear they expect a polite "Okay."

Today I happened upon an online game.  It's called Elude. It was created with one idea in mind - to help families and friends of a depressed person understand depression and what it feels like. It is brilliantly created.  While it is a little depressing to play, it definitely depicts exactly what a cycle of depression feels like.  It is constant and debilitating and scary. And it is so real for the person living it, even if it's makes no sense to those around them.

This is one of those cool tools I periodically come across that I forget if I don't write them down in some way.  It can be found here:  http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/summer2010/elude_play.php

I was really impressed with how it depicts this terrible condition and even shows how despite effort to overcome, it can just leave you feeling helpless.

Here's more info on depression, what it is, and how to help- http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/depression/index.shtml

If you or a loved one is feeling blue and can't seem to turn it around, please know that depression is a serious condition and should not be ignored. Ask for help, or encourage someone who seems blue to seek help too. 

As for me, I'm chalking my current blues up as some delayed Postpartum. Granted its a serious form of depression in its own right and I'm by no means trying to minimize its impact, but after struggling through it alone for a few months I opened up to my hubby and he has been wonderful with helping me keep perspective lately. He gently reminds me that we are okay and that I am loved and that I have to hold it together for our kids. I am still having really blue moments, but I'm hanging tight and I know if it gets any worse where to go to get help. 

My number one strategy when the road gets tough is to try to get one of my babies to giggle. Laughter really is the best medicine.

A new commitment.

I have been promising myself for the last 18 months that I would get back to writing.  Writing is a way for me to express and document and share all of the cool things I learn and see and hear. So I am starting with this short entry. It is the first of hopefully many done on my iPhone.  I'm going to write whenever my two boys are quiet, whenever I learn something interesting at work, and whenever I have a great idea and have no one to share it with. No more excuses. Just ideas. Just creativity. Just positivity.

Why the sudden strong drive you ask? Well because as a counselor in a public elementary school with two very young children at home, life can begin to feel too busy, too sad, and too disorganized and unproductive to bear. I need to produce, I need to reflect, and I need to record all moments of happy. This is a small but simple way to do all if those things each day. So, with that, here goes my renewed commitment to my blog (and sanity). 

The Unhappy Supported Generation

A friend on Facebook liked an article in The Atlantic called "How to Land Your Kid in Therapy."  Reading this article not only gave me insight to the troubles of others in my own generation, but the feelings discussed and lack of coping skills described are things that I think I have struggled with personally as a young adult.  This article speaks to the American way of raising children to believe they are special, talented, and better than others; to believe that they should be innately happy, that they deserve to feel happy all the time.  The points Lori Gottlieb makes in this article about kids needing opportunities to feel discomfort in order to learn how to deal with discomfort and to rebound to comfort again, like a vaccine to expose them to a virus, is something for this mom of a very young child to think about.  Anyway, here's the article...

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/07/how-to-land-your-kid-in-therapy/8555/

About this blog :)

Today I am starting a new adventure in blogging. As a young professional recently joining the field of education in the State of NJ who is working in an elementary-level counseling position, I have found that everyday I come across new resources and items of interest that I wish I could share with parents and other educators. There are so many excellent resources, sources of advice, and studies that relate to parenting and educating out there. However, in a world where many are single parents, many others live in households where both parents work full-time, and where educators are bogged down by test-driven curriculum that leaves no room for fun or life lessons, it can be hard for anyone who works with or just loves a child to keep up with what is current and what is best. I hope this blog in its own small way can help connect parents and education professionals alike with great info. Beyond my work in my chosen field, I know that for myself it is important to be cultivating a vast knowledge of the hows and whys of raising children, because I have a little boy for whom I want to do things right. It is a goal that this blog remains objective and does not often seem judgemental, cynical, or elitist. I really hope to keep it this way, and hope not to offend anyone, but at the end of the day I am trying to shed light on what is right for kids.

Thanks for reading. E