Quietly Acknowledging my Accomplishments
It has been 9 years and really my whole life working for this. This program was so transformational, and I am so glad I got to experience it with such amazing people these past 3 years. And it has been one of the hardest things I have ever done, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to get through it.
This graduation means a lot to me because it isn’t just about getting to the end of this really difficult clinical psych program. It’s about finally having the career I want. I didn’t even feel like celebrating my undergrad graduation at the time because I was still so far from my goal of being a psychologist and helping people in a way that best suited me. But more than that, it’s about getting through everything that I had to do beforehand to be able to even be in school.
I think back to the very beginning, being 18 and going to a community college because it’s all I could afford for myself (no shame in that at all) and being in a miserable job where I was treated like a dumb kid (because I was a dumb kid, to be fair), having no idea who I was, losing/distancing from friends because I couldn’t have “the fun college experience” with them, and most impactful, getting into jobs in the psych feild where I really had to see and hear some shit and sometimes literally take punches from people experiencing something that was beyond their control, trying to protect them from themselves and from each other.
I’m thinking back to my black eye from years ago because it’s important to me to remember the ugliness that had to come with the good. There were a lot of ugly, terrifying moments that are too much to talk about, but that was probably the best physical reflection of it that I could capture.
There were beautiful moments too, like seeing a girl’s face light up from looking in the mirror after doing her makeup for fun in that inpatient facility that was often so sad and scary, other girls asking me to do their makeup or “getting in line” for me to draw them a picture, being able to keep them company and provide words of encouragement or coping skills to overcome urges to self-harm, laughing at things they said because so many were the funniest, brightest people, laughing and crying with coworkers and being inspired by their strength to lead and continue in that amazing work. People in that particular job and the one I had before continue to inspire me. I don’t really have pictures of the priceless moments that made me stay for years, but they will always be in my mind.
Confidence has always been my weakest area, and I had a lot of growing pains that really sucked, but I can say I’m proud of the person I am now as I come out on the other side. Looking back, I did THAT. I started out at 18 knowing absolutely nothing. I paid my way through school. I got out of this notoriously rigorous program with a 4.0 all semesters and got honors in undergrad while working very intense jobs because I wanted to do something meaningful in the field as soon as I could, while also fighting my own battles with mental illness and learning how to treat them myself. Ironically, I have never been helped by therapy, either because empirically supported treatments weren’t being utilized or I simply couldn’t afford it. But this program was like therapy. By learning from it, I slowly learned how to heal myself.
Pride feels very eventful when shame has been your default for so long. It’s very weird to say, but soon, once I pass the licensure test, I will be a psychologist. I am forever grateful to the psychologists and professors who guided me and told me they believed in me, and my classmates who struggled and grew with me. I’ll never forget how we leaned on one another.
I’ve changed over and over again throughout the years in my perspectives, beliefs, and opinions and still am. While I still have a lot of work to do when it comes to accepting myself, I can say I am so proud of my grit and my open mind. I’m proud of going through everything while being a very sensitive, soft person. I’m proud of doing this despite not believing I could, knowing I’d have to work harder because of my ADHD. And I’m proud of that thing inside me that made me do all this, the desire to help people find what is in them to ease their own mental suffering.
I almost cried when my professor, a pretty stoic man, who I consider to be a genius, said to me a couple weeks ago, “It has been really rewarding to watch you blossom into a more confident version of yourself. You are smart and talented, and I’m glad future students can learn from your written work and you can help so many people.” That was kind of a full circle moment for that little girl who was in title I and struggled with a learning disability. This has been one giant full circle. Even if things are still hard, I think just the act of doing this for myself was worth it.
I thought of writing this as “self-aggrandizing” in the beginning. To be fair, this is a giant self-congrats. But it feels like it’s time to openly give myself credit for once after almost a decade, never stopping to take it in and allow myself to consider all I’ve done. I have always been a skeptical person, and I feel like, over time, something broken inside me healed by proving my shame wrong with evidence.
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