10/17/2025
I just got approved to reduce my work hours down to 32 from 40 and in 8 hour shifts instead of 10 hour shifts starting in December. I feel like I want to cry, rejoice, exhale, laugh & scream all at once.
This will mean 6 individual sessions a day instead of 8-9 and one ADHD support group (for reference, full time therapists in private practice usually see 4-5 a day and it’s not recommended that we see more that 5 / day but I work for Kaiser so they make us see too many). I have been operating with burn out from the first day I started this job in June of 2022.
This schedule change will mean sacrificing about $1K a month and $10K a year. It will be tight & I’ll need to make some of that up with my healing offerings. But I much prefer those and doing them in my own time, way, rhythm & peaceful pace.
Much more importantly, this change will allow me to have a life more than I have in over a decade since I started my career in healthcare when I graduated from my masters in social work. Honestly, probably in my entire life considering that before that, I was in school full time struggling and working my ass off with undiagnosed ADHD and a learning disability for what felt like FOREVER (7-8 years after high school on and off) while working and was perpetually broke.
Plus the last decade has included several wars, fascism, a recession, uprisings, increase in school shootings and a pandemic with extreme effects on people’s mental health that continue to this day. Honestly, I don’t feel like my own nervous system is even mine some days as I’m constantly helping others regulate theirs.
I’ve never chosen an easy path professionally nor one for the money nor one that didn’t involve deep demand on my compassion and patience. But for the first time in my life, I’m choosing myself: my sanity & well being. This will be a whole new chapter for yours truly & I couldn’t be more damn proud of how much I’ve healed my own and my inherited family karma and trauma drama around scarcity fears and martyrdom complex 🥱😁🙌🙏💚 💥
