There are a million things you can do with Occupational Therapy, a million places you can work. When I graduated, I was certain inpatient rehabilitation (IPR) was the place for me. It is the bread and butter of OT. You have the opportunity to spend 90-120 minutes a day to shape and train someone to take on life again,
to impart skills for living with a disability,
to give someone confidence to return to their home,
to take a shower,
to write,
to cook again,
to overcome their fear of falling.
Pure inspiration. Then I spent two weeks working at my hospital's IPR. Frustration, incompetence, annoyance and anger pressed all the life right out of my dream. How could I possibly think this is my dream job when I couldn't wake up from the nightmare for two weeks? There were several contextual issues I could blame:
the person orienting me was not very good,
the patients were not my ideal,
I was PMSing.
But as much as I would like to blame the setting, the patients and my co-workers, I can't. It's deeper. My two week struggle opened the "not good enough" wound. And like kryptonite it sapped my strength and will to be an OT. It is astonishing to me that at my age I can slide right from "I'm not sure that I have the skills to do this well." straight to a self-worth, core identity statement proclaiming judgement on my soul. Even as I write this I think how stupid it is, but still I go there. While I may not have the skills to move forward in my career in IPR, I do have the skills to address the negative statements that bubble to the surface from that place that still desperately needs Jesus.
Well that's encouraging for my soul, but my career path has halted at a gaping chasm. The view of the other side obliterated by the fog of my uncertainty.
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