Qualifying

It’s funny how when you qualify it’s like something should change but it really doesn’t seem to. I have now been qualified for a couple of months. I haven’t really allowed myself to celebrate and I’m not sure it feels real. Still. I still think that someone is going to tell me that an assignment was marked wrong or that I haven’t met the criteria somewhere. I think something is wrong somewhere, it must be. I can’t really believe that someone would let me qualify.

I know this partly goes back to my previous course that I didn’t finish. I left that course believing that I was terrible. That because my mental health wasn’t good that I was never going to be able to be a counsellor because my own issues would always get in the way. The messages were confusing. The lectures encouraged you to be open and honest with them and then used it against you. I wanted to be honest with where I was… a lot had been going on and I hadn’t been coping with it and I had been saying so for a long time. And then I found a way through it, and just as I did they told me I wasn’t ok and that something needed to be done. I was left feeling like I could never find a way through that would mean I would be able to be a counsellor. I was always going to be left with all the tainted bits of me that would get in the way.

This course meant I had to be really careful. I wanted to be able to be open and honest with people but I knew I couldn’t let them in too much. I was always on guard. A lot of the time things would spill out as I would be frozen in fear, but there were some things I kept in. Some things that had to be kept away from most. My parts always caused the biggest fear. What if people find out about them? Can I be trusted to always be an adult and not let anyone else come out? Do I have the ability to stay as me and know that the other person with me was safe? And the stupid thing about that question is I had spent years in the classroom with 30 kids under my care and never once questioned whether I could stay as adult. Suddenly, years of being able to do it was in doubt.

I hid my parts from all but one person. I showed a lot of emotion, it constantly slipped out. But the others stayed shut away. I thought if people found out then I would be judged and told that I couldn’t continue. But it is now the reason in my head that I can beat myself up with of why I shouldn’t be qualified. I am qualified, but if they knew, I wouldn’t have got there.

And then, then there’s what happens when people ask about your course. You say that you have finished and qualified and people’s next question is generally about setting up private practice. As if it is the only answer and what you should do straight away. That it is the only step to follow once qualified. It makes me want to scream. I don’t even know if that is what I want to do. I certainly don’t have the confidence to do it at the moment.

Here’s the thing… I know I have done all the work. I know I have proved that I can be a counsellor. But that nagging voice in my head still tells me I shouldn’t be. I can only just believe that I am allowed to work in an agency where there are others around all the time. The thought of being on my own becomes overwhelming because of the constant battle of knowing I can do this and have got the qualification, mixed with the belief that I am too messed up and if only people knew all of me then I would be forced to stop. So being qualified is just this whole mix of confusing stuff, while having no real idea of what I am doing. It is all even more confused by the fact I don’t know where in the country I want to live, so the thought of setting up private practice can’t even come into it until I have decided where it is that I might be living and working. It is all so complicated in my head.

So, I am left, qualified but feeling like I shouldn’t be. With people asking me about what happens now when I have no real idea. Actually, right now, qualified means having some time and space to take a breath or two while I figure out so much else in my life. And the constant nagging pressure of always being asked what next, and knowing that others on my course are setting themselves up in private practice and the pressure that I put on myself from that. It’s weird, because so often I wish I wasn’t qualified because it brings up so many complications in my head.