10 Years of Being Stuck

I feel so frustrated and so stuck right now. And yes, I have been attempting to drown the feelings of being stuck and somewhat hopeless in alcohol most nights. And yes, to those who want to tell me that alcohol will not help me to gain any clarity, I am well aware of that. The reason I am stuck is this damn career conundrum. All I ever really wanted to do was have a career path that allowed me to do interesting work with potential for growth and a good salary. By “good salary” I mean one that doesn’t have me living paycheck to paycheck, that allows me to be able to save and take vacations and buy new running clothes without it meaning not having enough food for the week.

So I went to law school after spending 7 years after college working dead-end jobs as a waitress, bartender, and administrative assistant in a couple different settings. God, I hated making bosses who seemed to lack intelligence look good! I bought into that whole notion that “you can do anything with a law degree” and that lawyers earn a good living. What a crock. It was during law school that my depression deepened and for the first time ever started having regular panic attacks. It certainly didn’t help that I was stuck (is this a theme in my life) in a very emotionally abusive relationship. I was a shell of a human, barely surviving mentally. The panic attacks followed me into my post-law school working life. I got a job at a prosecutor’s office shortly after law school, but couldn’t keep that job because I ended up failing the bar exam. Thus began a nearly year-long search for work, any work, to be able to pay my bills. I moved in (definitely prematurely, in retrospect) with my now-husband because there was no way I could pay my credit card bills and car payment AND rent and utilities. For 9 miserable months, I tried temp agencies (they said I was overqualified for any sort of office work), legal placement agencies (they told me I didn’t have enough experience), and writing about 4 different versions of my resume for different career fields (human services, HR, law, and education). Nothing. I was simultaneously overqualified and under qualified. So I waited tables a couple of nights a week at a friend’s restaurant. I failed the bar exam again because I was too bitter and scared and broke to really focus on studying over finding something to pay next month’s bills. I finally did get a job as a paralegal at a small law firm, and it was my boss there who started calling me a law clerk instead of a paralegal and convinced me to take the bar exam again. I didn’t stay there long. The anxiety and depression had me taking a lot of sick days. Every time I would look at an assignment, the panic would well up. I was certain my incompetence (proven by failing the bar exam twice and having mediocre-at-best law school grades) would soon be discovered. I took a leave of absence because of the mounting anxiety (and self-medicating with alcohol) and ultimately left. Then got a job as a prosecutor in a ski town. Let me tell you, a prosecutor’s salary doesn’t get you very far in a ski town, and my husband was only able to find retail work. Anxiety took over again after a few months there. I was hiding my drinking and desperately needed alcohol to stop the anxiety and to dull the depression. I was in a cycle. Barely being able to make ends meet, a solo attorney offered me a job as an associate. I thought that was a great opportunity to make a decent living in the ski town. I soon discovered that a lot of people don’t like to pay their lawyers. There were a couple of months when my entire salary was $400. $400!!!! The  anxiety, fear of not being able to pay the bills, depression, and drinking escalated again. I would get some time sober here and there, but then I’d get some bill in the mail and look at my bank account and freak out and drown in alcohol. After several months of nearly no income and relying on my parents to help with my bills and having people not hire me for jobs at grocery stores or coffee shops because I had a law degree, I found a job in a different part of the state as a prosecutor. I was probably the only applicant in that rural area. So we moved. And I started off doing great, just like at every other job. Then it started again. Wondering when I’d be found out as the fraud that I was. Ultimately left that job because the panic attacks were getting so bad I couldn’t function. Not to mention the boss had me scheduled in two courtrooms at once. And wouldn’t help. I was just supposed to be in two places at once. I couldn’t do it. Thankfully, when I stormed out of that office, I ended up being given a couple of clients by other lawyers in town and then a couple of public defender contracts and then ultimately got a full-time contract with the federal government. That was a better gig, as I hated having people call my office number (a landline sitting in the bedroom, and my “office” was a dining room table converted into a workspace in a cramped condo) and beg for help then tell me they couldn’t pay me. People just didn’t like to pay their damn bills. I was super-anxious about money. Still. The federal government faithfully paid my contract until late 2012, when Congress had one of its budget standoffs. I worked for free for a few months then resigned.

That was when I got the job at a mental health clinic. Starting pay was $14/hour, but they started me at $15. Being overqualified in a rural area isn’t so bad when there are so many uneducated people who don’t even meet the basic qualifications of a job. I did enjoy it, though one thing about being a mental health case manager is that you’re often “babysitting” clients.  The anxiety subsided, but I still grappled with it. I took advantage of all the training opportunities offered by the agency. I enjoyed the classes. I got to co-lead a therapy group (not enough therapists so they plugged me in with one of the therapists) and was working on getting certified as an addiction counselor. That part is ironic, because I continued drinking off and on and often in an unhealthy manner. Then my husband got a promotion and a relocation to a larger town in a different state. As much as I liked everyone in the tiny SW Colorado town where we lived for almost five years, I missed being closer to a city. The relocation was perfect. I started applying for jobs – both in mental health/human services and law – before our move date. I was interviewed by phone for a case manager job but didn’t get it. They seemed to really be put off by a lawyer who wanted to work in a low-paying job like that. In Utah, those jobs pay about $11-12/hour. I was also in school at the time, just starting my second semester as a part-time MSW student, and they didn’t like the idea of hiring someone to be a case manager who really wanted to be a therapist. I ended up getting interviewed for a couple of law clerk jobs and a prosecutor job. I was overqualified for the law clerk jobs (why would a mid-career lawyer want to do a job typically held by new law school grads) and under qualified for the prosecutor job (we need someone like you but who is licensed). So I took the bar exam. I put the job hunt on hold and studied. I withdrew from the MSW program, and had also decided that adding to my student loan debt for a career that pays about $40-45k per year was not a good return on investment and that I was better off getting back into the law, where I could make a salary that would cover my student loan bill as well as pay the rent. I changed my mindset about my previous failures and created a study plan that worked with my learning style. I also ran pretty regularly, which helped not only my emotional state but also my ability to retain information. On days that I walked instead of ran, I would do worse on practice questions. Running made me smarter.

The depression, occasional anxiety, and drinking continued. I would get into a rut for a couple of days but pull myself out of it. I started believing in myself, little by little. The exam itself exhausted me. In late September last year, I found out that I passed. I passed! On the first try! I’m not a fraud!! I do belong!

However, the job search was not fruitful. My husband had warned that Utah is not the best state for professional women, and he was concerned that not being a member of the predominant religion would hinder my chances of finding anything but low-paying work. I interviewed for a couple more jobs, one as a lawyer, one as a case manager at the same agency that had already rejected me. The mental health agency rejected me again (good, because the last time I made only $12/hour it was in the mid to late 90s), as did the agency that interviewed me for a civil attorney position. I had thought that went so well. So I cast a wider net. There simply weren’t (and still aren’t) many lawyer jobs in Utah. And most of them are over an hour away from where I live. And again, I find myself reviewing the requirements for these jobs and finding myself simultaneously over- and under-qualified. I interviewed for a case worker job at the state child welfare agency. I remember the first day of interviews – they held a mass interview and asked everyone to put their answers on a card and then several administrators interviewed each person for about 5 minutes, and people were chosen from there for second interviews. It was so weird. In my second interview, they were intrigued by my experience and asked why I wasn’t working as a lawyer. I got the job anyway. Now I understand that they will take almost anyone, because child welfare casework is a pretty thankless, stressful, low-paying job with a lot of turnover. I spend almost 10 hours each week babysitting parents (supervising visits between parents and their children). I make just under $30K a year. A quarter of my income goes to my student loans. I continue to apply for jobs. I wrote about the one heartbreaking rejection from the county attorney’s office. I recently spoke to a local solo practitioner who has more work than he can handle alone so he was hiring. He wanted someone with first chair experience and family law experience. Check. He has one of the contracts to defend parents in child welfare cases. Hey, I’m familiar with that system. But, like everyone else, he asked why I was working as a caseworker and not a lawyer. Because I can’t find a damn lawyer job! And honestly, the thought of hanging a shingle in this town where I know so few people is terrifying. The truth is, I need an income, and I don’t have the luxury of working for nothing while I try to build a paying client base over the course of 2-3 years.

So I am stuck. The longer I work in low-paying human service jobs, the less attractive I look to legal employers. And the less sharp my mind seems to become. I miss the intellectual part of the law. I contemplate trying to finish that MSW, but I still think that the prospect of nearly doubling my student loan debt for a job that starts at $40-45K is miserable. But a job earning $40-45K would be so helpful! I try to think what I can do where my law degree won’t be a liability, but where I am not completely underachieving in an entry-level, high burnout job like the one I am doing now. Yes, I am grateful to have a job, and grateful to have a job with health insurance. But I am still so far away from having a good job that is interesting, uses my intelligence and other talents, and pays a good salary. 10 years out of law school and still stuck in a career rut. The practice of law may not be a great fit for me. I don’t know, as I was gripped so tightly by anxiety and imposter syndrome for most of the time I tried that I just kept self-sabotaging and never found out. There were definitely things I liked and things I didn’t like. I am still simultaneously under-and over-qualified. I am still wrestling with anxiety, depression, and drinking to numb the discomfort. But I do a better job of managing it overall. Running and working out definitely help a lot. I’m tired of being an underachiever, but I don’t know what career path to take. I feel like I need to return to school to start all over again, maybe get a computer science degree or something. Or become a nurse. Who knows. So while overall I am doing better at life, I am still stuck in the cycle of numbing my discomfort – and recently it is the discomfort of my career conundrum – and that is serving only to keep me stuck because I can’t see alternatives when my mind is clouded by vodka tonics.

I will find some rewarding career path that will allow me to earn a good living. I have to start today – restart again – sitting with the discomfort rather than drowning it in drink. The past ten years have been a cycle of depression/anxiety, drinking, sobering up, financial distress, getting on track, and starting all over again. I want to start a new chapter of my life, one that is punctuated by success and fulfillment and personal growth. Alcohol has no place in that chapter.