I'm a licensed clinical social worker,
and I've been in the field for over 25 years.
I worked in patients psychiatry for about four years.
My master's degree in counseling psychology.
Went into a bachelors and then a masters,
to just hone my craft.
I got my Master's in counseling
after I got out of the army.
I am a psychologist.
I am every day on the hotline waiting for calls.
Retrained in the counseling arena,
trained psychodynamically.
And I've been doing that for 15 years now.
So I take incoming calls.
A lot of times there are people
who have never talked to a counselor before.
All of life events,
birth, marriage, death, bereavement, grief, loss,
all of those, work-related situations.
We talk with people who are suffering
depression or anxiety.
When you're anxious or fearful,
it is hard to reach out.
It just is.
They'll call and then they'll say,
Ahh, it took me all day to make this call.
A lot of times people think
it has to be only related to work stress
because they hear about it from their employers.
And so they'll call and they say,
well, this isn't a work issue.
And we'll tell them, of course it's fine.
Let's talk about it.
Some people call and say, like,
I'm not the type of person that would call.
So I try to really normalize
and help them understand those misconceptions
and explain that we all need assistance.
There's no time limit.
There's no boxes that we have to check.
24 hours a day, seven days a week.
It's counselors ready to talk and engage.
Ultimately, this is a service
provided by their organization.
And there's a little fear about
what if what if my manager comes to know?
So just assuring them of the confidentiality part,
assuring them of the non-judgmental part.
I feel grateful every time I can finish a call
and we can touch people
that maybe would never have
any kind of psychological support.
The best thing really is about being able to
be an advocate for mental health.
And after being in this field for ten years now,
every person you speak to,
you know that you've made
one more person aware that mental health
is something that exists
and it is okay to ask for help for that.
It's okay to take help for that.
The call always starts with
a heightened anxiety, anger, frustration.
You know, you help somebody
when you can hear that
lightness in their voice afterwards.
It's rare to find a job like that
where you can really…
I feel like I make a difference
at least once a day, I feel like that.
That's a great job.
That's a great career. Right?