Conflicting Emotions in a Professional Setting

Today I met with my academic adviser to discuss local internship opportunities. It… didn’t go quite the way I’d hoped. My goal has been to work with an adult psychiatric population, but most of the internships I could currently commute to are in medical settings, hospice, or adults with developmental disabilities. There is one adult psychiatric location, a VA (veterans affairs) hospital. It’s far enough away that my adviser suggested temporarily relocating.

I thought our conversation was going pretty well. We established a plan: I’ll pick four sites, contact the internship directors to ask questions and make a good first impression, and apply – “casting as broad a net as possible.” He spoke highly of several sites, answered my questions, and gave me some useful advice. Best of all, he seemed certain that I’ll be able to complete my internship without having to further extend my matriculation. He seemed supportive and understanding the whole way through. He even asked about the paper I submitted last month, that still needs a grade…

By the end of the conversation, I was feeling very overwhelmed. I couldn’t figure out if I was sad, anxious, angry, disappointed, grateful… I didn’t know what to do or say that might help. And he was just sitting there watching me, waiting for a comment, question, or some other response. I kept apologizing and giving the old “I’m tired” excuse. I told him that I wish I could take more music therapy classes because I enjoyed this past semester; that I’m looking forward to working in our field and doing thesis, but that it’s also big and scary.

He said you do one piece at a time, so while it is big and scary it’s also more manageable than it currently seems. That was helpful, but I still felt awkward. I almost always feel awkward in our conversations, like neither of us knows how to end them. Like there’s something that always goes unsaid – at least on my end – and everything we do say needs to dance around it. We were saved by a knock on the door: “That’s my next appointment.”

Ugh. Feels. Sometimes – often – I wish I could turn them off. Just temporarily. Just long enough to have a conversation. For all I know he didn’t even notice that I was struggling with my emotions – no, he’s a therapist, he has to have noticed. That’s what therapists do.

My main problem was that I thought I should be happy about meeting with my adviser and learning about internship sites, but that’s not how I honestly felt. It brought up anxiety, painful memories, guilt, disappointment. I didn’t get what I wanted – what I needed, yes, and what I asked for. But the perfect internship site just doesn’t exist. (And maybe that’s for the better, because if it did I probably wouldn’t be offered the internship, anyway.) (I thought I’d moved past thinking like this.)

“You need to have a thick skin for this process. Be persistent, and if you can re-apply to a site, do. It’s difficult for everybody.”

My skin feels as thin as gossamer.

Anyway. I looked up the various sites on Google Maps and they all take a comparable amount of time to get to. The question really isn’t “How long am I willing to spend commuting?” – it’s “Do I want to spend 2-4 hours each day driving, or on public transportation?” I’m inclined to lean toward driving, but I might not even get to make that decision.

How do you deal with conflicting or difficult emotions when they come up in a professional situation?

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