My melancholy friend

I recently heard about a study of Olympic medal winners that found Silver medalists generally feel worse about their Olympic performance than Bronze medalists. The hypothesis is that Bronze medalists feel grateful to have made it to the medal stand, while Silver medalists on the other hand are disappointed because they fell short of the Gold. I seem to be a person destined to be a Silver medalist–particularly when it comes to my career. I get close enough to see the Gold, but it's just a few inches out of my reach. Then, it's gone. Once again, not quite good enough.
After two years, Pierce College decided to reorganize their Alcohol/Drug Studies and Social Service/Mental Health program into two programs with separate coordinators. A year earlier, Dr. St. Dennis had decided to resign and return to the Pharmacy school at WSU. I, of course, applied for the A/D Studies coordinator position. Who else would they give it to? After all, I'd been doing the job for the past two years. The college was nice enough to give me an interview, but I realized early on they had already made a decision and it wasn't going to be me. It was nice that several students wrote letters to the college administration asking that they keep me on, but the ship had already sailed and all I could do was stand on the dock and watch it disappear into the sunset.
Within 3 months I became a citizen of Prozac nation and the dark angel of depression would be my dance partner for the next 20 years.
Fortunately, one of my responsibilities prior to losing my job at the college was to make out the class schedule for the following Fall quarter. At the time I was expecting to still be a full-time instructor, so I had given myself a full schedule of classes. The only difference was I would be a part-time instructor with a full-time schedule. At least I could take some time finding another job.
In a strange coincidence, the first two job interviews I got were on the same day–one in the morning, the other in the afternoon. The first was for a position as volunteer coordinator and trainer for a non-profit agency providing services to people with physical and mental disabilities. The second was as director of counseling at a private, for-profit rehab hospital. Following my interviews, I had two job offers that I was going to "sleep on."
At the time, my biggest concern having recently married was taking care of Christina and myself financially. Non-profits can't compete with for-profits when it comes to salary. I could take the position with the non-profit that would have been a cut in pay from what I was making at the college, or with the for-profit that paid more than I had ever made in my life. I was about to sell my soul, but at least I wasn't selling it cheap.
With my new job, we were able to move out of our apartment and buy a house. We were financially secure, but I was miserable. Allow me to get up on my "socialist" soapbox for a moment. I do not think healthcare should be a for-profit business. Rather, it should be like fire and police services–something we all get for the public good. Eventually the United States will join the rest of the industrialized world and provide healthcare to all its citizens regardless of their ability to pay, but not before trying anything and everything short of it. Once we can no longer deny that for-profit healthcare doesn't work (except for insurance, pharmaceutical, and giant healthcare corporations–as well as the politicians they pay off to allow this to continue), we as a society will finally do the right thing. I hope I get to see that day.
OK, back to the story. If you choose a profession to help alleviate suffering, working for a business which profits by that suffering . . . Well, you do the math. I couldn't take enough anti-depressants to distract myself from feeling my soul slowly being sucked out of body. After 4 years, I couldn't do it any more (it was getting hard to shave without being able to look at myself in the mirror). I resigned and went back to the non-profit world.
During this time, I was able to stay somewhat sane by continuing to teach classes. Bellevue Community College hired me part-time for some classes, and I was also able to start a substance abuse counselor education program at Highline Community College.
I changed jobs again a couple years later moving from a community mental health center to an outpatient substance abuse facility. They were applying for a very large federal grant to conduct a two-year demonstration project to see if offering more drug-involved felons treatment options instead of jail reduced recidivism. I was chosen to be the clinical supervisor for the project. It was a pretty big deal. I got to fly to the East coast along with several executives of the facility. I had lunch with a Congressman and met the Drug Czar.
We got the grant and set-up the program. Everything seemed to be going OK until I started to realize things weren't what they seemed. I began to notice that the county prosecutor's office and the facility I was working for–once they received the grant money–weren't very strict about following the provisions of the grant. Also, although I was suppose to have supervisory authority over the daily operation of the program, the facility's executives were constantly undermining my authority. It soon became clear to me that my job was to shut up and do as I was told, rather than try to run the program according to the conditions of the grant. I wasn't again going to be a part of something that required me to put my values on hold. I resigned before I could sink any further.
By leaving that position, I was able to be where I am today and where I've been for the past 10 years. It also marked the beginning of the greatest spiritual struggle of my life.