Broken but not Destroyed

it's all snakes and games

It's been a while since I've encountered an emotional eclipse that sends me on a downward spiral into self-hatred and darkness. After a good few months of content and peace, it was about time my sail hit the tumultuous raging waves of injustice and betrayal. Thankfully, this time it wasn't my parents. Unfortunately, it was my colleagues.

My workplace has never been a perfect place. Despite being a psychology clinic that assists people in overcoming their mental health struggles, some may argue that it's like a Gold Rush mine for interns.  The controversy is embedded in the clinic's business model that relies on the passion and desperateness of psychology undergraduates who desire for clinical experience. While this seems to be an innocent  intention of giving interns a unique and treasured experience in the field of psychology, it is arguably considered "slavery" due to the lack of pay and sole reliance on interns for the clinic to survive. The sweet topping on the bitter cake is the chance to get Behavioral Therapy training - a divine and rare opportunity for hungry aspiring psychologists. The only problem is, this opportunity is dangled like a carrot in front of a donkey, and without it, the internship experience is as good as "free labour" (as some call it).

I've never agreed with this approach and ever since joining the clinic as a full-time therapist and now as an assistant clinic manager, I've tried my best to change the old ways of things and cover up the patches of unethical practices and infringes on intern rights. However, after the recent turn of events, I've realized how far I've sacrificed myself in pushing for the rights of others - who simply talk behind my back and taint my intentions. Namely, two interns had done so, and one of them whom we had to fire.

In firing that intern, it wasn't as pleasant as I had expected. I should have never been in the room and being only a few years older (she is the same age as my sister), the entire process was construed by her as an act of unfair biasedness and power play. Simply put, she had various infractions of misconduct (defamation, insubordination, bullying) which ultimately led to our decision (made by my boss who agreed with my other full time colleague and me) to terminate her internship before she completed the required hours to fulfill her internship module. As unfortunate as it was, this decision had to be made instantly as we wanted a consequence that would lead to deep reflection and repentance. 

However, in a turn of events, this intern had gone crying to the school (which is the same university I had attended) about how unfair the termination was and tried to find any nook or cranny in the clinic's procedures to take us down. Guess who then had to face the wrath of an unprofessional old lady? Yup, me and my other full-time colleague. Calling us out for not standing up to the management in defending this intern and saying we should be treating interns as "humans and not products". Till this day, replaying that phrase in my head just sends my eyes  so far up and back into my skull. Old piece of shit.

Not just this event, but also with the other intern, who delicately puts on two masks every morning when she wakes up. People I despise the most are those who are two-faced. She is one of them. I somewhat always knew, but didn't want to admit or think much about it since I genuinely assumed we were on a good note. And literally so since she gave me a good note when she left. But of course, I found out later on that she had her own prejudice against me and believed every disgusting word her "best friend" (the intern we fired) had said about me.

The occurrence of these two events sent a massive meteor into my mind of peace in the past few weeks, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't change how I viewed my self-worth and worth to the clinic. On one hand, I understand the feelings of the interns that sprouted from their internship tragedies (both not getting the "promised" Behavioral Therapy training), and on the other, I reconcile with my core value of fairness - that is they don't deserve the training because of how  they behaved and even if I faced the same injustice, I wouldn't act the way they did.

But I guess the root of it all is that when I expected the clinic to have my back, it didn't. Another colleague, who's the business manager, went behind me and my colleagues' backs to pacify the cries of the intern when she whined about how unfair our evaluation was of her. So much for having our backs and not throwing us under the bus.

With all that said, I just can't wait to go on my family trip - and that's the first time you would've heard me say that. This entire experience had taught me that I need to stand up for myself and put myself first, cause at the end of the day, no matter how much I "good" I do, interns will see my intentions as part of the clinic, and the clinic will always put the itself first.