In this episode, I continue the conversation about my first steps in the United States, including the language, the types of programs I worked in, as well as the loneliness of moving to a different country. I also discuss the relationships I developed with people to get out of my isolation, and my favorite work in social services: the crisis team.
In this episode, I continue the conversation about my first steps in the United States, including the language, the types of programs I worked in, as well as the loneliness of moving to a different country. I also discuss the relationships I developed with people to get out of my isolation, and my favorite work in social services: the crisis team.
Hi, and welcome to finding your way through therapy. I'm your host, Steve Bisson. The goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy, and the wide array of conversations you can have in therapy. I also talked to guests about therapy, their experience with therapy, and how psychology is present in many places in their lives. They also share personal stories. So please join me on this journey about there. Hi, and welcome to episode 87 of finding your way through therapy. I'm your host CB. So if you haven't listened to Episode 86, I hope you go back and listen to it Dr. Anita Bhushan, I'm hoping I got it right was an amazing guest. She has a great book out, please go and get it and go back and listen to the interview because it was awesome. But episode 87 is a little more about me. And I know that you know, when I did the episode on Episode 84, I believe I said I would continue. And it's interesting, because I got a lot of feedback. I'm like, Oh, that's great. I want to hear more about how you got there. So you know, one of the things I realized I forgot to talk about is I'm born and raised in Montreal, Quebec. So when you move to a different country, there is certain adaptations you have to do. So a lot of people will say, well, Canada and the US are good cousins. And you're right, pretty similar. But always remember it I grew up in a French speaking province. My first language is French, I grew up with a French family, my dad did speak English. But the shock of going from speaking mostly French, most of the time to only English was a big shock. And I work hard to get rid of my accent because a lot of people emphasize how bad my accent was when it got here. In all reality, I think back to that, and then like, I should have just kept my accent and just like, let people not influenced me. But here we are, right. So I got here, I moved here in January of 1999. And I started working with people with developmental disabilities, particularly proud or Willie. And if you don't know what Prader Willi is, is that the best way I can explain this, it's a genetic thing where you know that little thing in your stomach, or in your brain that says Don't eat anymore, you're full? Well, unfortunately, they are born without it. And we also had a couple more people who weren't diagnosed with Prader Willi, but had similar issues. It was quite a shock to go into that house the first time to see all the locks on the fridge and the cabinets. And it definitely was a game changer for me in the sense that that's not what I expected. Obviously, when you think you're going into psychology, and you think, Oh, I'm gonna go sit and talk to people, again, my 16 year old brain, right? And you go in and you're going to be working with people with developmental disabilities, you're going to end up doing case management, you're going to end up getting them some help. It was quite a different environment. But nonetheless, there was a lot of things to learn. I know I struggled with the streets in Massachusetts, because if you've ever driven in Massachusetts, a straight road does not exist. And why is that? As I've seen on a meme, because fuck you. That's why I hope people can laugh about that. But that's truly how it is in Boston and Massachusetts. There's no straight roads around here. So that was a challenge. The language was a challenge. Being alone was a humongous challenge it there was a lot of difficulties I had. I know that some people know this about me. And if you're my family, cover your ears. But I really drank heavily during that time. For the first six months I was here because I had no friends. I had no family. I felt so isolated and alone. And I worked many hours obviously to keep myself busy. But I also ended up going into alcohol and try to make friends but very, very awkward for me to make friends I ended up making a couple of friends eventually realizing my problems with alcohol and kind of stopped drinking for a while. But I grew with the developmental disability ended up working with people also with autism in that was in Down syndrome, which was also a great challenge, but also something very interesting for me. So that was great and actually met my girlfriend there. My first girlfriend who became my wife, who is now my ex wife, and I regret none of that I really two great kids that come from that. And it was amazing to have that connection eventually in my life. But after finishing a little bit of that work in development disabilities, I faced a particularly difficult issue. I don't know how much I can talk about it. But let's just say I was accused of doing something that I never did, and ended up looking for other jobs and eventually ended up interviewing for a triage job on a crisis team and ended up working on a crisis team as a triage person for a couple of years and ended up after I got my master's because I started looking for places to get my Master's ended up at assumption University and did my degree in counseling psych with It's a specialty in cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as children and family will get to the point where and again, spoiler alert, I don't work with children. I don't work with families anymore. And there's a reason for that. But we'll get to that. And if you want to know also, you can always DM me and we'll talk. But I ended up working at crisis been off and on for 15 years, probably one of the best things I've ever done. I learned so much whether it was answering those phones, whether it is going on the field, and it just meeting people where they're at going to the emergency rooms and dealing with those challenges, but also working with great people in the emergency room department. And just the challenges and learning how to have good clinical skills. I will always remind anyone as we did with character L. Susan Rogan Dorf, and build one house. If you want to start someone to know what your strengths are in mental health go work on a crisis steam, I will never ever, ever, ever regret working there and shout out to the person who hired me at the time. Her name is Sarah cloud. And I will always remember and thank you for that. I ended up working for that agency for about 15 years went into other fields, including the criminal justice field while once I got my masters and I can talk about that at a different episode. So this is a little bit of a tease for the next episode where I'm going to talk which I don't know when that exactly is going to be but maybe episode 90 We'll see. Want to give you at least a teaser about episode 88 will be with Stephanie Simpson, Courtney romanovski And Morgan beard. What do they all have in common? They've all been on my show before but I really wanted to have all three of them together. And the creativity and thinking about all that is something amazing and I really can't wait for that interview. So hope you join me then please like, subscribe or follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful. And as a reminder, this podcast is for information, educational, and entertainment purposes. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor or therapist for consultation.