Really need to vent!!

I'm feeling quite angry and overwhelmed at the moment and really just need to vent. Hoping to maybe get some new perspectives on this because I'm feeling a bit emotional at the moment and not sure if I'm thinking clearly.

So, for anyone that doesn't know me here, I'm a 34-year-old woman, I have a Certificate 4 in Mental Health, Diploma of Disability and a Bachelor of Psychology. I've done a fair bit of volunteering in the aged care, mental health and disability field. I have also been working in paid employment for five years mostly for not-for-profit welfare organisations with people with various disabilities and mental health issues.

One thing that I really need to vent about is this volunteer work that I've been doing for 2+ years but I'm seriously thinking to quit it now. Back in 2015-2016 I think it was, I wanted to see if I'd like working in disability advocacy and took up a volunteer role to get a feel of it and experience. The volunteer role I've been doing is with a non profit advocacy agency where I keep in touch with a severely intellectually disabled older lady who can't speak. She lives in a residential facility and my job is basically to visit her every so often, call the staff on the phone, and to keep an eye on her general life, well being, treatment by staff, etc. And to speak on her behalf if any issues arise, such as mistreatment or abuse. Which has never happened so far so to be fair I haven't actually done anything like that. This volunteer role has no time limit and can be indefinite (i.e. forever) but also I'm pretty sure did not specify that "x amount" of months or years of commitment was expected.

From the beginning of the volunteering, I never liked the volunteer co-ordinator who is managing me because I just had a bad vibe from her and found her fake and insincere. On top of that, the key support worker of the disabled lady in her residence and some other staff there always seemed to just want to use me to take the lady out for lunch, coffee and shopping because the lady is lonely and bored sitting at home and she absolutely loves going out. That is not my actual role though to be a social and activity buddy and my co-ordinator even acknowledged to me that the staff should not be doing that, but she never seemed to have said anything to them because they just keep doing it. I should mention though that this key worker is overall a nice man and the disabled lady very sweet and no bad behaviours at all, very happy person who always smiles and is easy to be around.

After about 1.5 years of volunteering I will admit that I lost interest in it for the reasons I just mentioned. I guess I had a feeling the co-ordindator would be pushy so I didn't tell her anything and I sort of just avoided the disabled lady and didn't really see her for close to a year. I also avoided some of the co-oridnator's calls and messages. Finally I responded to her and I tried to tell her over a coffee meeting that I didn't want to do it anymore because I was busy with work and supporting my fiance who has very bad depression and anxiety also. The co-ordinator basically didn't want to hear it and didn't really act sympathetic but was quite manipulative. She was like: "I literally have nobody else to take your place, we have a very long wait list, she will have nobody. She needs you so much right now, she relies on you, etc, etc." I felt really pressured and manipulated into it so continued to do it. But I'm getting really fed up with it because the male key worker told me to visit the lady once a month and on a Saturday or Sunday and for all three of us to go out for four hours because that's the duration of his whole shift. He said not to come any other time because we can't go out. One time he said he'd pick me up in the work car but he was pretty late and I was just sitting around waiting for him. So all this was really eating into my free weekend time.

Also the co-ordinator keeps harrassing me about re doing my police check and I gave her all the documents already except for one. I said I would get it verified and scanned when I can because I'm really busy working two jobs. However instead of waiting for me to get it to her, she proceeded to keep texting me about it three times. Anyway, now I texted her and said I want to talk and I'm not happy about what's going on.

Post is getting long so will try to summarise about my jobs. So I've been in a job for just over two years in that same role with people with disabilities and mental health. I get paid well there and I like the clients but my shifts got significantly cut down and I also find my boss really unprofessional and inappropriate. By inappropriate I don't actually mean sexual but just not acting in ways appropriate to what a manager should act like. He basically never replies to any calls or messages and is totally AWOL. I don't work as part of a team but just remotely out in the community with the clients and I never get any staff training, meetings, no Christmas party. My boss has displayed some unprofessional behaviour too like when he went on a cruise in Fiji and he looked me up and contacted me on Facebook and asked me to do his work that he didn't do before he left because he had no phone reception on the ship.

Anyway so I was a bit fed up and five months ago I started looking for a new job in the mental health and disability field. I applied only for jobs I truly wanted so not a huge amount, but decent number of jobs. A lot of them I didn't even get an interview and also got a few interviews but didn't get the job. Some of them also expected me to use my own car but I don't have a car. After 3-4 months of searching I ended up getting a job with a large country wide non-profit organisation. The job is only a casual relief/fill in worker in a residential house with people with reasonably severe mental health issues and intellectual disabilities. One person does have difficult behaviours. All the staff and manager there are nice and I'm fine with the clients too. But the money is not good and they also keep calling me too much to work and rostering me on some late nigh shifts and weekends. I'm still doing my other job too because I didn't know when they're gonna call me at the relief worker job so I needed to have some ongoing shifts as well. Anyway so now I'm feeling really tired and stressed and really disillusioned because I'm not enjoying the relief job.

I'm just feeling so frustrated because I don't understand why with all my tertiary qualifications and experience I just can't find anything better than all this. Or am I maybe expecting too much because you can't find something perfect? Can anyone relate?

I see you're based in Australia, and things may be different over there. However, I can safely say that in the UK there are so many psychology graduates that they're actually told that they have about as much chance of getting a career in psychology as they would in the acting profession if they'd been to drama school - i.e. the opportunities are there, but the field's very competitive and you may well have to do other jobs.

At the moment I work as an art technical instructor, part time, in a secure forensic mental health hospital. For me, it's an ideal job; I had around five years experience of working in mental health as well as various voluntary positions, but it still took me a whole year between starting to look for employment (as well as being a freelance artist) and being offered a job. And I was applying for everything which came up for which I was even remotely qualified! In the hospital where I work, one of our forensic psychologists worked as a lowly healthcare assistant for two years before a vacancy she could apply for came up in the hospital. Another guy who also has a psychology degree and various other qualifications is working as an occupational therapy technical instructor - for which you don't need any qualifications beyond 'A' Levels. I've known agency workers (again, healthcare assistants) who were actually qualified mental health nurses unable to get a job as such. So unless the scene is very different in Australia, your experience is not unusual.

Your situation, though, is different in that one of your sources of stress is your voluntary work. It's not that unusual for staff to try and palm off work they can't be a***d to do, onto other people who seem willing, or give the most obnoxious patients to agency workers, all that. But you are free to decline this voluntary position, no matter how desperate they say they are. It's the volunteer co-ordinator's responsibility to find new volunteers and find people to do the work, not yours. There's no harm in writing to her explaining that your paid work and responsibilities really need to take priority, and that you're very grateful for the wonderful experience you've had working for them - but you are spreading yourself too thin right now, and need to quit. With many regrets.

Again, it may be different in Australia, but if you've got a regular job in mental health you should be having clinical supervision at intervals - for your own mental health, if nothing else. Can you take it up with your boss about the in-service training and generally being part of the team? It doesn't sound as though he's the greatest manager in the world, but there's no harm in trying. From what I've observed, generally, many people in the mental health field do some quite lowly jobs before they can take on the really professional roles, and I'm sure that in time you'll start to climb the ladder... and all the experience you've had at the bottom of the heap will really stand you in good stead, I promise you!

Good luck!

Not to be a downer, but it's not much different where I am.

I have a psych degree and the jobs were just as you described. The ones that a person had a better chance at getting, were not the most appealing and the pay rate was not great.

The better jobs, there were about 700 applicants per job (not kidding) and if you didn't have top of the line experience, etc, you had no chance.

I don't know what to tell you, I can understand why you volunteer as well, no other way to gain experience. But it does sound as though they are expecting you to jump through hoops and it's not fair.

Have you considered going back for more schooling in a different area such as counselling? Move into social work?

The options are limited, unfortunately.

Your situation, though, is different in that one of your sources of stress is your voluntary work. It's not that unusual for staff to try and palm off work they can't be a***d to do, onto other people who seem willing, or give the most obnoxious patients to agency workers, all that. But you are free to decline this voluntary position, no matter how desperate they say they are. It's the volunteer co-ordinator's responsibility to find new volunteers and find people to do the work, not yours. There's no harm in writing to her explaining that your paid work and responsibilities really need to take priority, and that you're very grateful for the wonderful experience you've had working for them - but you are spreading yourself too thin right now, and need to quit. With many regrets.

^^ This, this, and more this.

It's a volunteer position and it sounds like you now need to let it go for your own mental health. Also, maybe letting it go will allow you to search for a more satisfying position. Sorry to hear your woes. The coordinator really shouldn't be trying to take liberties by laying guilt trips on you. You're a volunteer. Really should be a non-issue, they're lucky to have you.

I'd ask myself, "What's my real motivation for volunteering?" If it's to give my time so that someone else can benefit from my efforts, then I'd consider why I don't want to give 4 hours a month to a lovely woman who enjoys my company. I wouldn't make it about the politics of anyone else. If I have other motivations, or I no longer want to give my time to this woman, then I'd submit a resignation letter and stick to my decision.

In other words, that's not about 'them,' it's about YOU making a choice and behaving accordingly.

As for work, think outside your current scope. If staying within your area of expertise is landing you nowhere but miserable and critical of mismanagement to the degree that it keeps you feeling lousy even on your own time, then try reaching beyond your scope.

Apply with temp agencies starting with a radius closest to home and work outward. They don't all work with the same firms, and you can't just send a resume--you need to make appointments to go there, test on any applications you can use, and interview. This puts you on their 'active' roster for incoming jobs. Don't get discouraged when they tell you they have no openings at the moment. A good agency won't have jobs lying around, they place active people into openings immediately.

This will expose you to different corporate environments from which you can apply for better jobs 'from within'. These are jobs that don't get published to the public. This will build your network as you form relationships, and it will either land you suitable work that you enjoy, or it's temporary and you can move on to another place to learn about opportunities there. This is one way to break the cycle of locking yourself into work that doesn't pay well and doesn't provide a platform for a better job in the future.

Head high, we all have slump times.