Reply #25: I gave up being a practicing shrink to write. [View All]

[politicat]

I worked for the state, (and later some private practice) so the benefits were good, but the workload was horrific and kept getting worse as the budgets kept getting smaller and the case load kept growing. The pay wasn't great -- really, most shrinks do not pull in 6 figures, and I was in the lower half of the five range -- and I liked the time I had where I was actually helping people who needed to be helped, but so much of my time was given to paperwork, and I could never do the real thing that I thought necessary -- poverty mitigation. Because it's really hard to teach a fourteen year old with anger management issues to be sanguine about his lot in life when he's a week from homelessness and has never owned a pair of shoes that didn't come from charity.

So my income dropped to the high four figures and I make it up by being indispensable to my partner. I'm a lot healthier and happier now, and I like what I do, and for me the adjustment was natural and easy. We still live well below our means and will continue to do so as long as we possible.