i know this is going to be a shock, considering everything you know about me, but i ended up studying
community psychology.
(joking about the "shock" lol)
i couldnt do clinical psychology - though i think id be pretty good working with people because i make folks laugh and make helpful observations and ask insightful questions, but i have too much fire inside of me to just work with individuals and not ask the bigger questions... and asking bigger questions can be distressing for some folks, so i'd just end up either making clients into raging activists, or making them depressed and jaded with the world...and neither are particularly good for mental health lol.
the other reason is that, clinical psychology training programs are incredibly toxic and hierarchical. community psychology still has some of those elements, but is a great deal less intense about it. graduate school in general is really hierarchical, and there is absolutely no awareness or understanding for difference/oddity (or, if there is, it is quickly negated by the clique-like pressures of bureaucratic conformity... which are largely invisible to me and a major reason why i get into so much trouble).
within psychology, my experience is that clinical folks are much more straight-laced, "playing the game", kind of fake, hyper hierarchical, and mainstream conformists. Experimental psychologists on the other hand, tend to be much more kind, open, approachable, and genuine.
Community folks are a mix..maybe closer to clinical folks except with an added righteousness and self-critical intensity.
navigating all of it is very tricky when you are chronically the odd one out, and passionate to a degree of complexity that they dont naturally engage. so i lost one mentor already. the one i have i argue with a lot just to try and get her to understand that i work differently (cause a mentor gets really up close and personal with you and can provide the wrong kind of pressure if they dont "get" how you work).
the hardest thing for me, is that my interest is so unconventional that instead of trying to understand it, they try to shut it down. so im stuck trying to figure out how to back track and do something that would seem "acceptible" to them. its an experience of being misunderstood on a very fundemental level... that even among academics who are meant to support me, they think im just wild and crazy and unfocused, and i cant help them see what i am actually trying to do.
the school work isn't the hardest part tbh. its all the shenanigans that i keep failing at. im surprised they haven't kicked me out, and i can barely believe that some of them actually like me because i constantly cause them all kinds of outlandish troubles.
buuuutt, we'll see if i manage to graduate.
so you are into psychology? the field needs people who are awkward - there are a lot of awkward people who would benefit from someone who could be better at sharing their perspective. i just wish the field was more supportive of folks who are different, because then i'd encourage you to pursue it because it really would be a boon to have your perspective influencing things.
im happy to hear that youve found places youre accepted though! the first such place for me was the library - i worked in the basement, sorting books. you get all the awkward types in a place like that and i made some good friends for the first time there. its like a magnet for folks like us
