Confidence

Only another month to go until I go back to University for my third year. I can’t believe how quickly those years have gone. This year we have placement, where we get placed with a counselling agency and do work experience. One of my friends was telling me today that she has her placement for the first semester and how nervous she is. I’m doing mine in second semester and I don’t know if that is good or bad. I think I’d rather be getting it over with in first semester.

I will have another half a year after this one I think because we have core units we have to do and I haven’t done any of those yet. I’m looking forward to going back to Uni and I’m not. Once I’m there and settle back I imagine I’ll be okay. I have gained in confidence a lot over the last few years. When I was nursing I didn’t have any confidence what so ever in myself. If I had had more confidence I wouldn’t have gone into geriatric nursing after having worked in general nursing. It wasn’t the best decision in the world but it was the only decision for me at the time.

When I worked both in a country town in the wheat belt and in the north of the state, I was hoping that I would gain in confidence. But having never had confidence and not having anyone to mentor me or believe in me, it didn’t happen. When I was a child growing up, I wasn’t allowed to make the simplest decision. So I didn’t gain any trust in my own ability to make decisions. I was also very afraid of doing something wrong because that wasn’t allowed in my family. It’s such a shame when I think of it now but the way I grew up just sapped all my confidence.

I think that having been a person who had absolutely no confidence in themselves, to start building that confidence is daunting. There is still a naggy little voice inside that calls me a fraud. Who do I think I am to think I can get a university education and go out there and counsel people? When I was nursing and in my personal life I remember having no confidence in my own perception of things. By that I mean I second guessed everything I did and felt I was always wrong or was going to do something wrong. It is an awful feeling to be doing that constantly.

Now I have begun to build up my confidence and I am a lot more confident than I ever was before. In some areas anyway. In other areas it is still a process in happening I think. I can’t take back those years and I wouldn’t because I made a lot of lovely friends and met a lot of great people while I was nursing. But it’s only been the last few years that I have begun to be an individual, have my own opinions and become my own person. And to start to know who I am and why I’ve dealt with things the way I have. But now I am starting my third year of Uni and I can’t believe I have come this far.

Kazza