[moonrise]

How do you fit therapy into your schedule? Does your T do evenings, do you take an extended lunch break? I'm looking at going back to work, and don't want to have to quit therapy to do it.

5:00 appointments. I get out of school at 4:00.

[sittingatwatersedge]

I'm salaried not hourly so I can make up time and that's what I do. On days I see T I leave early, then make it up somewhere during the week.

[Mike_J]

I see my therapist on Monday's at 2:00, I go to lunch come back catch up on things and then go for my appointment. After that I go back to work, but sometimes I do have to stop at home for a bit to regain my composure. This arragnement wouldn't work for everyone, my work is somewhat flexible.

[jexa]

I am super lucky -- my T does evening appointments and I see her Fridays at 6:30pm. If she didn't take evening appointments, I have a great job with a really understanding boss, so if I needed to get out of work early one day and work late another day to go to therapy, he would be totally fine with that. He's a T and he wants me to take care of myself. Besides, therapy is keeping me functioning so I can go to work and do my job.

Moon, a lot of bosses will be willing to work with you -- you could tell them you have a medical condition which requires weekly doctor's appointments, and you were wondering if one day a week you could take an extended lunch break.

Also, your T might be willing to work with you to give you evening appointments.

There is always a way!

[RACEKA]

I go to therapy on Saturday mornings. My center is open evenings too.

[3velniai]

My T works on evenings, so I go at 7pm.

[Stranger2]

I see my T first thing in the mornings..I don't work so It is easy for me to go when she can see me..

[amandalouise]

Originally Posted by moonrise

How do you fit therapy into your schedule? Does your T do evenings, do you take an extended lunch break? I'm looking at going back to work, and don't want to have to quit therapy to do it.

I carry around a date book and write all my work hours, vollunteer hours, doctor appointments and special times and occasions I dont want to miss. when it comes time for scheduling my appointments for therapy I pull out my date book and my therapist and I find a time that fits both her schedule and mine. those are for the times Im on bimonthly and monthly appointments. when Im on weekly we open our date books and find one that best fits both our schedules then we right then and there write in the whole months worth of appointments sometimes if we know its going to take some time we mark out at least three months worth of weekly so we both know right then and there that say wensdays at 3 for the next three months is our time slot.

[velcro003]

For a few months in the winter, we open later, so I can go before work. Some other months, I have someone open for me and I come in 15 min late. AND then in the summer, I go on an extended lunch break during the day! I was sooooo nervous trying to figure out my schedule with my boss. He is super nice, but I don't want him knowing I go to therapy! I just said I go to an appointment and left it at that. Now, I've been going for over 2 years, so he MUST know, but he doesn't say anything.

Something that I'm very worried about is having to go to work after if I ever actually cry during session. I've had rough days where I was exhausted or just more vulnerable feeling, but I usually can just pull through. I actually just talked about this with my T yesterday. I told her I am so afraid of crumbling into a million pieces if I truly let out my feelings. It has happened before, and I can NOT afford to crumble at this job. It is customer service based and I am always friendly and smiley at work. I can't be feeling like I need to run to the bathroom and cry every 5 minutes. My T says she doesn't think that will happen, that I am at a different place than I was 5 years ago. She says I will crumble if I don't let it out, but THAT feels safer. I don't know!

[ECHOES]

I am very fortunate, although this was another of my T requirements when I was looking for a T. Also she was accessible by bus, which is how I was getting around at that time. Anyway, my T has evening hours, and I see her at a set time on the same day each week. She schedules appts as late as 8pm appts and has even seen me at 9pm.

I have had T's who had no evening hours and I had to take what appt time was available, arrange it with work, etc. Not fun.

[moonrise]

Thanks, everyone. I feel better now!!! Right now, I'm looking into part-time work, because of my dd, but if I can't find anything part-time, I'll need to look full-time. At my old job, I was salaried and I did a lot of work out in the community, so taking an extended lunch break was no problem. I'm just nervous about starting a new job and not fitting in therapy. I'm finally in a place with a T I (mostly, sort of) trust, and feel like I can really begin getting a handle on my insides .

I'm 99% sure T doesn't do evenings, and I know she doesn't do weekends.

Hopefully it won't be an issue and I'll find a part-time job, which I'll love to pieces.

[mixedup_emotions]

I've been pretty lucky too....even though my boss hates me, I established my T schedule before he became my boss and I basically just said - BTW, this is my schedule.

One day a week, I skip lunch and leave an hour early to make it to group T.

Another day each week, I take a late, long lunch. I'm salaried, so it doesn't make a difference there. I do end up taking longer than necessary, because after my sessions, I find that I need a good half hour to collect my thoughts....and even then, I find that I am less productive when I get back to work. It's definitely difficult for me to get back into real life mode after a T session.

[ECHOES]

Originally Posted by mixedup emotions

BTW, this is my schedule.

mue, I love this!

[sunrise]

Sometimes I go in the morning, sometimes early evening (my T works until about 7 pm). Sometimes I take a long lunch break to go. My work schedule is flexible enough so that if I have to leave therapy early one day, I can stay late the next to make up the time.

I definitely have had sessions that were upsetting, and where I cried, and I had to go back to work. It is a 20 minute trip to my T from where I work, so this gives me enough time to get it back together.

[skeksi]

I do a regular evening appointment that T and I mutually agreed upon. I chose something that is a few hours after I get off, so that if I have something that runs late or needs to get done (it's the nature of my job), I can do it and still be sure to make it to T on time.

[Perna]

I was like Mike, left in the afternoon but my T was a couple hours away so I didn't go back to work, it was often 7:00 when I'd get home. However, my house was inbetween work and T so I would leave 15 minutes early and stop on the way to T and change into comfortable clothes :-)

[splitimage]

I have a really convoluted work schedule to accomodate all my therapy. I'm in group addictions therapy Mon. afternoons and Tues Mornings, see my regular T Tues at 5:40 and it's an hours drive from work. See my pdoc mid morning once a month, and have to leave early on Fri's so I can get to my volunteer job.

The solution - Radical flex time. I work 7 - 12 Mon mornings, 11 - 4:30 on Tues. 8 - 6 Wed. and Thurs. and 7:30 - 4:30 on Fri.'s. I negotiated all of this with the job when I started. Since then we've had an entirely new management team come in, and the managing director really doesn't like my flex time arrangement, but when my new boss was hired I just handed him my schedule, and said "this is when I'll be in". Since I always meet all my deadlines, there's not much he can say about it, and it's actually an advantage to the company that I'm in early a few mornings a week since I deal constantly with Germany and the early start gives me a few more hours when they're in the office. I did finally have to disclose that I needed the time off for mental health issues, but I was lucky and he was good with it.

--splitimage

[darkrunner]

I usually see my T on Monday or Tuesday evenings at 6. When I started with her I wasn't working so I could go during the day. I was worried about fitting therapy into a full time work schedule. But she had no problems accomdating evening appointments. Sometimes I wish she had Saturday appointments because I am often really tired at the end of the work day.

[Luce]

I worked part time initially, and then when my boss asked me to increase my hours I simply told her I could do all that she wanted except for Tuesday and Thursday after 3pm (I had T 2x week). So I ended up working a 36 hour week instead of 40.

[deliquesce]

good luck with the job hunt, moonrise!!!

i work part time & study part time. usually it's pretty easy to find time for T. otherwise, my boss is pretty cool so i just ask if I can get a bit of time off to keep a dr's appointment. she knows about my depression though.

last summer i was working 2 jobs which totalled to full time hours. i did a bit of flex to make up for the days i left early. it hasnt been too bad.