Maark Abbott, on 21 November 2023 - 10:05 PM, said:
Yeah I appreciate that. I think really the smart thing here is taking wife's mental health team up on their offer because they know her and by extension they know a LOT of what's going on for me as well.
At least I've been able to identify the issue and that means I can be aware of it and deal with it. Maybe it's time to take yoga back up again.
Taking up the offer sounds like a good plan - Cause hit the nail on the head, at worst it's a waste of an hour, but hopefully it's a positive thing for you. The fact they know quite a bit of the background too will give you a few less hurdles to jump over with them too. Wishing you all the best.
WMWMG: My patent paralegal exam.
I started working in patents in January 2022 and it's the single best thing I've ever done, it suits how my brain works and even in the first week it felt like what I was always meant to be doing. Aside from the attorneys themselves who need a rigorous science background, my firm are very good at looking at the individual and bypassing things like whether you went to university, how many other qualifications you've got. Their most experienced paralegal (there are only five people in the region working at her level) left school at 16, for instance. For new starters who have no patents experience they're much more interested in transferable skills and capacity to learn and retain information - which is wise, because two years in there is still a lot more I don't know than I do. I actually love that about the work.
This course and exam are offered to everyone in the firm who wants to take it, it's a recognised industry qualification and without it I wouldn't really be able to do my job anywhere else, or progress further, at it's a standard requirement.
I did my first practice paper yesterday and it was brutal. Everything is designed to catch you out and by the end of the two and a bit hours I felt physically sick. This paper was on next to no revision (some of the course material I'm familiar with from the day to day job itself) so we were asked to sit it as an exercise in finding out our weak areas for revision and starting to get used to how the exams are marked.
I was 7 marks off a pass, and I could have made up all of them with correcting silly errors like misreading a year or one question I managed to miss entirely (for 3 marks).
I should be happy with that, but the whole thing has felt very overwhelming and has pushed the buttons of a lot of my insecurities. The last exam I did was my final A Level paper, when I was 18. 18 feels a long time ago at 34. I was one of those people who stressed themselves silly with exams because I was and remain terrified of failure. I've never failed anything I've sat, but the fear remains.
Add to this the horrible ex and a lot of other people down the years (I went into law, which at least in the UK is not the area you should work in if you want to avoid people who think non-university goers are effectively monkeys that talk) have given me a very hard time about not going on to university. The decision wasn't ability driven and given the same circumstances I'm comfortable with the fact I'd make the same call again, but there have definitely been negative consequences which have ventured into being quite nasty at times. It's very much in my own head but I've always felt I've had to prove myself that much more or work that much harder for people to accept I have a very good brain in my head. It's all things I need to work on further for myself, but at the moment it's feeling like a bomb ticking in my head. I'm piling so much pressure on myself to not just pass, but to get a good pass. It'll be my first professional qualification and it is the springboard to where I want to go in my career. My colleagues and workplace mentor have been really supportive and are constantly telling me they know I'm good enough and that I can do it, but somehow that's making me feel worse rather than better.
I realise this is not a unique situation at all, but it's the first time I've encountered it, and at the moment it feels like a lot. We've got the official mock exam in three weeks and then a further six weeks to the real thing in for revision and practice. Mr Not a Blacksmith has a set of typed up revision questions he asked for to test me on, and others have offered the same, so I have a lot of support. I think deep down I can do it, but boy has it woken up the demons in my head.
This post has been edited by TheRetiredBridgeburner: 23 November 2023 - 10:46 AM
Help
