What Grad School Doesn’t Prepare You For: Breaking Free from the System
We stepped into this field with hearts full of hope and fire, ready to hold space for pain and heal wounds. We gave years to education, took on mountains of debt, and sacrificed more than most can imagine for a profession that demands everything from us. Yet, grad school never warned us what this profession would really cost: our health, our mental well-being, our very souls.
Therapist burnout isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a death knell, a systemic betrayal that robs us of the ability to heal others. We’re drowning in a sea of low pay, insurance clawbacks, and the crushing irony of being unable to afford the very care we preach. We’re warriors in a fight no one trained us for, preaching self-care while starving for it ourselves.
The Hustle is Real: Financial Strain Meets Emotional Overload
We work ourselves raw for wages that barely cover our lives, let alone allow us to access quality therapy. Insurance companies? They play us like fools, denying claims, clawing back payments, exploiting our empathy. They know we’re less likely to fight back because that’s not who we are—but maybe it’s time to change that.
Imagine this: the people tasked with helping others heal can’t afford to heal themselves. That’s not irony—it’s brutality. It’s a system that feeds off our compassion until there’s nothing left to give. We become hollow versions of ourselves, disconnected from the work we once loved, unable to pour from an empty cup.
As Tupac said, “You gotta make a change. It’s time for us as a people to start making some changes.” This system ain’t built to save us—it’s built to grind us down. We gotta step out and rebuild something new, something that works for us and not just the machine.
Jay-Z’s words echo the truth: “You can’t heal what you don’t reveal.” How can we heal others when we’re too broken to heal ourselves?
The Truth: We’re Carrying More Than We Can Hold
Here’s the raw truth: many of us came into this field to heal not just others but ourselves. Studies show that mental health professionals carry higher rates of depression, anxiety, and even suicidal thoughts than the general population.
We take on our clients’ pain.
We bear the weight of our own trauma.
We walk tightropes of empathy, pretending we’re unbreakable.
But here’s the thing—we are breakable. And when we break, the system doesn’t care. It’ll just move on to the next batch of wide-eyed grads, ready to bleed for a profession that won’t bleed for them.
Kendrick Lamar’s lyric hits hard here: “Ain’t nobody praying for me.” Who is looking out for us? Who ensures we can keep going?
Burn It Down to Build It Right
We’re not just burned out. We’re done. Done with pretending yoga fixes everything, done with eating clawbacks from insurance companies like scraps from the table. This system is broken, and the only way forward is to burn it down and rebuild. Malcolm X said it best: “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress. Progress is healing the wound.” The wound is deep, and no bandaid is gonna fix it.
Here’s what we need to do:
Demand fair pay for the work we do—work that saves lives.
Refuse to absorb clawbacks without a fight. This money is ours, earned through sweat and tears.
Invest in our own healing. This isn’t selfish—it’s survival. We can’t pour into others if we’re empty.
As Nipsey Hussle once said, “If you look at the people in your circle and don’t get inspired, you don’t have a circle. You have a cage.” It’s time to break free of the cages this system puts us in.
Therapists Deserve to Heal Too
Let’s be real: this isn’t about asking for a handout. It’s about demanding respect. We deserve the same quality of care we give to others. We deserve systems that don’t crush us under the weight of their inefficiencies. And we deserve to show up to our work as whole, supported humans—not shadows of ourselves.
As Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” Now we know better. We see the system for what it is. So let’s do better—for ourselves, for each other, and for the clients who depend on us.
Let’s Build Something New
It’s time to walk away from the brokenness and create something that uplifts us. Let’s leave behind the status quo and build a profession that values the healers as much as the healing.
Imagine a world where therapists are thriving, not just surviving.
Where we can afford the therapy we need, the time to rest, the space to grow.
Where we heal ourselves, so we can heal others.
As Biggie said, “We can’t change the world unless we change ourselves.” Let’s start with us.
Heal the healers, or we heal no one. This isn’t just a plea—it’s a revolution. Let’s rise together, fight together, and build a future that honors us all.
References
Psychology Today. (2023). Mental Health Among Mental Health Practitioners.
AAMC. (2023). Out of the Shadows: Physicians Share Their Mental Health Struggles.
Frontiers. (2021). Prioritizing the Mental Health and Well-Being of Healthcare Workers: An Urgent Global Public Health Priority.
AAMC. (2023). A Growing Psychiatrist Shortage and Enormous Demand for Mental Health Services.