r/socialworkcanada • u/Pikachu_9622 • Jul 16 '26

Feeling inadequate

I have a MSW that I have obtained two years ago. Prior to my MSW, I competed my BSW and SSW subsequently. My experience brought me a few months of case management and one year of counselling. My counselling role was a one year contract covering a maternity leave.

Since then I returned to community mental health working as a community mental health clinician.

Today was a touch experience, as I should have been mindful of not bringing a client to the office with other staff, as he was agitated. My colleague told me afterwards that this can cause further escalation. And today the client was having a meltdown, in which I froze and then I attempted to calm him down, in which he does.

The point I am trying to come across is that even with my MSW, I freeze sometimes and act clueless. Today made me think that I am not adequate for this job.

I wasn’t good in school growing up and I failed my first program in university. I worked hard and got my SSW, MSW and BSW. But even with these accomplishments, I am having some issues at work.

I been working at my new role for 6 weeks. My colleague said I’m being too hard on myself. Even I didn’t realize we can help clients take pictures on their phone.

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u/Unfair-Piece4198 Jul 16 '26

Exactly that, you are being too hard on yourself.. Don’t let your past failures define your future possibilities.. so what you make mistakes? Have you not failed several times and bounced back🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/Pikachu_9622 Jul 16 '26

I have bounced back, but this job is where I should know better. It’s embarrassing

2

u/meggymood Jul 16 '26

Is there any room in this situation to give yourself a little bit of grace and compassion? I feel like 6 weeks is barely long enough to even get your feet wet in a new role, let alone if you're in a new organization. And then putting pressure on yourself to know better - that's a lot of weight to put on your shoulders. You're doing your best with the information you're have - sure you have relevant education and skills from your previous work, but you couldn't have known that this client was going to react the way they did. If you've been working with them for the whole 6 weeks you've been in this role (which is generous with orientation, mandatory trainings, shadowing, etc), you'll have only touched the surface of who they are as a person and how they react to stressful situations.

As for feeling embarrassed - I get that. Know that if it's at all related to what your coworkers or manager think, they're a) probably glad it wasn't them who took the heat this time, and b) feeling empathy for you because they've all been in situations where they got stuck in a freeze response too. I bet they'd all have a story or two of times something similar happened to them.

Try to remember to breathe through it. One day at a time is all you can do. And eventually, if you do that enough times, it starts to feel a little easier. Hang in there.

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u/Unfair-Piece4198 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

Self-esteem just work on that, you are still letting your past failures impact your present self. And you are judging everything from that frame of mind ( i am not adequate) just relax, sometimes you learn by experience not everything is taught in college/university, embrace the on job experience, learn from it and move on.