Quitting: A Personal History

With the announcement of the resignation Alaska Governor Sarah Palin last weekend, I’ve been reminded of times in my life when I’ve considered quitting.

My first try at college was in 1992, and I found out pretty quickly that it’s almost impossible to be in an abusive relationship and do well in school. My abuser lived on campus with me and much of my freshman year was spent in terror. The next year, I decided to drop out and move home to live with my parents. I remember feeling like a failure and wondering if I would ever go back to school. Two years later, I experienced one of the worst days of my life when I found out that my college boyfriend had killed himself. A few months after his death, I decided to quit my minimum wage job and go back to college.

My transition back to college was not a smooth one. My transcript was marred with bad grades. The admissions representative said that I could take classes for one semester on a conditional basis and if my grades were good enough, I would be accepted as a degree-seeking student. After one semester with a 3.925 grade point average, I was in.

Four years later, I graduated with honors. A few weeks after my graduation, I had the most severe episode of panic disorder that I’d ever experienced in my life. It was absolutely debilitating. I felt like a shell of my former self and I was afraid that I would never be able to function again. I was waiting to hear about a few grad school applications, and was afraid that I was going to be too sick to start grad school in the fall.

An acceptance letter from a grad school in New York City arrived in the mail at the same time that an acceptance letter for a grad program from my hometown college arrived. I decided to quit living in my hometown and to move to New York City so that I could study social work in an urban setting.

During my 3rd semester in grad school in Manhattan, I experienced something that shook me to my core: September 11, 2001. I remember thinking, “I am trapped on an island that is being attacked by terrorists, everyone and everything around me is falling apart, I don’t know if it’s safe to go to my dorm in Harlem or to my internship in lower Manhattan, maybe I should just quit school and go back home.” In the weeks and months after what most New Yorkers referred to at the time as “the tragedy,” I remember wanting to turn around and go home every time I saw armed national guardsmen patrolling the streets and the subway stations, every time I looked up in the sky and saw war planes flying overhead, every time I had to put on a pair of rubber gloves to open the mail, and every time someone I went to school with chastised me for my opposition to a US military response to the terrorist attacks. But I didn’t quit. I graduated.

There have been many times since then that I’ve thought about quitting. Should I quit the job where my boss is treating me terribly or should I stay and try to work things out? Should I quit living in New York City because I am having a difficult time finding work and am running out of money? Should I face potential failure in trying something new or should I continue doing something that’s not working?

My work at St. Anthony’s has given me the honor of meeting people who have made courageous decisions to quit, as well as people who have made equally courageous decisions to never give up. I’ve met moms who wondered if they should I leave their abusive partners even if it meant that they will be homeless; newly-arrived immigrants who decided to leave their homelands to seek better economic opportunities; drug users contemplating quitting and getting sober but wondering if they can stay sober long enough to wait for a slot in a free treatment program to open up; unemployed people who tell me they are never going to give up trying to find a job; people struggling with mental illness who are considering whether they can face potential failure in trying to go to school or get a job while dealing with their illness. No matter what the circumstance, there is one thing that we should never quit doing: having faith in ourselves. It’s easier said than done, and it’s difficult to have faith in yourself when you feel like you’re all alone. I am glad to be a part of St. Anthony Foundation, where we give hope and support to people who need it and where we are part of a community that helps remind people that they’re not alone.