Putting on My Mask: Building My Career
It wasn’t until I stepped away for a “sabbatical” the summer of 2024 that I realized how addicted I was to the stress, anxiety, and pure chaos that was the pharmaceutical research industry. I had spent the past 14 years building a career purely driven by the need to be recognized, admired, and in control. I was part of an industry that is driven by exploitation of resources and greed. Because I was so hell bent on being the “perfect” employee I was an easy target. I have lived my life feeding off the compliments of others, the admiration of others to get me through because my inner voice was so harsh. I needed to not only meet my metrics, but beat them. I needed to be able to juggle more than anyone else. I needed to respond to everyone not only within the deadline, but early. I couldn’t be on-time for the meeting, I had to be 5 minutes early whenever possible. I didn’t miss a timesheet, a training, nothing. I was as perfect as one can be. Any time I made a mistake I would allow it to consume me. It would overtake my mind completely. I would run scenario after scenario of how I would loose my job or what people would think of me because I made a mistake. I would imagine that they thought I was the worst employee and person they had ever worked with and they hated me.
I started out the bottom as those of us do that aren’t ‘nepo babies.’ Since I went straight from undergraduate to grad school I started my job hunt over qualified educationally with no experience outside of retail and waiting tables. I also walked into every interview on crutches with a full length leg brace. I was turned down job after job. I desperately took a sales job working for nothing but commission knocking on doors. Can you imagine? I was just off crutches by this point, about to run out of money and desperate. I tried to go door to door at different businesses selling them advertising on a search engine no one had ever heard of at the height of “Google It.” I lasted all of 6 weeks before I found a job behind a desk at a research site- basically a doctors office for pharmaceutical trials to be tested on patients.
My undergraduate degree was in marketing and I have a Master’s in Business, I was hired on as the business development and marketing person. I ended up doing a bit of everything. Answering the phones and checking in patients during the receptionists lunch break, collecting signatures from doctors at our neighboring primary care facilities, data entry, audit prep, shopping trips to buy gifts for the president- truly a little bit of everything. I wanted everyone to like me and think I was perfect so I allowed them to take advantage of my flexibility, eagerness to please, my need to be liked, and my efficiency.
You see my whole life I have been efficient in a way that most people aren’t. I am able to do 2 or 3 or 4 things all at once at the pace it takes some people the time to do one. I didn’t realize until I started to really heal that it was a coping mechanism for me. In high school I would clean my grandparents house. They had hired professional cleaners in the past, but my grandmother would swear I was twice as fast and as good. When I focused on so many tasks at once it didn’t allow my brain time to wonder, to really think too deep, it allowed me to just focus on the present and my future worries vs. my past struggles so I would immerse myself fully in whatever I was doing. It was one way I kept myself safe. The more external chaos that surrounded me and my thoughts- the less likely I was to remember things I didn’t want to give myself time to remember. As far as I was concerned, my life started the day I met my parter Coleman when I was 22 and not a second before. I rarely if ever talked about my life before that and if asked, I would stick to college and never bring up my life before then in most cases unless it was to tell a tale that was safe to tell. One that didn’t hurt my perfect image. One that many times was exaggerated or parts left out- because the truth was that I didn’t remember much at all. Not many happy things at least. It’s like they were erased with the bad ones because they overlapped in such unbearable ways.
A year after touching every part of the research site I was ready to transition into the other side of the industry and run the actual studies. I got my first job at the global leader in the industry as a Clinical Trial Assistant (CTA). There were probably 60 or so of us in the office, everyone was in their early 20s. The RTP area of North Carolina is extremely competitive, unlike anything this small town girl had experienced before. I had only lived the slow beach and mountain life. I was introduced the the lions den, the Mean Girls did not lose their edge in college. This drove me into my need to be the best CTA they had ever seen. I found ways to multi-task, to be more efficient at tracking, filing, taking minutes than my colleagues. Within six months of starting my job I was training new hires and summer interns. I was leading global trainings for pharmaceutical partnerships that were client facing when most people in my role never spoke to the client. I was constantly praised by those I worked under on the team for going above and beyond and being “one of the best.” I thrived off of the feedback, the acknowledgement, the praise. It was something I didn’t experience from either of my parents, at home my brother was the smart, successful, talented one.
Within the first year I had my sights set on being a Project Manager (PM). They were the star of the show on the studies we worked on. Everyone respected them, everyone went to them for questions, they seemed to know everything, they were the clients go-to, they were the most important person on the team. I worked with my managers to set goals and my PMs on my studies to take on additional tasks beyond my role to get the experience I needed to move up. Because I was so eager, efficient and good at my job everyone was happy to give me additional work from their own plate. Within 1.5 years I had moved up to be a Project Associate which was the right hand to the PM. I spent one year in that role before I was moved up to Associate Project Manager, I made it.
I spent the next decade being moved from one high stakes project with super aggressive timelines and a demanding client in start-up to another. Very rarely getting to stay on a study when stress is not at its highest. The few times I did get the luxury of being out of start-up, I would have unexpected data deliverables given to me last minute that were critical and highly visible to my senior management. I could never seem to catch a break. I found myself working longer and longer hours as the years went by. Some weeks were 60-70+. It was like a badge of honor for me though. The more tired, over-worked, yet successful I was- i.e. making more and more money- the more I thought people would think I was worthy of being liked, of being alive. I needed to find a reason to be alive. I was addicted to the stress and anxiety that being in this type of environment brought. If my team missed a deadline or something went wrong, I typically received an earful from someone and usually it was not pleasant. Most people are not understanding of any errors in the industry. It’s almost as if they expected us to be super humans who can do no wrong. Year after year the job wore on me more and more. I started to see that while my senior leaders would sing my praises to get me to do what they needed, they didn’t actually care about me as a person.
I worked for a year at this smaller company that a colleague of mine referred me over to after becoming a project manager. Within my first few months I was sent across the country to California for a kick-off meeting for a new study with a new client for the company. I was accompanied by my senior project manager as we were to partner together to run these studies and a senior director along with my functional leads from other departments scoped to be on the study. After our meeting as a few of us gathered in the hotel to have a snack and drink before we headed for the airports to catch out flights, my (male) senior director sat down at the table and started making comments about my body. At the time I was my smallest- due to exercise bulimia and an overstrict diet- and he continued to point that out. “You are so tiny.” “Why are you so small?” “You must work out all the time?” “Do you even eat?” “What size are your clothes?” This man was not only my superior, but twice my age. As he made these comments he looked at me like I was a snack, his voice suggestive. The other two colleagues sitting at the table, also women, both visibly uncomfortable. I laughed him off uncomfortably- as we women know so well how to do- and tried to avoid any response. When I got back to our home office, I spoke with my manager about the incident and how uncomfortable it made me feel- he was also a man and didn’t think it deemed going to HR. He said he would handle it for me. In the end all that he did was call him to downplay the story and my experience. The VP called me without anyone else on the line to apologize, but in a threatening way to put me back in my place and I had to continue to work under him for the next year.
I have bounced around from company to company running from the overwhelm, the stress, and the moral corruption chasing titles and money. It only led me to feel less and less fulfilled as I felt more and more used by organizations as they grew larger and larger.- seemingly consumed by greed, power and shareholder demands. The only part of my job that kept me there were the people. I found friendship in many people I worked with. I cared about most everyone I worked with. I was invested in their success, their lives, being there for them in a way that most others in my position at work were not. I heard time and time again from people on my teams or that I mentored how much they appreciated me. I was respected as a leader and received glowing yearly reviews from my peers. That admiration, that confirmation that I was a “good girl” was what kept me in a soul sucking industry for so long. I needed that external validation for survival. It’s what kept me moving forward when I felt like there was no possible way I could sign on another day.
I bought in fully to the corporate world. I bought into thinking I was actually helping people by working on pharmaceutical trials in gastroenterology and oncology trying to find new medicines that would help sick patients. I wanted to be part of the healing. I knew I could never be a doctor or a nurse, I am not wired that way, , but I also knew that I wanted to help people. The more years I spent and the higher I got in the industry, the more I realized that I was one of the few that was there for the people. As I had to stand by and watch a pharmaceutical company decide to strip patients away of coverage of a $10k a month drug that was required for participation in their trial. As I had to stand by and count the number of deaths we had in order to hit our study level goals and could then perform a data analysis. As I sat in meetings where all that mattered was the bottom line, the budget, not the patient… This wasn’t what I signed up for… I came in to heal, not hurt. It was time to step away, to forge a new path. One in which I was truly helping people, regardless of the money and accolades.
“You'd kill yourself for recognition
Kill yourself to never, ever stop
You broke another mirror
You're turning into something you are not
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry
Don't leave me high
Don't leave me dry”
- ‘High and Dry’ by Radiohead
Bring on the Abundance Spell Jar
The abundance jar is powerful if your goals align with your highest good and are not driven by greed. Designed to help with organization, stimulate your imagination for creation and invention, draw in abundance, boost your self-confidence, grounding negative energies that counteract your highest good, attract fortune, love, and prosperity, and purify the energies around you.
Ingredients:
Red Jasper chips
Citrine chips
Basil
Peppermint
Glass jar with natural top (cork, wood, etc.)
Candle or wax pellets (green and/or gold)
Incense
Adornment & string to attach it with (optional)
Examples: seashell, crystal, pendant
Wax seal/stamp (optional)
What to Do:
Start by opening up sacred space and asking your spirit team to assist you during the spell jar process
Create a circle of salt in a dish on your alter to surround your glass jar
Cleanse your glass jar with incense after it is placed in the center of the salt circle imagining all negative energies leaving the jar
Add ingredients 1 by 1 into the jar. As you work with each one ensure that you are placing the intentions (listed in the chart below) for each ingredient and thanking the spirit of the plant/flower/crystal you are working with
Once all ingredients are added, add top to bottle, place adornment (if needed) and seal with wax. While pouring wax place the following intentions:
Green wax= material growth, good luck, abundance
Gold wax= fame, fortune, abundance, power, success
(optional) Stamp top of wax with seal
Close sacred space thanking your spirit team. Give organic ingredients back to the Earth safely and dispose of any others as appropriate.
Place the spell jar in the back left corner of your house for the best results!
Ingredient Metaphysical Properties:
Red Jasper= Helps with organization, stimulate imagination for creation
Citrine= Attracting abundance, self-confidence, grounding negative energy
Money Rice= Bring in abundance
Basil= Attract fortune, love, prosperity
Peppermint= Purification, prosperity, healing
FREE printable version of the Bring on The Abundance spell jar available for download. Not ready to make your own? You can purchase a Bring on the Abundance spell jar here.
