working in law

[ladyymm]

Hi all,

I have OCD and PTSD from an emotionally abusive childhood. I have been going to therapy for 7 years and it helps to a degree. In elementary and high school I was a very good student, but in my last year of high school all crashed. I started to have ocd and anxiety etc. I studied law and I finished it, but have done so also moing to another university, considered "easier". But my way of studying totally changed when I changed uni, because I somehow managed to reinvent myself and focus just on the important stuff in the literature. When I was in the original university I was a wreck, depressed, ocd ridden and lost, and feeling "out". Despite being a good student in my past, I studied a lot. My peers studied far less than me and oftentime obtained similar results.

For a series of circumstances I am now working in my father's company. He ignores me and since he is an enabler and an emotionally absent person,it is natural for him to put me in the lowest position of administrative work, while he could give me many more opportunities. But this is what it is, he does what he knows and I will move away. I am just waiting for my husbands job to get a bit more stable and I am gone. I have been preparing for this for a long time. I plan to leave and study for the statal exam for lawyers, which takes cca 4 months and then find a job in the legal area. Where I live to have a decent job in law you must have said statal exam for lawyers they say.

I'm in my mid 30s and until now I had just 1 year of experience in legal work and a short apprenticeship in court. Since this seems to be my karma, also the boss in my 1 year job liked to give me just some administrative jobs which had rarely much to do with law, so I never had a full immersion taste of the legal profession. But from what I worked there, I concluded then that maybe being a lawyer was not the best option for me, and later sometimes I thought also I could be apt to be a lawyer . But all in all its an endless circle in my mind. I thought it was a self esteem thing but it is not just that.

My impediments are the following:

-for me all the arguments are the same and have a hard time deciding what argument has weight,

- I have problems thinking logically. I don't know how to prove that but I sometimes have no logic when things are logic. I have a hard time getting the "point " of things

- I make quite a few spelling mistakes and I am talking of a paragraph copied and pasted twice and similar. When I had a short apprenticeship in court also the judge who was reviewing my work said ah this spelling mistakes you can't have them. Most legal texts are on a high level of writing, with zero mistakes. And I review and review but the mistakes come up and my eye can't catch them.

- I have a problem making long texts, like legal texts, where you have to convey something through a structure. I have difficulty following the line of the narrative.

- also, sometimes I have bouts of obsessive thoughts and in those days im out/anxious/can't focus,

- can't sit still and focus if things don't encaptivate me. And lets be real a job is a job and many times you have to push through some less interesting stuff.

When I talking something from myself, like now, expressing myself in writing is not such a big problem. Also to express myself about simple questions is not a problem. But I think in the legal scenario, the weaknesses I listed are a true problem.

People may say ah this is normal or something. But I feel my deficits are heavy and they block me. I don't now if they can be solved or what to do.

I feel I can't go leave my job go do the statal exam (which also btw costs) and then opt for a legal job with the listed problems weighing so hard on me.

If I find out the problems I wrote about are part of my nature, I will accept it. If they are some kind of handicap I will adapt. Once more, I will turn my life around, but what I need now is closure. After years of introspection on the subject, I don't feel I have a problem of low self esteem, but some kind of problem with my brain's focus and attention.

I would appreciate your thoughts on my situation.

Thank you!