The act of accepting a coffee drink, much less making one, was terrifying to Janice (she/her) and symbolic of so much more. But Janice knew it was the right time to lean into this fear when she enrolled in FareStart’s Barista & Customer Service Program.
Making coffee drinks – measuring the espresso, steaming the milk, getting the temperature right, adding the correct ingredients – was something Janice very much wanted to learn. But it felt daunting and scary. “On the inside, I had many fears that just don’t make sense to an ordinary person,” Janice said.
Even the sheer act of accepting the free coffee drink that students in FareStart’s Barista & Customer Service program are offered every day was terrifying to Janice. “I have OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and have a lot of trouble trying things. At the time, I couldn’t go to my family’s house and even drink the water. So to be able to order a drink and have other people touch my drink and make a drink for me was just way out there. The fact that the drink was free and offered to me was also really scary because it made me feel like I was wasting an opportunity.”
From Thorn to Rose
“It was major exposure therapy for me, but nobody told me to take the drink,” said Janice. “When that freedom was given to me and I had the choice to make the move or not, somehow that openness helped me make the decision for myself. And not only did I gain confidence by doing that, but I really took back my power. I challenged myself by trying a few drinks — in the beginning it was teas and then I graduated to decaf and then eventually coffee. It became something that I loved and really appreciated — a thorn for me in the past, but then it became a rose.”
Janice also confronted her fears of making espresso drinks during her on-the-job training at the FareStart Café. “My thorn for the longest time was steaming milk. I just couldn’t get it right” she said. But she learned to lean into the fear, accept help and persevere. “Achieving the steamed milk thing really made me feel like I did something. I did honest work. I started from scratch, and I told people that I was struggling with something and was really vulnerable with that, and they were willing to help me. And it took so many tries and trials and errors, but at the end of the day, I was consistent and showed up every day and one day it just bloomed. And so I felt really happy and really proud of myself, not just for the steamed milk, but for asking for help. That thorn became a rose for me.”
Breaking Free of Her Demons
Janice is in a much healthier and more stable spot since she moved back to Seattle from Hawaii two years ago. Her OCD and eating disorder had become progressively worse while she was away, forcing her to drop out of school and leaving her feeling trapped and powerless to enjoy her life. “There was always this to-do list of things that I had to do or else,” Janice recalls. “It’s like there’s this other person commanding you to do something, and if you don’t do it, then you have all these consequences and you become enslaved to it. There is usually a number involved where you start to do these measurements on yourself, and it slowly builds up and it just gets really mentally and physically draining.”
She has worked hard ever since to regain control of her life. She began to open up about her illness, and in so doing, started to gain a little bit of freedom. “If you tell the truth, it is really scary and you feel this guilt, but then it feels really freeing to just say it like it is.”
Enrolling in the FareStart program came at exactly the right time in her recovery. “I think when you’re so sick, you don’t even know what you want, you’re just kind of like, I don’t have the energy to even do the things that I love. But when I saw that FareStart flyer, I realized that I was kind of ready for something. I wanted to go on some kind of journey because I felt ready for something new in my life.”
Healing From the Inside Out
Janice embraced her healing during her time at FareStart. “I felt so accepted there in my rawest form, and that meant so much to me,” Janice said. Students in FareStart’s job training programs receive a variety of services and support to help them move forward on their path to stability. For Janice, that took the form of a community of trainers and case managers who offered her nothing but acceptance, patience and encouragement, as well as coaching in how to center herself and commit to her strengths and interests.
“I felt like my time in the program was doing something inside me. It wasn’t just about learning about coffee; it made me feel like I was gaining a new life. I felt like I was given hope by these people.”
FareStart helped Janice identify and focus on what mattered most to her. “Energetic, honest and curious; those are my three core words that I would like to carry with me for the rest of my life,” Janice said. “I feel like I was always those three things, but FareStart helped me to really solidify and go after them. Everything before was so scattered and there were so many options that I felt stuck. But FareStart really helped me to organize everything and narrow down my roads to a few options so that I could get a more solid perspective on where I was and where I wanted to go.”
The Next Step in Her Journey
With the help of FareStart’s career specialists, Janice was also able to focus her job search and fine tune her resume so that she could apply for jobs with confidence. Janice is now working three different jobs: fulfilling online orders at a grocery store, working as a barista at a specialty coffee shop, and working as a baker at a dessert and bubble tea shop.
Janice loves baking as an artistic expression and a way of connecting with people and would love to open her own business like the vegan cookie line called Miracle Cookies that she started in Hawaii. Eventually Janice hopes to realize her dream of owning her own bakery, café or small market with her sister. “I love making something for someone. You don’t have to pay me. I just love doing that. So I think my dream, whatever it is, I just want to serve people.”
“I feel like I’ve come out of my tunnel,” Janice said. “Now my life really feels like it’s moving somewhere, whereas before I was just so stuck and didn’t even know how to start. FareStart helped me to get on a path, to start down some kind of road. I feel really happy right now and I have a lot of hope moving forward.”
