The Wrong Target - When Freelance Invoices Go Unpaid, and Rage Takes the Mic

Office Hours with Patrick

Stuck on your website, portfolio, pricing, marketing, or business strategy?

Office Hours is a one-on-one, 60-ish minute conversation to help you work through whatever you’re trying to figure out. No agenda. No curriculum. No pitch. Just honest feedback, thoughtful questions, and a fresh perspective.

Learn more or book your session:

https://theterriblecreative.com/office-hours

One phone call. One late invoice. One moment of controlled but very real rage. In this episode, I unpack a recent client conflict that left me feeling powerful, anxious, vindicated—and deeply uncomfortable. It’s not about being right. It’s about what happens when your nervous system hijacks your ethics, and you end up blowing up the wrong bridge.

Social psychologist Jamie Hughes joins to help me understand what the hell happened inside my brain—and how anger, justice, trauma, dopamine, and freelance stress all get tangled up when money’s tight and respect feels scarce.

It’s about accountability. It’s about empathy. It’s about not turning into the thing you’re fighting.

“You can’t cuss out the situation. So sometimes, we just need someone to unload our stress on.” — Jamie Hughes

Listen if you’ve ever:

• Been ghosted by a client after delivering your best work.
• Sent an email you were 90% sure you’d regret—but hit send anyway.
• Felt the righteous, electric satisfaction of finally standing up for yourself… and then the quiet shame that followed.
• Wondered why you get excited when you’re angry, even though your whole body is on fire.

Featuring:

• The HPA axis and why your shoulders hurt when you’re mad
• ADHD and justice sensitivity (why fairness feels life-or-death)
• How financial pressure rewires your empathy
• Why anger feels good… and why that should scare you
• What empathy actually looks like when the system sucks
• The guilt that follows a justified overreaction

Special Guest:

Jamie Hughes

Social Psychologist, Trauma Specialist, and Certified Life Coach

📲 @managing.mental.health

🔗 Website + Resources: beacons.ai/managing_mental_health

📩 Got a story?

If you’ve ever burned a bridge and still think about it in the shower five years later, I’d love to hear it.

Not to fix it. Not to absolve you. Just to witness it.

👉 Email: patrick@terriblephotographer.com

💬 Help Me Be Terrible, Together:

If this episode hit you, leave a review on Apple Podcasts. I’ll probably read it on air in the most awkward, self-deprecating way possible.

Music Licensed via Epidemic Sound and Artlist.io