…bur once couldn’t. How did you get there
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i don’t socialize but i do work. necessity is the mother of invention – i mentally had to work for my sanity….
judy
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I’m 64 and I’ve been working since about 1983; 43 years. I didn’t work for the first 2 1/2 years after I got diagnosed.
For me, I became employed again after a series of small steps. I got out of the hospital in January of 1983 and moved into a nice, heavily structured group home in an affluent city near San Francisco. Part of the requirement of living in this group home was everybody had to have a daytime activity that they went to at least 4 days a week. There were 7 of us and some people had jobs and some people went to college but when I moved in I went down the street to the vocational program run by the same agency that ran the group home.
At the vocational program there were between 13 and 14 clients and we met at 9:00 in the morning and stayed until 3 in the afternoon, there were 4 counselors who ran the classes and groups we attended and besides the classes everybody had to do one of two projects that we rotated through very four months. One project was doing mail projects for the post office.
The head of the vocational program contracted with the post office to deliver 2 or 3 huge sacks of mail and we did stuff like put stamps on them or address labels or collated and put flyers in envelopes. The other projects was doing yard work for private parties in the community. We had our own lawn mower and other equipment and we would load up two vans in the morning and the counselors would drive us around town to our clients houses and we would mow and rake their lawns and trim hedges and sweep and weed and other things.
The counselors would assign one of us to be be the leader of the yard work crew. So that was the first step I took in becoming employed again, I ran one of the gardening crews.
At the vocational grounds we had a lunch service set up. Every day at lunch the people in charge of the food would go shopping and buy stuff for sandwiches and yogurts and fruit and soup etc and prepare them. Every morning these clients would take lunch orders and then collect the money at lunchtime. The counselors got hold of an old cash register and the clients would take turns running the cash register.
That was my next step, they assigned me to run the cash register for two months. Then the next step was taking care of the vocational programs grounds. I was picked out of everybody to take care of the landscaping and whatever needed to be done on the outside. I did that for two months.
The agency that ran the vocational program had their office downtown and they hired one client every month and a half to come to the office and clean. That was my next step, I was chosen to do this so once a week I would catch a bus downtown and go to the offices and vacuum, empty trash cans, wipe tables and desks and clean the restroom. We did all the other stuff I mentioned for free but for this job they paid $30 a month.
I was only supposed to do it for 6 weeks but they liked me so much that after the six weeks was up they extended it to another 6 weeks. I should say here that I never volunteered for any of these things and I didn’t really want to do them but I was a good patient/client and did what I was told.
Finally, one day the counselors asked me if I wanted a job working at this hot tub joint. These were popular during the ‘80’s where there were places that rented out private rooms with hot tubs in them and you paid $5 or $10 to soak in one for a hour or an hour and half. There was one of these places near the vocational program and the owners contracted with the agency to hire two of us clients to work there.
It was a real job and we were hired to work there three months and they would rotate in new people every three months but the owners liked both of us so much they kept us on for four years! I was hired to do general maintenance of the building: painting, cleaning, vacuuming, scrubbing walls, draining and filling up the hot tubs, keeping the equipment room clean and whatever else needed to be done.
Yeah, that was my first real job after being sick for 2 1/2 years. I stayed there through psychosis, depression, fatigue, and drug addiction. I eventually got fired but it was a big part of my life in my mid twenties. I still have nighttime dreams about the place occasionally with the bosses and people who worked there in them.
After I got fired my friend got me a job at his restaurant and I worked there two days before another friend got me a job at his restaurant that payed more. And I’ve been working ever since. So I became employed after a series of small steps. I might never have become employed again or at least not for a long time but the counselors at the vocational program saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself and they gave me those positions with more and more responsibility until eventually I started working again.
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Thanks for sharing this Nick. It is good to have you on the forum
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thats a big accomplishment bro! … i hoenstly dont know how your so steady with work… im ok for a few months then i invariably get voices from the stress of work etc….
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Honestly I was doing ok when I was working only 2 hours per day 4 days a week as a facilitator during lunch time at a kindergarten and elementary school
I had sometimes anxiety that made me locked myself at home but most of days I was doing ok
But since 1st December I have been working 8 hours per day 4 days a week (because I have a second job now I’m a helper for students with disability in a kindergarten) and since then my mental and physical health are not good
I don’t think it’s necessarily because I work longer, it’s because my working conditions at my second job are not good
I do things I shouldn’t do, I have a colleague nagging me for everything and people give me remarks for stupid things like I sat during recess, I was told I was late even though I wasn’t
It makes me so anxious
I look forward my days off every day , and when I need to come back at work I don’t want to, I’m anxious
I started to cry I don’t want to come back at work
I plan to talk to the director of the school I work to to improve my working conditions
And I will talk to my psychiatrist and doctor about that
If my working conditions don’t improve I will resign or ask for a sick leave
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After my first psychosis, I actually started out socializing again on here…
I also got on tinder after awhile to just start practicing talking to men again as well..
Ended up meeting my husband on there after almost a year.
I also got on bumble friends to try and meet girlfriends.. like friends that are girls.
I eventually just got out of the funk and started socializing in person again.
But I think the online socializing really helped in the beginning
I set small achievable goals. When I hit them I made more goals. When I was hitting the small goals easily I started making bigger goals that took more work. I tracked everything in my recovery journal because sometimes the progress is so slow you can’t see it without the paper trail. That’s what kept me from giving up because the forward movement was always there, but often so slow I couldn’t see it without help.
I work remotely
Has worked very well for me
Have not had any major relapses since but I do take clozapine around same time
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Can I ask what you do as a job?
Did a mental health organization help you get the job?
Me too want to resign, but as long as I work no more than 3 days a week, it is still okay for me. I work as delivery rider and it is very dangerous on the road, sometimes have to carry two steering rack (automotive part) using small motorbike to very far location.
I hope your work condition improves.
Thank you
I hope you keep being safe, and that if you have the occasion you can find a better job
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I was doing well at work but I started beliving foreign agents were stealing classified information from my mind. I worked in DoD and had a TS clearance. I just stopped logging in to work during covid and then resigned.
I didn’t work for 10 years. Then 2 years ago I changed the meds I’m taking and my new regimen calms me down enough to work part time.
I’m still paranoid and still told I’m delusional. But I am calm enough to try to work
While at work I sometimes get super intense paranoid thoughts, and I struggle. My nerves get the best of me and sometimes I literally shake from anxiety.
But I go in and do my best. I’m finding I’m so exhausted I often don’t have the energy for anything else on the days I work.
The good thing is I’m less ashamed of myself
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I’m going to try to work this year. Now that I’m on my own my bills are going to add up. Socializing has gotten easier because I speak publicly about my experiences, especially with my family. The more you name your illness the more you master it.
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