Do Any of the Schizophrenics In Here Have Jobs? (Page 1)

I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder when I was 19. Since then I have worked in at several jobs...

I worked in a factory and they wanted to hire me on as an actual factory employee instead of the temporary agency, and did a background check, and I lost the promotion and my job. I had worked there around 6 months.

I had a record for 2 years while I was on probation for charges I recieved in an episode.

After that I worked in a restaurant as a waiter, and I got fired again... I actually had an episode while at work, wow that was scary.

I ended up working there 6 months as well.

Now im a waiter again in a very good restaurant chain, I like this job alot and it makes me feel less schizophrenic. I just need to stay on my meds, which make my job alot worse.. dealing with the side effects.

Alot of people diagnosed with schizphrenia are still functional under medication, I dont think its wrong at all to ask a schizophrenic to work unless the conditions are just too bad.

I had been working on and off while in my prodromal phase of schizophrenia. I was planting trees in the North of Canada in the summer, and living off unemployment insurance (which turned out to be quite high because I was earning a lot) the rest of the year. So during the rest of the year I was developing my artistic and scholarly projects. Then I had a major episode which pretty much destroyed me for a number of years. During the episode I had the distinct feeling that all this was happening because I wasn't working. I then got disability welfare and spent a couple of years at a friend's house being catatonic on a couch just watching TV. Then I got a little better - I was able to do some stuff - but I still had a lot of bad moments. One day I went to a church (even though I wasn't very religious anymore) to pray to Holy Mary to heal me. The same day I started feeling the devil in me (though I did have some devil stuff happening before that) and started descending into a deplorable condition. The devil was supposedly there because I wasn't working and I heard all sorts of voices imploring me to work. There were also voices saying that I will be healed if I worked. I started to look for a job, but it was coming slow. All I could see was crappy jobs that were too tough for me or too depressing, or requiring skills that I didn't have. Meanwhile I was feeling worse and worse, devillish pinpricks all over the body, my facial muscles moving around, had trouble sleeping and started seeing truly scary visions of devil children wanting to get me. I cannot describe how hellish this was. Finally I got a part-time job and it got a little better, and then I got another one that was more regular, though just 3 hrs a day and slowly the devil stuff disappeared. After a while I quit the job because it was pretty tough and I wasn't feeling in shape. I don't think I ever worked enough to test out the claim that I will be healed if I work. The ironic thing is, that to be healed I was supposed to work, but to work in the first place I would have to be healed.

i hold a job, don't take meds, i think everyone can see how delusional i can be just from some of the things i've posted, and thats the tip of the iceberg. i spend hours a day in the demon world, what do you expect for a mindset in me?

but i have a job, of sorts, i am a computer instructor, just a contractor, most companies in the US won't deal with me because of the sz and the crazy acting out i have done in the past.

so i work for this one firm in california, they put up with the crazy kids and try to make something out of them. and here's the thing: the sz helps. i am the top rated instructor in the country. all my evals say 'best instructor i have ever seen" and things like that. i generate it naturally. totally manic, entertainment presentation. everybody loves me, (at first).

unitek.com. citrix training. i'm "c.m." (for charlie messemer) - check out the evals, the quotes are real, i have a ton more. they say he's energetic, entertaining, full of real world knowledge,

and when i took seroquel, the rave reviews went away. that tells me they are responding to the sz!

the sales guys sell my class by actually advertising my madness! they say "this guy is eccentric, he's totally crazy, but he kows Citrix!" so the students come in staring at me like i'm a circus act. and i give them their money's worth.

i only work one to three weeks a month. can't handle the stress of full time. i have to decomp[ress, with several days off, i go hiking in the mountains, i go to the zoo and talk to the tapir.

-onderdonk

I am glad you can work...although you sound more bipolar than sz. So many people with mental illness don't work or have the menial jobs which can be hard on your ego if you are otherwise intelligent. I think 3 weeks out of 4 is perfectly reasonable. Too many people in America are workaholics anyway. I hope you can handle your "demons" with out meds successfully, it sounds tricky. I wish you all the best.

I had a job as a data entry on a 6 months temporary basis. Then I was lab assistant and this lasted 3 months. I then did a degree in science. I got a 3rd. Then again I went temping and became an administrator. This job lasted 3 months. What I found was I couldn't stick to a full time job. So I worked again as a lab assistant on a 16 hour a week. I also have taken vitamin B-complex. It supposed to help the nerves. The part time lab job lasted 6 years. Susan

i have been on and off work for about 4 years now.. i find it hard to work. i don't have the motivation and my voices come back so it makes it hard for me im still seeing a doctor till this date. but one day i do wish to work and survive in society.

Here I am again Susan. I first became schizophrenia in 1984. I was 19. The doctors told me they caught the illness at an early stage. I was hospitalised for about 3 months and then again for 4 weeks in 1985 December. I needn't have gone the second time but I did a silly thing and stopped taking stelazine for 4 months. After that I have never ever been hospitalised. I know if I stop taking the tablets it will mean back to the boring life in the hospital and not free to do what I want.

I have always been active but not like a working person.
I did a 2 years course and missed a few classes. The lecturers were sympathetic but not all the students. I knew the students wouldn't be that is why I didn't talk about my illness. Anyway I got the minimum grade,and I passed.

That certificate gave a slight boost to my self-esteem. It was very flat before.

Achieving something or working stops me thinking I am an 'untouchable' person and I have nothing to provide to society. I pay my taxes and my NI. It makes me feel worthy to survive another decade.

I am a schizophrenia and I hold a valid driving license. The driving license has to be renewed every 4 years. I have a car to travel to work and for domestic reasons. I have been driving for 11 years.

I had driving lessons and had failed my driving test before I came ill.

I have worked sometimes full time but now on a temporary basis.

After the illness I found it difficult to drive. So I had 3 years of hypnopsychotherapy from a guy from Chicagoe. He put me straight and He taught me to pull myself together and not have a defeatist attitude.

After 3 years with HPT I found driving a doddle.

I take now all the chloropromazine at 5pm everyday. It stops me from being drowsy in the morning and afternoon.
After about 4 hours later I am fast asleep in my bed.

It's 2.54am in the morning and I have had a midnight or morning feast. At last the voices have stopped altogether. I don't hear any voices anymore. I do believe I am cured at last off schizophrenia. I am still on medication.

It might mean a full time job. After yonkie years of positive writing down that the voices have all gone. It has actually happen.

I have been working full time ever since my first episode in 2004. I believe it depends where you work and how supportive your work place is... I have been on meds ever since first episode and have been pretty well on them, which helps as well.

I have been working at my job for about 3 years. I've just been diagnosed last month. I am in a management position, and every day is a constant struggle to get through, and I want to quit. I'm holding on to my job by a thread - I'm good at it, but it takes everything I have to function there at work..and some day soon, it's going to break.

Yeah I work. But I also am on more than meds, when I was on meds alone it was tough working. I was confused all the time, and always tired.

But then I started taking nutrients recomonded to me by a canadian doctor through his book "Healing Schizophrenia: Complementary Vitamin & Drug Treatments," by Dr. Abram Hoffer.

This book has been great, I feel like I used to before I started getting schizophrenia.

I basically take the following -

a reeeeeaally good multivitamin, high in b complex and timed release

1000 mg niacin 3x daily, once after each meal

plus 1000 mg Ester-C 2x daily

along with some other stuff. You should check out his book. Not only am I working, I'm starting shcool soon!!

BRAVO YOu give me help for my son.

I have been working about 7 years. I don't think I could cut it in a labor job though because of the intermittant psycosis and side effects of meds that I get. It is important to have a boss who is sympathetic to the needs of the disabled. I personally would have no problem to threaten a lawsuit to a boss who does not meet my needs however. I will say that I am more funtional, more intelligent, and in better health working than I ever was on disability. I personally use a flexible dose of trilifon beginning at 8mgs up to 20mgs. I was on 8 yesterday and moved it to 20 today for discomfort of voices and flat aspect. Aside from a small reaction both problems disappeared. If you are working it is more important that you react to changes in mood or voices than if you are just on disability. Hospitalization is helful but if you go too much you are likely to lose your job. I will say that even though I am schizophrenic I can still do a good job and be a benefit to the company just as much as anybody else that works there.

Very interesting.

heh small reaction was dystonia. I missed a day of work. I am thinking of trying a smaller dose of trilifon and a small dose of something else.

I was diagnosed in 2002 and now taking medication (Solian.)
Now I work as a freelance translator after finishing a BA and gaining a cheap qualification.
However, I still need social security and family support.
My goal is to become independent.

I suppose that this is the wrong place to ask this question.

Because there wouldn't be any, which is the majority of schizophrenics, not well off schizophrenics in here would there be?

I am a schizophrenic working in the IT industry with high pay. I completed my Masters in Computer Science after my diagnosis of schizophrenia. I am currently on meds since if I go off them I have remission.

I have the grandiose plans of attending collage in the spring to obtain a bachelors degree in the Literary Arts, eventually a PHD and one day becoming a collage professor. I figure that if my credentials speak for themselves it'll be easy to get hired and after that unnecessary to reveal my illness to my employer and colleagues. Although I very stupidly went off my medication and suffered a complete relapse during this summer, due in part to my girlfriend of seven months leaving me, I am on them again now and when I am I appear to be only eccentric rather than mentally ill, so it seems as though my goals are attainable.

yeah i read the post, and several after that. if your reading this your probably a psych student doing a paper about a disease you think you have. so was i, i paid over 100 grand for a degree and cant hold a job for more than a month. i got a record like the second guy but that was from medicating with alcohol and then driving around. i continue to be un medicated and might be homeless in the near future. and holy sh** the guy that posted beore me is planning on being a student. ddddoooont do it, you will be a TARGET for thier sociopathic behavior.