Function and education level prior to onset of symptoms will dictate later employment capabilities.
You also have to deal with mental illness stigma in your community. Some places want the formerly psychotics working only in retail or fast food. You also have to see what personal issues your coworkers have had with mental illness amongst friends and family…Some employers will make a push to get you fired on the slightest mistake or make it a hostile work environment to move you out. However, I’ve had GREAT experiences just going into the interviews, keep my diagnosis private, discuss any accommodations I might need to work tasks and just keep my life (and dramas with others) out of the mix. These situations are only good working in the back - as a public facing employee, I had every kind of confused person come into the business due to orders from the voices to make a stressful job that is life/death to customers even worse. Working in back can be great. Or you can end up with some coworkers who are gang stalkers (part-time psychotics) who think they need to verbally harass you through out the whole work day even if you don’t discuss anything private so wear headphones. Expect this kind of crap from strangers called gang stalking/cause stalking/thought broadcasting. Read up on this and realize mental care refuses this and calls it delusional. Therapy refuses to assist at all. You can never get angry with your mental care provider or you will be hospitalized against your will for months at your own expense resulting in loss of employment and maybe homelessness…You can also hear your boss or coworkers talking loudly & convincingly in the next room and it is fake (even in life and death situations) so only take orders from a person standing in front of you or called you on the phone.
Cognitive symptoms of psychosis can cause problems so you need to be selective about the job tasks - something where you can run off a list is useful. It need not even be a simple, repetitive job either.
Remember, it can even be possible to ask for accommodations of regular work schedule, fewer hours, less work with public or work from home as your workers are being too disruptive (due to the gang stalkers)…However, smaller businesses can decline these legally. Oh, my. I even saw a data entry workplace with one lady who verbally harassed the whole bunch and they could not fire her yet…the whole office had to run silent and use instant messaging on computer for all discussion to catch her in her problem, forcible get her mental care then terminate her. However, employment in this particular city runs this way with craziness as #1 job task and job duties #2 for many so I left the area…
Lastly, I have bad news on re-education attempts. Some people report being bullied out of college by crazy professors plus harassed even in group projects by mentally unstable students…I attended a school that had been sued for this & retained these instructors. Court upheld the school’s right to require all mentally ill students to use Disability Support Services in order to be treated fairly (even if acting right & attending class regularly)…Worse, local city mental care situation is so bad, it was impossible to get any new mental care to cooperate. If you try one of these schools with student loans, you can be forced to pay these back immediately if you drop classes … At another school, same thing is beginning to happen after wrong professor was hired who sexually harasses students and makes it difficult to pass…even some of the long-time staff are leaving this place now as they cannot get rid of this instructor & they didn’t want any either. Re-education moneys are very limited for anyone with an existing degree, however if you get a Pell grant and run into these kind of messes, you can be forced to pay it back immediately if you leave the school due to disability discrimination. I strongly recommend you try 2-3 classes and pay cash before you decide to even enter a school with Pell grant help, or just finish your piece of paper degree online. -------After dealing with enough of this crap from schools which once treated me like a valued customer & I get to pay back loans for years only to be mistreated in classes, I am self studying for all additional education as I already have a Bachelors. There are some nice online training libraries like Lynda.com available for small reasonable fee plus last version of text books is always available for under $10 on bn.com or amazon.com. I’ve taken some college classes with instructor using videos to teach the subject and he had to google questions on his main subject – this is a disappointing departure from university situation I had used 15 years prior. This is not worth paying for any longer sometimes after you already have a degree.
Lastly, there has been a recent decrease in support for mental care amongst some churches & general public sending these folks out to harass victims of schizo into giving up the check…this has been discussed here too on this forum. Be aware, stories exist regarding victims giving up the mental care and beginning employment being ruined even by Walmart employers – then they had no way to pay for medications even as they let the health care go too plus you cannot get your disability check back if you were fired. It needs to be mentioned too I’ve noticed a lot more pressure on the part of numerous psych doctors to try to destroy patient functioning/employment/social network in order to sell more drugs unless patient is really reserved & undemanding. Additionally, some prior written works by psychiatrists have bragged about lowering people from rocket scientists to toilet cleaning janitors even if the victim was still trying to work in their field – you know these hotshots have mouth and attitude that will get them tortured by mental care. I can speak from personal experience that trying too hard to work or socialize in your community can result in a work blackball if you chose to terminate either due to social mistreatment in a group or work situation you could not tolerate/sustain. I met the wrong people gang stalking through a church and worse through some social groups so once-nice persons in my neighborhood are now giving me the silent treatment and even calling me names after I just tried attending a local church & worked a little around this neighborhood in desperation jobs. Don’t take any part-time jobs with the employers where you might want to be hired full-time so you can keep this option open when you feel up to working more & supporting self. I think it best we all exercise caution when dealing with gang stalkers who are upping the social pressures to ‘get off the check’ and just work on our own employment skillset & stand by. I have really cut back on the social obligations because I just don’t like the people with whom these activities brought me into contact, all the demands for labor or money I cannot satisfy and more waggling tongues who want to spread rumors. We may all need to speak up together to get treated right & given protected work status through affirmative action-type status…(It can be fine to work part-time on SSDI if you keep your income below $700 a month while SSI rules will result in a cut in medicaid eventually so do talk to a benefits planner available through you government mental health care office before you make a decision…)
It needs to be noted that many of these gang stalkers are so sick with their own mental problems they are not able to hold down jobs for more than a year because they are busy being crazy at work or mistreating people instead of working…these are working a job that will never support them, nor their children and government is paying for all the party-babies with medicaid…Pot is calling the kettle black as they used to say. My old well-adjusted church suggested exercising ‘grace’ when you meet these folks & just let them say whatever then ignore it as you can only control how you look to others by keeping the quiet dignity and self-respect of avoiding these…One can even say something nice to the person after a while and they feel self conscious and shut up.
Edited:
It needs to be noted, some of the churches do not have good intentions as these places are just looking to up the membership or are actually hiding some unfit members who still practice their ‘problem’. Some of these churches are just looking for a show for the circus and you don’t want it to be you. This is almost passive aggression. Any healing promised by these folks has a big tradeoff as you are putting yourself in the ring of some of the wrong people and more pressures for lots more demands in every where to submit to all sorts of business deals, tithings, toils & exposure to some predators/spooks hiding in the church but really lying in wait for next opportunity…Gosh, one church even had people who turned for them in times of need end up homeless & abandoned.
Also be aware, due to the end of Obama’s food bill the income limits for any assistance/benefits are now so low you are going to have to survive without any stamps or medicaid assistance. These stress from this or whatever could send your symptoms out of control…