So I’ve been debating if I should get back to work. After all I am only 32. My last job I worked as a data entry clerk for a temp agency and was at the same location for almost three years. We processed incoming tax mail and sent the processed paperwork to the IRS to do whatever they did with them. All we basically did was say if a person paid and if so how much. The rest went to whom ever. If you picture the workplace a like a ladder our positions were at the very, very bottom.
Well I had worked there going in whenever they called. And during the 4 times a year the IRS collects taxes (quarterly and yearly) we worked 7 days a week 8 hours a day. I rarely called out sick unless I really felt or had thrown up. I was always early to my shift and a hard worker. I was never fully reprimanded heck I was even promoted to a team-leader position but respectfully declined after the peak was over and went back to my post in data entry.
I was working there when I went into a relapse with my Schizophrenia and was up all night with the delusions and hallucinations. Then paranoid at work also because of what was going on in my head. Then started feeling sick to my stomach at work and eventually decided I needed a medical leave while I worked with my psychiatrist to readjust my medications.
That took a year to get me to be able to be around people without it automatically resulting in a panic attack. I attempted to return to work but they were giving me the run around and I really hadn’t wanted to return to the work environment that had caused my relapse in the first place so I went back to school and got a Bachelor’s Degree in Health Administration.
Briefly after school I had attempted to get a part time job. I found out that company also wanted me working long 7 days a week anywhere from 6am to midnight. I knew I couldn’t handle that and decided to quit that same week.
My dream is to work in medical doctor’s office as some kind of receptionist or secretary type position but my problems are two things. Because of my illness I have very little real world work experience (most of my experience comes from education training rather than actual work) and almost everywhere around me wants actual work experience. The second is my Schizophrenia.
I’m worried working will only lead to another relapse. Then I wonder should I tell my perspective employer that I have Schizophrenia? Don’t they have a right to know? If they knew would that prevent them from hiring me? How do I explain my gaps in work experience because most of them happened when I was having relapses and needed the time off. That doesn’t sound good to explain you needed time off to situate the crazies in your head. I don’t know. I’m working on a novel right now, but I’m really wishing I had a job to call my own. A way to make a better living for myself.
Wouldn’t it be great if I could something like Data entry at home? I don’t have the fiances to go back to school for medical billing and coding degrees. I’m being hounded from SallieMae to pay back the Bachelor’s degree. And I’m worried about going to school for Medical Billing and Coding because think they have a lot of math classes in that curriculum and I really suck at math classes. I can do data entry real well, I can learn codes to put into a system I can use a calculator, just don’t ask me to do it point blank in my head and don’t ask me to find the value of x + y to get it to =z.
Any suggestions on working in a professional environment while dealing with Schizophrenia?
