Good jobs for someone with schizophrenia?

Do you guys know any jobs that aren’t too stressful and that are good for someone with this illness? I’m at the end of my rope with my day stock job at a grocery store. It just gets to stressful, mainly because we don’t get to leave until it is all done, which could mean staying late an extra 3 and a half hours. I was maybe thinking janitorial jobs, but I’m not too sold yet. I also think I need to go to the hospital because as of late my depression and symptoms are getting exponentially worse.

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Perhaps a job entailing the movement of goods in a warehouse? I would say all paid employment will experience stress no matter what. Volunteer work could be an option.

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I can’t really say, as I haven’t worked since developing schizophrenia. Janitorial does seem ideally suited to it. Minimal interaction with people, maybe get on the night-shift.

But the first thing is to nip the depression in the bud for sure

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I knew someone who was a janitor and they hated it, it’s low skilled but they had to clean a certain area in a certain amount of time. yinyang is probably right, most jobs are going to be stressful.

I want a job too once I get my insomnia fixed, but my resume sucks because I have been on disability for so long

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I’ve found mom and pop shops are less stressful to work at than giant corporations.

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Probably fast food or telemarketing would be less stressful.

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I’ve been at my janitor job 8 years. It’s not too hard physically. I have a bad back and I can still do it. Basically, it’s vacuuming, emptying wastebaskets and cleaning restrooms in an office building. Also, mopping floors. We do a few other things too.

I’m 60 years old and I’ve had a lot of different jobs, like maybe 30 since my first job as a dishwasher at age 17. I think this job is my favorite. I’ve stocked shelves, worked in restaurants, worked in warehouses, I was a park ranger, done general maintenance work, been a security guard, worked at gas stations, been a driver, done A LOT of just general yardwork which was anything from weeding lawns to digging out tree stumps.

But this job just fits me best on many levels. I make $16.00 an hour which is the best I’ve ever been paid. I have a bad back and suffer from fatigue which makes me take twice as long to do stuff than it used to. My boss never says a word about how slow I am; I’ve been slow the last 5 years. I think that it’s because all my co-workers are slow too. My company hires disabled people and veterans.

I always used to advise people, there are jobs out there where you can just get lucky and find your niche. Sometimes you just stumble on a job where everything clicks and the job isn’t too hard or your co-workers are cool to you or it pays well. These jobs are out there but you often can’t tell unto you actually get the job and start working there.

By the way, restaurant jobs aren’t that bad. They ain’t exactly hard labor. I thought a driving job would be fun. I had two different ones. They were actually kind of OK except I live in one of the most traffic congested areas in California.

Warehouse work can be pretty simple and straightforward.

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Honestly im a cashier at goodwill and there are positions with hardly any interaction in the back. Really chill and flexivle job since they hire so many disanled people

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I had clean up duty in a factory. Those people pooed all over the seats. I got treated like dirt because I was low man on the totem pole. People thought I was beneath them because I cleaned their poo. I could have sworn they pooed out the middle of their back and onto the toilet seat.

At a different job someone had toilet duty and someone pooed in the urinal. He had to go fish it out. Thankfully it wasn’t me.

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the thing that irks me is driving all the way there, doing all their paperwork, assessments, having an interview, and then not hiring you.

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Always found repetitive work was good for me when I was working. My mind tends to wander and working in warehousing in the supply chain was good work. It was hard order picking but easy once you got the hang of it. Plenty of jobs in warehouses or even in supermarkets loading and unloading trucks etc. You can also get trained up on equipment. Driving a forklift for a whole shift was pretty cruizy work.

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I was an office worker for 6 years, and that drove me to a suicide attempt.

Since then I have been self-employed and a Landscaper.

What I find is the flexibility of being set-employed is great, as you don’t have to work till 5pm or whatever.

It’s also outside in the fresh air, I have lost weight through the exercise and I can be creative

Nothing is ever going to be perfect - my advice would be to try something different, and keep changing until you find that thing you enjoy 50%+ of the time!

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Microsoft office is a great place to start. Most already have some familiarity with it but it can land you an office job if you’re proficient. Or learn a part of graphic design. There is free software to try your hand at art and graphics. Lots of tutorials online get you started.

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What’s wrong with your back?? Can physiotherapy help?

I wrecked it unloading trucks and lifting heavy objects for four years in the nineties. I think the doc said it’s my lumbar region. All I know is it started getting hard to tie my shoelaces several years ago and my lower back started getting stiffer and stiffer. Soon I could hardly bend and then I forced myself to lift something heavy and I threw something and was in a lot of pain. I was going to physical therapy until they cancelled it because of COVID, I was just in pain for months, it was painful just getting into bed at night and laying there.

Eventually, the pain went away but I still can’t bend too much. Luckily, if I’m reasonably careful I can get around pretty good and “double luckily” I can do all my tasks at work.

If I take reasonable caution it doesn’t affect me too much. My days of helping my family move or playing any sport are over but who does sports at age 60 anyways?

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You should go to physio! After covid-19 I mean. Before it gets worse.

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Thanks, yeah, I probably will. It’s pretty stabilized, it’s not getting worse.

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I worked with one thing in mind:
Do what is hard, life would be easy,
Do what is easy, life would be hard. ~IMO

I still remember the final years in the corporate company:
I was handling escalation from UK and got promoted to quality analyst with incentive. And all was possible due to my psychologist and psychiatrist combined efforts, when all was going well, I felt I am back to normal and stopped Jacobson relaxation Technic, and every thing fell apart and I started to smoke Nicotine as stress buster. After which everything crumbled down as a stack of cards.

Better the view harder the fall.

One thing I learnt was while at work nothing should distract me, and very poor in multitasking. Because when I focus and something distract me I forget what I was working on and had to redo the entire work, as quality analyst I had 25 people to audit and managers, to keep them posted on latest process update, for which there was multiple calls and what not.

I used to extend on Sat and Sun for audits, then completed the entire week work in two days, Then the question raised what do you do in week days, and I explained it to him, while I was quitting the company they said if you want you can step down a position, and I had so much build up ego I did not step down and left. Now when I think of it one could say yes or no both could have been right.

I believe if you get stressed out Relaxation Technic worked best for me, in total the Technic takes about 50 mins every day and every One hour at work, one has to just breath in and out five times.

Ask per my understanding the five times one breaths, the mind and body will get connected to the 50 mins relaxation time and one would come out to stress.

But at present I am not in touch with above psychologist and psychiatrist as the first is charging more and the second got retired. Anyways I still hope for the best for me at present.

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I used to work at a photo lab and used a die cut machine to cut wallet photos out of a sheet of photos. Pick up a sheet, slide it in, click, pop em out, next. I listened to audiobooks and clicked away. Perfect and super low stress.

Also working as a mother’s helper is a pretty low stress job if you can handle being around someone else. A mother’s helper is exactly like what it sounds like. You go help a mom with whatever tasks she’s struggling with. Cooking, cleaning, watching the kids so she can shower, playing with the kid so she can clean, keeping her company so she can cope with postpartum depression, sometimes it might include running errands or something. It all depends what the mom needs help with.

When Little LED was a toddler I hired one to just take her outside and play with her because it wasn’t safe for me to be alone outside with her anymore because I was passing out so often. I hired her for 2 hours a day 4 days a week. $100 a week. They would go outside and I would either take a nap or sit outside with them want watch them play.

It’s a lot like a nanny but with the mom there so you’re not really in charge of the kid.

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I think working in a library would suit a schizophrenic. As long as she/he is medicated and stable.

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