I don’t know, as the title suggests. As a tutor, I’m not on a fixed income, I guess nobody really is if you really think about it deeply. But philosophical statements aside, I don’t know what to do.
Financially, I won’t ever make it. And it stresses me because I don’t know how to tell a potential girlfriend about this kinda thing. Is it beyond my control and should I worry less?
It’s common to be insecure when you’re in college. Learning a new skill can test anyone’s sense of competency. It takes years to master a field and that is years after your schooling. Most people struggle while doing schooling. It’s expected. I worked with doctors and they suffered from mental illness from school and a lot of them took pills after medical school. A university experience can stick with you for the rest of your life. You’re too young to put yourself in a box. I grew up poor and the dumpy apartments I grew up in people had the time of their lives with no money. Everyone there was living to survive. The rest is excess. The problem is as a society we’re addicted to excess. Life puts constraints on you even if you have money. No money puts more constraints on a person. That doesn’t mean you can’t find a woman who will go in with you tackling this thing called life. I’ve met really poor men who had wives and girlfriends. Life can sometimes surprise you when you least expect it for the better or worse. I read in a counseling psychology book that sometimes its healthy to see life as meaningless when things rock us to our core. As long as you accept it. Think of all of the time we spend as meaning makers looking for meaning. It’s best to have a simple view of life. If you’re religious, keep it simple while you concentrate on school. You’ll spend your whole life searching for meaning and still feel incomplete in the end wanting more meaning. Maybe then things might truly feel meaningless. For having schizophrenia I think you’re doing a good job. Don’t expect to have it all so soon. Keep hanging in there. I enjoy reading about your daily doings. Have a good evening.
I liked the part about seeing life as meaningless - because it is. I want to stop caring about money; I really do
Thank you for the well reasoned response - I appreciate it man
@shutterbug and a few others have responsible well paying jobs. @Aku2 is some type of engineer I believe. There’s also a guy on here who is a stock trader and seems to make good money. @shutterbug works in the insurance industry. Those are pretty varied lines of work. Maybe you can do as well as them.
I’ve worked for years but never made a lot of money but it kept me in nice clothes, CD’s and I could afford a car, entertainment and good food and of course many other things, some large, some small.
Yeah, I look to them as motivators. But do you know what’s bringing me down 
It’s the comparison others make of me against able bodied individuals. No one recognises that we, and our friends on the forum like yourself and the other guys mentioned - work a lot harder and smarter than normies to survive
Some jobs I was good at and excelled. Others I was somewhere in the middle or got fired.
Most jobs aren’t going to keep you on if you’re not pulling your own weight.
I see, I guess in that sense; as long as I stick to something I feel comfortable and safe with - I can at least aim for average income level. That is more than enough to survive and more than enough to even have some tastes of luxury like a trip every other year or something
I went through school being called lazy and a loser because I sucked at sports and I can’t run. My heart problem is a hidden disability that seriously limits me for intense aerobic activity and there is little to no acceptance of it in male jock culture. I had to learn to ignore how others perceived me to keep from going crazy. Well, crazier.
Thanks @77nick77 . It’s my achievements. But you know in a smaller post, my sallary is small and equal to the disabled money as you all are earning from your govt. My extra income is commission from the contractor for the bill of works.
Now life is good and peaceful. My children are also doing well. Son is doctor and my daughter is a civil engineer looking for job. Now she is preparing for competition exam for govt services.
I am thankful to God and family, help me. Otherwise I am a schizophrenic.
Yeah, you’ve got a good point. It’s a mental game, a chess of some sort. Which means there’s a 50% chance i can deal with the perceptions other have of me
I was doing pretty good for myself between 2007-2010 when I was 21-22 years old. I was in college full time and had a future and had hope. Then schizophrenia hit. Now, I’ll be lucky some day if I get a job even part time at a place like McDonalds. I remember being bullied in elementary school and being told I would serve fries through the drive thru. I guess it’s true. It seems pretty random, but prophetic. I had high hopes for myself.
I believe my schizophrenia was triggered from pot and salvia. I don’t remember much and don’t have an accurate memory anymore. I was also stressed by my poor performance in school. It was a poor choice, but I can’t change the past. I didn’t know much about schizophrenia except from Hollywood like in the movie “Beautiful Mind”.
I would have gotten it anyways as it’s largely genetic. I have a cousin with bipolar or schizophrenia. I thought I was smart, but I’m not.
I was getting D’s and F’s on tests and got Cs in my math courses. I dropped out when my symptoms got worse and I couldn’t keep up with the coursework. I was failing number theory, mathematical logic, and real analysis. I lost touch with reality.
Maybe things would have been different if I didn’t smoke pot and do salvia. I should have been an economics or business major and stayed closer to home. The weather bothered me and the debt I had and I was behind in my classes. I wouldn’t have graduated on time and I didn’t have an internship my senior year. I had a hard time multi-tasking, I was losing efficiency, I had problems living alone. I had memory loss and couldn’t concentrate and I got distracted easily. It felt like ADHD or dementia.
I guess I was in the prodromal stage and experienced cognitive decline. I can’t make excuses. I haven’t had a job since then and I don’t expect to find a girlfriend. I don’t want to and I have given up. I’m content and happy with my life so far.
I mainly suffer from delusions, negative symptoms and addiction to caffeine and nicotine. I don’t eat healthy and don’t exercise enough. I’m overweight and have ED due to Zyprexa. I’ve accepted my life. I really want to work some day and recover more. I don’t think I’ll live past 50. I’m 35.
I don’t want any kids. I can’t take care of myself anyways.
I’m going to be on government help the rest of my life. I do my best to live frugally and save what money i can, but I’ll always have hospitalizations and need help affording life. I’m just happy that i can live semi-independently and have friends, and that i got the experience of going to university. I’ll always be poor and have accepted it.
There’s a few things i can think of that might ease your mind.
I don’t know how old you are but there are a handful of meds in the works that are more promising then anything that’s come before them. So there’s a shot that before your too old your a lot more functional then you are now.
We’re about to go off a cliff when it comes to automation meaning less and less people will have to work. Hopefully this means a persons worth and what they can contribute economically will finally be uncoupled.
Medical R&D will itself become automated speeding up the process dramatically, hopefully leading to miraculous new treatments that make the ones in development right now look like haldol.
The world ends and non of this matters anyway 
in western country its much easier to make money as it has strong economy and you got alot and different opportunities and there is laws to protect thy employees also if you have a disability you will be supported by government and get benefits.in my country living every day is a hell
I’m not struggling financially. As long as I can keep my SSDI and work part time, I will be doing ok.
Now, if they took my ssdi away, which I am in review for, then, I might struggle financially.
Or have to work full time at this job that Im working to not. And I’m not sure if I can handle it either physically or mentally for too long at full time. Right now my back feels like someone has been pounding on it with a sledgehammer.
3 weeks at fulltime and 50 hours in a row last week about did me in. Should be easeir now at part time, though. First shift pushes a rate that seems quite difficult for new people. I was noticing a slightly more liberal attitude about rates last night on night shift.
Anyway, point is, I’m doing ok financially atm.
I don’t think it’s about working smart— it’s more how one handles themselves in a public setting.
Somebody can work hard as hell and stay in that position their whole lives, whereas a “wheeler and dealer” type will rise amongst the ranks pretty fast regardless of whether or not they work hard.
I am not somebody who knows how to play office politics very well— I prefer not to get caught up in drama and gossip and I also don’t play golf, so there’s that 
.
…I just keep my head down to the grindstone, basically.
I will most likely work in a limited capacity unless otherwise necessary— I’ll probably be a retail rat for the rest of my life if I go back into the workforce. Not that I want to, but I’ve found putting my college degree to good use has been extremely difficult, unfortunately.
If you think you won’t, then you won’t. If you plan on success, you might get some. I decided I didn’t like poverty and I’ve worked hard at bettering myself since. There have been ups and downs, but I’m comfortable right now and it looks like it will stay that way, even if we have another depression.
Writing out goals and making plans helps. So does flexibility. I liked working in IT but it became obvious that the parts I was best at were going to pay much less in the future so I changed careers. I loved photography even more and it paid worse. If what you love isn’t paying the bills then it’s not loving you back and you have a bad financial relationship with that career choice.
It’s weird, I look at my once able bodied parents and their attitude of “well it doesn’t go as planned” rubs off on me. I think that’s why I’m so worried about things not working out - you’re right though, changed till you find something that works and run with it for as long as you can and repeat the process if it doesn’t last.
That to me is being smart, managing your social situation well. It’s something I can’t do with confidence, something i’m only recently trying to re-engage and address but yeah I know what you mean I don’t want to see myself stuck and hence I worried
Defos— it takes a certain type of intelligence to be able to navigate social situations while on the clock.
I’m not one to give advice on this topic, as I suck at it, haha. But some feedback I’ve received has been to just practice at something and it will eventually stick.
Wishing you luck with it 