Are any of you unemployed due to illness or umm, I don't know the economy and the lack of jobs? how long have you been unemployed? what steps are you taking to join the working world? are you trained in anything? how do people respond to you not working and does it bother you?
Hi, I'm Stephanie. I'm 25, and aside from babysitting, I have never had a job.
I finished highschool at 18, then started an early childcare course. I dropped out when I got diagnosed with Bipolar, and I found out the course wasn't going to fit my needs. The next year, my dad got offered work in England, so I was given the choice of going with my parents. I spent three years there. I tried applying for jobs and was successful, but when they heard I had a mental illness, I had to have an evaluation done and then was made to see a psychologist every six weeks to see how I was doing. I got some part time work doing data entry for a few weeks, but it never went beyond that.
I moved back to New Zealand, and then tried looking for work again. It really stressed me out. I was having a lot of trouble with depression and energy levels, so I started seeing a psychiatrist to change my medications. She decided that I didn't have Bipolar, and that I instead had Pervasive Developmental Disorder (mild Aspergers basically) and ADD and my medications were changed. It was great for a few months, I had heaps of energy, was waking up at 6am every morning with no alarm and staying awake and energised until 10pm at night and I was starting to lose weight. Then some stuff started happening in my personal life and I stopped taking my medications for a week. I stopped sleeping, and ended up having a manic episode, so I wound up in the psyche ward for five weeks. They rediagnosed me as having Bipolar I because I was having delusions such as thinking I was God, and that I could control humans like the Sims (LOL- it was fun while it lasted, trust me).
It took a while to get back to normal, and become healthy. Two or three years later, and I still don't feel ready to work. I feel like I have grown up and matured a lot, I recognise the importance of sleep, and always take my medications. I don't have much of a social life, and I am morbidly obese. I am back to having little energy, and sleeping alot. I have been recieving a benefit from the government for several years now to cover my costs, but it sucks. I can't afford to eat well, buy clothes or go out. It pays for rent, power, basic food, medications and a little bit of money to put in my car. My parents have to help me pay for the gym, having a car (we live in the country, and they hate running me around), any extra food, dental and doctors appointments I need and clothing. I am SO lucky to live in a country that looks after people like me. I'm also lucky to have this kind of illness, because it means getting a bit more money than someone who is on a student allowance or just isn't able to get a job due to lack of skills or opportunity or something.
Last year, I decided that I was sick of relying on other people and the government for money, so I decided to run a childcare thing from my home. I love kids, and it made sense. You didn't need any training for it, and you could look after up to four kids at a time. It would make a little over minimum wage (I think). I didn't know what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, so I thought it could be a short term thing while I figured it out. I got really good references, and then I applied for a nanny intern program. I was interviewed by four different families and apparently I did a really good job, and they were all really impressed with me, but didn't want anything to do with me as soon as they heard about my health issues.
I'm not really sure what happened after that. I had moved to a new city which cost a few hundred dollars, lost all my contacts, connections and friends and was stuck in a city I wasn't sure I wanted to be in. A few months later, I realised that I had no energy to do anything and maybe it was a good thing I got turned down by the program. My sister said that her fiance had lost 10 kilos and it had made a huge energy to his energy levels. I got talking to someone who had connections with people in mental health, and said that Fish Oil had been used in overseas studies and had been effective at helping people with Bipolar, or if taken from a young age, could prevent someone from developing it at all. With this information, I decided that I really needed to lose the excess weight before doing anything else. I also started taking fish oil. I have tried to lose weight many times by myself. In recent years, I haven't been successful for many reasons. One has been fear, of things like the gym. I talked to my mum, and she agreed to pay for a personal trainer. I have been going for about two months. It is the highlight of my week, we get along really well and laugh a lot, and I have lost at least 12cms off my body. I have only lost about two kilos though. I'm also on an eating plan from a nutritionist.
One thing that bothers me though, (and is the point of this post), is that some people are obsessed with me getting a job. I have trouble remembering more than one or two instructions. I don't have any past work experiance, so someone who is only 15, would cost less to employ and has probably already worked for a year is more likely to get the job. I barely have enough time to do everything I need to do everyday as it is, because I'm always so tired and drained. I am trying to slowly add things to my day that I have the energy for. So far, its see the personal trainer (1 hour), walk the dog (2 hours) and a lot of driving inbetween, and I'm thinking of starting some volunteer work once a week and seeing a community based life coach who will give me skills for employment and help to build my confidence. I'm not working because I don't want to, but because I can't. I can't judge ahead of time how well I will function that day. If I seem energetic, bubbly and happy around you, it's because I like you. As soon as I walk away, my energy vanishes. I have some online courses I would like to do, and I would like to start blogging and earning money online, from several different revenue streams. Most days, I spend several hours online, because I enjoy it and it doesn't drain me. If I can build a living online, then why would I get another job, where I would probably get paid a lot less, and they would run screaming if I suddenly got manic or deeply depressed? My parents say I should be really careful with what job I choose, because I need a boss that is really understanding of this sort of thing.
What has been your experiance?
