I am a Professional Job-Getter

I have become a professional job-getter. I don’t think there is a career for that, but if there was I would be really successful at it.

When I was first diagnosed, I never thought in my wildest dreams I would ever have the labels of mental illness, Bipolar Disorder 1, PTSD and other labels I acquired. I soon became unprofessional at everything except being a professional bipolar disorder patient. This is not what I wanted to be, but is what I had become.

When I was first diagnosed I was still a professional and was able to teach Special Education for a few years until my symptoms became too severe causing me to have to resign my duties and career I loved so much of being a Special Education Teacher. I could no longer teach anymore or work at any capacity or any type of employment. I soon got another unwanted label of being permanently disabled and then soon started receiving Social Security Disability.

Because I could not and would not accept that I had bipolar disorder for many years my recovery was postponed too long causing me to be so severely ill that I was hospitalized too many times to count, I engaged in self injurious behavior often, overdosed on medications and attempted suicide numerous times.

My severe bipolar symptoms with rapid cycling and mixed episodes made it difficult to treat and find the appropriate medications to help me. Plus, I was very sensitive to medications causing severe side effects and adverse reactions to most medications.

My life saving treatment was ECTs (Electroconvulstve Therapy) which is a procedure done under general anesthesia, in which small electric currents were passed through my brain, intentionally triggering a brief seizure. I had so many ECTs over a period of about 20 years that they were finally very successful for treating my bipolar and changed my brain chemistry and helped to reduce and eliminate most of my severe symptoms. Praise God.

None of this was part of my plan for my life. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was all part of God’s plan for me and my life. He was in control of writing my novel and staying with me and loving me every step of the way on my long, lonely and painful recovery process and bipolar journey.

God saved my life and I became born again and became alive again, living my life for Christ and serving Him in as many ways as I can. The Holy Spirit has renewed me and filled my heart and soul with indescribable joy, peace and love and my new life has begun.

God healed me to the point that he wanted to heal me allowing me to live a happy life again. I still have severe bipolar symptoms at times but I have learned how to live with them. Because my recovery is a life long journey I can never work as a Special Education Teacher or even work full-time again. However, I am very blessed and fortunate that I am finally well enough to work at a part-time job again.

I began working part-time about 4 years ago. However, it has been hard as it is like I am 2o  years old again trying to figure out who I am, what kind of work will best suit me and my needs working at a very limited part-time basis. Due to the type of insurance I am forced to have I am only allowed to make $600  a month and I cannot go over that amount or I will have to pay $500 for my insurance which defeats the purpose of working at all.

During the 4 years I have been working I worked at 6 different jobs with my new job being my 7th. I had an employment specialist help me find my first two jobs because I had been out of the workforce so long I didn’t think anyone would hire me. After that I found all of the other jobs myself and have become a professional job-getter.

I have never been fired, I just quit due to various reasons and I faced stigma related experiences at two of my jobs.

My last job was working at a home health care agency that I loved because I love helping people. That is and has always been my passion. I absolutely fell in love with some of my clients, but the hours and my schedule changed too quickly and drastically to a point that it was not good for me and last week I was only scheduled to work 3 hours. I couldn’t do that anymore.

So, last week I applied at a large department store. Early this week I had an interview and the next day I found out I got the job. I don’t want to name the department store as many businesses have rules about social media. It seems like an excellent and positive place to work at and I know for a fact I will get enough hours and the problem instead may be that they may want to schedule me for too many hours instead, but I will not worry about that.

Right after I was offered the job, I eagerly typed out my two week resignation letter for my home health care job and sent my email to them. I wanted my two weeks to start and end as soon as possible.

The crabby scheduler lady called me right back and told me they got my letter and they would just find someone else to cover my three hours, so that was that. I was done working for them. I think she may have been upset that I quit and thought that she would show me and take away my little itty bitty three hours. Oh dear. Who knows. I don’t understand some people sometimes.

However, I pray I did not get overly eager, impulsive and react too quickly about getting my new job and put my two weeks notice in too soon at my Home Health Care job on the same day because actually the confirmation of getting the job is not quite final until after they check my criminal background. I know I am not a criminal, but then later thought maybe they will call my past employees and they wont like the fact that I worked three different jobs in one year.

So, now I need a prayer or ten that I wasn’t too impulsive and overly eager by quitting my last job all ready and putting in my two week notice. I pray I pass all of their checks and that the job is truly mine for sure. Technically, I am unemployed at the moment right now while waiting to see if I got the job for sure or not.

Oh dear, impulsiveness is a symptom of bipolar disorder and sometimes I am very impulsive and do things without fully thinking them through. This may be a fine example of my impulsivity.

I will just trust in the Lord and not worry as worrying is a waste of time. I will put my trust in the Lord and pray. Maybe God has a different plan in store for me. We will see what happens. Time will tell.

I will let you know.

I need to work part-time even though it is only about 15 hours a week. My social security is not enough to live on and to pay my bills. The little bit of extra money I make helps me out a lot because it supplements my social security income.

I pray I will love this job and never have to use my professional job-getting skills again. Instead I will be a professional department store worker with a 15% discount at the store.

This of course is a big difference from being a Special Education Teacher and is not my dream, but I have to appreciate that I am alive, God saved my life and I became born again.

I need to accept my life the way it is and appreciate every blessing I have in my life.

Praise God for God is good all the time.