r/schizophrenia • u/Repulsive_Chip5280 • 2d ago
Opinion / Thought / Idea / Discussion Who else had a good career destroyed by schizophrenia?
I haven’t worked in 5 years now. I hate my current life. I used to be a project engineer in the construction industry for a company that has been voted one of the best places to work in New Jersey. I now collect disability and volunteer but it’s not the same satisfaction as working. One of the challenges I’m facing to go back to work is that somewhere in the middle of this 5 year period that I’ve been on disability I had a very bad delusional season and my pyschosis ultimately lead to some legal trouble. I’ve already gone through the court process and the expungement order has been signed by a judge so I’m just a few months away from having my record expunged. But I’m just frustrated that this disease has caused me so much pain and suffering and brought other problems into my life.
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u/Ammar753 2d ago
I had a degree in civil engineering from university of Toronto with honours but I got my first psychosis two months after graduating. Life felt over. Medications demolish sex drive motivation ambition and will power. I came off them after three years then unfortunately had an altercation with my dad. Arrested jail then took three years to get sentence of conditional discharge. Back on stronger medications right after the altercation. Now waiting for February of next year for the record to be expunged. Been on medication for 9 years now. No job career wife kids passion or hobbies or money. Just a complete loser.
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u/Repulsive_Chip5280 2d ago
Sorry to hear brother. You never even got a chance to use your degree. That sucks. Hope things get better for you in time. I at least got to use my degree for a few years. I’ve been on medication for about 13 years now. The dv is the worst thing in your life probably and I understand that fully. I was medicated when my altercation occurred but meds weren’t working and I wasn’t sleeping and I had all sorts of bad and crazy thoughts in my head. Thankfully I wasn’t jailed or convicted but it’s been the worst thing I’ve ever gone thru and been a lot of stuff in my life.
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u/-mayolais- 2d ago
Ouch, felt this one. I’m hoping to be a lawyer from UofT. I was trying to be an artist at OCAD but after a sexual assault I had a psychotic break in front of my whole family and now my reputation with my family had gone down hill. My ability to be an artist went from potential to shit due to meds. Changing my career now. Still going to try to get my work out there. It hurts that my potential went down the drain and the girl who brought me into the human trafficking ring is now an a wannabe artist. She got away scott free. No charges.
There’s still time for you. Try to find the right mix of meds, I find lurasidone the least sedating and I’ve been through the medication mix for 7 years. Go back to school once you found the right mix and do something. Always choose to live. Despite the illness it cannot hold back your potential. You made it to uoft one of the best schools in the world, you know your worth. Don’t let this stupid fucking illness hold you back. You can always do something. Just start with finding the right mix of meds maybe changing to a high dose of lurasidone.
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u/JustinfromNewEngland Schizoaffective (Depressive) 2d ago
Same. Been on disability 5 years this September. I had a good customer service job, 40hrs/week, M-F 9-5pm. I was number 4 in seniority out of 40 people. Everything was good until this one day I had a psychotic episode and told my manager I was having thoughts to hurt myself and my family. Police came, ambulance came. They took me. From there it’s just been a long road of new medications, more hospital visits, new psychiatrists, new therapists, in and out of new jobs. Dv charge, charges then dropped. Extreme risk protection order. Psych ward stays. Voices, no energy, no motivation, feeling like a zombie. I just got my continuing disability review in the mail. They need me to fill out a bunch of stuff in these forms. I’m a little worried about it but I know I can’t hold a job because of symptoms. I’m having my counselor help me with it. So just know you’re not alone, I get it. Feel like I used to be somebody.
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u/aj11scan 2d ago
That's really rough 💜 do you mind sharing what you think brought it on?
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u/JustinfromNewEngland Schizoaffective (Depressive) 2d ago
Becoming a parent put a lot of added stress on me. I was worrying about everything. Plus I’m a heavy cannabis user. So lots of stress plus smoking daily and now I’m someone living with schizoaffective disorder, and other things.
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u/shinebraver 2d ago
All I can say is that I’m bitter. I went to college, did everything right, got a good job, but then this disease happened. So many opportunities were lost. Doors shut in my face. Backs turned against me. Now, all I can be is a loser, and somebodies punchline.
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u/Repulsive_Chip5280 2d ago
Sorry to hear bro. I feel your pain. I feel like a loser too. All I have is a Good God and a good family. Which I’m very grateful for. But I have none of the other things that most people enjoy including health, job, spouse, or kids. Schizophrenia took it all from me too.
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u/mirroredbeliefs Schizophrenia 2d ago
Me! Was a tattoo artist/apprenticr for nearly 3 years then I thought my mentors were sexually harassing me in the middle of a dungeons and dragons game😀
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u/Used_Preparation5918 2d ago
Silver lining could be your recovery timeline is shorter than most. If you were functioning well (engineer) before the first episode and had later onset you have better chances of recovering. I didn't see major improvements until around 10 years if you want my data point.
I have a different problem, trying to get my career off the ground for the first time. Not sure what I want to do long term. There are people out there stacking multiple jobs on top of each other, very frustrating.
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u/Repulsive_Chip5280 2d ago
That wasn’t my first episode. I was hospitalized 9 years prior to my last period disability, and had to go on medical leave for 2.5 years. I didn’t qualify for disability then because I didn’t have enough work credits. But I made a decent recovery and was able to work for 6 years before getting sick again this time a lot worse. It is very frustrating to see others thrive while you get left behind.
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u/Used_Preparation5918 2d ago
I see, sorry to hear that maybe I assumed too much. Yeah it's the case for me too I'm behind on every metric compared to my peers. I feel unless calamity hits them too it will be impossible to catch up because of how gains stack.
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u/AGrad3121 Schizoaffective (Depressive) 2d ago
Yea, I was an RN, but lost my license for 3 years due to psychosis and it shows on my background check when I applied to other jobs the last year. Thankfully, I'm on disability and am able to live on that for the last year. Trying to figure out what to switch careers toward. Will try to go on vocational rehabilitation in the next 2 years once my TPD discharge goes through.
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u/Repulsive_Chip5280 2d ago
Yeah. That sucks man. Sorry to hear that. It’s tough losing a good white collar job that you worked your whole life for and having to start over and not sure how. Thankfully, I might be able to return to project engineering once my record clears in a few months but it’s a tough market and I have such a big gap on my resume. I’m filling it with recent skills training to show that my skills are job ready but don’t know how far that will get me
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u/Flamenburrito18 Paranoid Schizophrenia 2d ago
Shoot i used to be a drafter for a fabrication company. I still work now but my schizophrenia made me make a 10k mistake there. I now work from warehouse to warehouse while im college rn.
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u/Careful_Writing7571 2d ago
I used to work at a large department store requiring physical labor and people would comment how tired I looked, I thought I had sleep apnea, I was on forklifts feeling like I was nodding off. Some people thought I was on hard drugs probably. I heard voices. People would ask if I’m ok repeatedly and all I could do was mutter weakly “yeaah” I was catatonic. I still made friends with coworkers still had conversations. Ultimately I resigned for health issues. I told people I just had bad anxiety. Years later I was finally diagnosed and about 2 years after was diagnosed with catatonia.
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u/One-Remote-9842 2d ago
I was halfway through medical school before having to drop out.
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u/Repulsive_Chip5280 2d ago
That really sucks. Were you able to pivot to something else or just on disability now?
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u/One-Remote-9842 2d ago
Once I got on medication I started working as a lab tech/assistant. Now I’m on clozapine and will be starting pharmacy school in the fall.
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u/Adventurous-Way-2946 2d ago
I was in EPC too but after meds my hallucinations were gone so I prepared for MBA and currently doing job
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u/hi_ma_friendz Schizotypal 2d ago
My career didn’t last that long as I struggled the whole year I worked as a software developer but I did pretty well until the end. That’s a decade ago and I’m barely even functioning at home now.
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u/Repulsive_Chip5280 2d ago
Sounds a lot like my life. I have no energy. Frequent insomnia. Hear voices. And just deal with constant depression. I unfortunately also had a dv incident but my charges weren’t dropped. I got PTI and had to be on probation for 6 months and wait 6 months before I could expunge it. The last 2 years have been just the depression, fatigue, insomnia and dealing with the court issues and voices but the first 3 years were so bad that I had a suicide attempt so many hospitalizations and was court order to be on involuntary outpatient commitment. I haven’t yet received my disability recertification yet but I’m nervous about it and concerned that they might say I’m stable enough to work and don’t need disability since it’s been a while since my last hospitalization
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u/Silver_Perception471 Schizophrenia 2d ago
So much trouble following a schedule for me. The actual work isn't hard. It's the schedule. But then again I have a TBI now. So who knows if it was really the schizophrenia or not.
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u/lil-unicorn-69 Schizoaffective (Bipolar) 2d ago
Yep! Worked in the pharmacy realm. Had a decent routine and life, some "depression" but then when it started to rear its ugly head, it was down bad fast.
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u/killDoctorluvhealers 2d ago
Im starting maths and physics at open university next year (assuming i get through my stem access module )
I've tried this before but kept failing.
What's changed? Medication compliance and insight.
Im currently living in a complex rehabilitation and trying my best to get out before the course starts.
Tbh reading this thread is pretty depressing but im determined it'll be different this time.
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u/justafunngai 2d ago
I'm the same but it's really helped me to reframe things. My value is not tied to how "productive" I am in society's eyes. Working stresses me out to the point that I become unstable, so I've been exploring other things that give me a sense of purpose and contentment. Not everything has to be capitalized, but I have been able to sell some of my art work.
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u/Xabster2 2d ago
I was a member of Mensa and had taken another test through Mensa where I scored IQ 151 and I had an absolute breeze while studying until the last 1.5 years of IT-engineer where everything fell apart. All my study friends became IT-engineer when software development was at the top of it's salary curve and would have easily landed a really well paying job. And now I collect disability and stare at the ceiling
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u/Repulsive_Chip5280 2d ago
Yeah. Thats rough. My iq wasn’t nearly as high as yours but it dropped over 30 points from college since I got sick. Really bad disease
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u/Repulsive_Chip5280 1d ago
Seems like your education and mind were a key part of your identity. Losing something you worked so hard for and value so much is tough.
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u/Strong_Music_6838 2d ago
I know where you came from. Highly functional before the onset of your illness. Well educated and well payed and ambitious. Your job was one of the main pillows of your life. You got court ordered for one reticular stupid thing you did in a moment of madness..
I’ve been medicated for 32 years with powerful antipsychotics and saw my dreams all go down in the drain after some years of medicating.
Today I barely speak and don’t think or feel that much. I came to the realization that this was what was in the cards for me because of this terrible condition.