I want to add a little bit to my previous comments. A friend of mine urged me to see things from the employer's point of view. If I come to work for them, first of all I can only work part time and then only in the mornings, which are the best time of day for my illness. I will have frequent breakdowns, and my work in general will be sub-par because I'm fighting off voices, hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, and manic spikes. So my colleagues will have to frequently fill in for me, and I will be prone to drop the ball at critical times of stress, when my illness acts up more. So I will not be reliable.

So, why should this employer hire me, exactly? What is the benefit to the company of having a cripple working for them? The answer: there is a benefit to me, but no benefit to my employer. So no, they're not going to hire me.

When she laid this out, it made a lot of sense. I don't feel resentful of potential employers any more, just sad that this is my situation. I have been schizoaffective for 11 years, and the illness goes through pulses where it is not so bad and then six months where it is a horror. How can I work any kind of job when I have this terrible illness? So I sit on my *** all day, drawing SSDI, listening to the roar in my head. And dream of better lives on the wheel of karma.