I was an aerospace firmware engineer for 15 years after getting my BS degree in Computer Science & Accounting Information Systems. Back in 1993, the project I was working on was ending. I had gone to UCLA to take some courses because the project I had been working on was old technology.....but when it came time to move to another project.....there wasn't a place for me. I ended up in a position that I thought might work, but it felt like a glorified secretarial position & after doing technical for so many years, I just couldn't stand the position. I wasn't good at it that much, but forced myself to excel in what I was doing. To the point that at the end, we were required to put together a presentation for a national seminar. I put it together, only knowing the buzz words & it was accepted (what a laugh). I had been in the position since the spring of that year & by Thanksgiving, I couldn't stand to go to work (on top of everything else, it was almost 1 1/2 hours of driving to get there from my house). I was holding on until the Christmas break, praying that I would get a new source of energy & hang in there. Christmas break came & I broke down so bad, I was finding any excuse & sick day after sick day to not go back the next year.

I stalled around with the sick days & then wham, the Northridge earthquake hit & the freeway collapsed & everything between me & work was knocked out. Another excuse to not go to work for a couple of weeks while they cleared out the mess. When a route was finally open, it took 6 hours to get to work & 6 hours to get home. Of course, in the position I was in, they wouldn't let me work from home (it just wouldn't work as I had to interface with people). My neighbor also worked where I did. We had been friends long before he moved there. We ride shared. I remember getting into work, going into my office, closing the door & sitting there crying. I couldn't function & couldn't force myself anymore. When I wasn't driving, I would sit in the car out of it, with tears streaming down my face.

It took a couple of weeks of that before I just couldn't force myself to go anymore. The insurance from work made me get a pdoc & psychologist which was the only way I could make sure the medical leave was appropriate. They bounced me around all over the place. For the first year, it was mostly anxiety that was horrible. I would go off at the least little thing. Then as I realized there was no way of going back to any career with any other company as I was "outdated" at that time with no on the job experience with the new technology, depression set in & the suicide attempts. It was downhill from there. With the Dr's & hospitalizations, & everything, it wasn't difficult to get onto disability.....within the first review period, it turned into permanent disability.

Even though I feel better & life has changed for the better now that I am separated from my husband & moved to Kentucky & have Christianity as my guide for my life & not myself, I still find that the least amount of stress can trigger extreme anxiety responses & with the traumas that showed up in my life after loosing my career, triggers from those can set me off also.

Even though I feel like a new person, I realize that disability is the only main income that I will ever have from now on. It's enough to get me by since it was based on my engineering income. My new life here has really helped me feel a peace that I had really never felt before even while having the career that meant everything to me. Having a career (any career) had been my goal since I was a child, so loosing that dream was traumatic in itself.

I know I could never go back to the stress of working & having to be somewhere right at a specific time everyday for the same thing. I have become a free spirit as far as that goes. So I know I am where I am for the rest of my life & have adapted my thinking to it being ok with me.

Debbie