[soledad1]

I have an appointment with VR in a few weeks and wondered if anyone had any success stories with these agencies? I had a pretty dismal experience with my first apointment. I basically got offered help writing a resume!! I have no real skills and haven't ever worked for long successfully but guess what VR I'm not ready to give up but I still need some help. I am using the ticket to work program and all kinds of services are listed on that site as offered by VR but they didn't seem to have anything availabe at all. I'm trying to get some kind of proposal worked up before I see them next time so I can at least tell them what I need. I think I need a job coach or some kind of CBT type therapy directed towards my social anxiety which is a big part of my disability. I also think i need help GETTING a job. I have been out of work so long and so isolated (agoraphobic for several years) that I don't have anybody to use for references. I would like to have some kind of skills training but the initial interviewer said no because I already have a BS degree. She did say it might be possible to to get an exception but I was SOO demoralized by the time I left there

I had also hoped that she might have offered me some kind of career counseling to help me find a niche where I could fit in.

The person I spoke to seemed to be much more geared towards dealing with people with physical disabilities. What kind of services would it be reasonable to expect if the disability is anxiety/depression/ptsd?

Please if anyone has had any good experiences with this agency could you let me know? Or at least cheer me on.....I don't think I can handle criticism or discouragement on this issue so please be gentle

[emwell]

I will share my own experience with this type of service, but I believe every state is different. Anything I share may not apply to states other than Massachusetts.

I had no luck with the career resource center in my area until I figured things out on my own. I now use their website to find jobs only. If I was more persistent, they may or may not have helped me get a better job or training of some type (they lost my paper work and I couldn't be bothered to send it in again. I trusted the mail as I was not leaving the house much back then.). I am newly motivated to harrass them. Thanks to your post.

A million years ago, I used both MassRehab and a different Career Center. Mass Rehab would have paid me to go to school, but I never used the opportunity. The Career Center was a joke. I remember taking a test to find out what type of job I would be good at. I tested well in every area, so the test was useless.

I did have various jobs with the same facility for 14 years. After 9/11 I was laid off due to funding. I only know how to do one thing. That is to take care of developmentally disabled people. Although I have 14 years experience, due to my present situation, I am unable to get a job in that field. I am going to try again and have 5 resumes ready to send out. I just hope I am not setting myself up for failure again.

[Rapunzel]

I've been through VR, and also my husband works for them. I relate to what both of you are saying. I went to VR and was diagnosed with dysthymic disorder and social anxiety, and they did vocational testing and said I could do anything I wanted to do (not helpful), and then said that I couldn't work with people because of my social anxiety, so they helped me get some equipment to set up a business. But it took a couple of years to get to that point. First they shuffled my case around the state for a year, looking for someone appropriate to manage my case because I was a spouse of an employee. Then they do make treating the disabling condition first priority, so it was therapy. And I got to take a class on website design, and another one on small businesses. I had my B.A. finished but not awarded, and they offered to pay the application fee to get it awarded, but I declined because I wanted more school and that would have made me ineligible for Pell. Turned out to be a good call, since I decided to go back a couple years later. Graduate school isn't usually an option, because they only do that if they have a really good reason for it.

For now, concentrate on your therapy. I got in a hurry and pushed to move along into other stuff, and wound up deciding that the only real goal for me was to move through the program without making waves and give my VR counselor a 26. I don't recommend doing what I did. It can be a really good program. Maybe your therapist can help you figure out what you want to do vocationally. Or I can recommend a book that helped me with that. "Who You Were Meant To Be - A Guide For Finding or Recovering Your Life's Purpose" by Lindsay C. Gibson, Psy.D.

[soledad1]

Thanks Em and Rapunzel.

Well I went back for my second appointment and liked the second counselor much better. I am going to have a one day assessment and then a "work evaluation period". It will be at Goodwill or something like that which is a little humbling as was having to describe my horrendous medical history and practically non-existent work history. But the good part is that I feel really good about it I think I may have to accept that the center of my life isn't going to be a career but just a job of some kind would be fine and I would feel freeer (sp?) to relax and put more energy into other areas of my life. For so long it has seemed like I was WAITING always always WAITING to finish school or find a career or a mate or something and I think .....I don't know what I think but I feel like my life is okay for now and now is all we get really.

Thanks for your replies. I was really stressed out about the appointment.