[leavesonfire]

How many of you have decent jobs where you are productive and you make decent money? Any doctors, professors, engineers etc. here (particularly with a psychiatric history or psych. diagnoses)?

Have you ever heard of people losing jobs because they disclosed their psych. history or diagnoses? Where do you have to disclose these things (on an particular applications, for jobs etc.)? How do they affect life in general?

I can't pretend that I don't feel scared. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I feel I'll be stigmatised and called a nut (though there are a lot of "normal" people out there who are way worse than I am) and that every move of mine will be analysed and scrutinised, anything I say that people don't like can be attributed to my psych. labels. It's an awful feeling.

Opinions from people of different countries would be nice.

[marlyn]

I live in asia whch is meet a psych is something very embarassing..
But since i work in hospital,
Its a very common thing..

In here, almost every employee have concultation with psych
Including me which is having psych in another hospital because my parent is the owner..

So i have very carefully to take my own step
Ironically, theyre my underlying problem to meet psych but they never know it

[GirlAfraid]

Hi,

I'm in my 2nd year of a PhD if that's any good? I'm extremely lucky though as, because my doctoral thesis involves research in to mental illness, I managed to get a supervisor who is a Co-Director of a mental health research centre and my second supervisor is a Professor of Psychiatry, so they are very understanding when I take time off/email them at strange hours in the morning with bizarre requests. They're both aware of my illness but we don't really discuss it... that's between my pdoc and I.

Last week I told them that I'm considering quitting my studies to work for the local council as a Housing Officer so I can help homeless people. They're both on annual leave but they still took the time to reply, advising me not to make any decisions until after our next meeting. I doubt any other employers would react so well!

I think I may have gone off on a tangent, sorry. But I think that the point I was trying to make was that it all depends on who your employer is.

x

[avlady]

That's nice to want to work with homeless people!!!

[MotownJohnny]

One of my biggest fears. I work as a white collar paraprofessional in the legal field. I feel like being outed would end my career. One irony, my work tangentially involves mental health probate, so I really have anxiety pangs when I hear things about clients with MH issues. Would they feel the same about me if they knew? I was pretty good at covering up what was really going on last year. People took my anxiety attacks, vomiting and anorexia for a stomach condition.

My observation - many Americans are not kind towards people with MH issues, and the media whips up a frenzy when we have these mass shootings.

[deelooted]

I work with the homeless as a case manager, and get paid fairly well for it (no degree, but life experience)...although I am really more of an advocate, and in a non-profit so no money needed from the "client". Most of my clients are mentally ill, too. Some of my days go like this-
"Did you take your meds today?" I ask.
"No," is the reply.
"I did...and they are helping me a lot."
"Well, don't trust those mental health demons too much, they will eat your soul," my client will say.

Sometimes I feel like I am the one that needs the case manager. And since I am recently diagnosed, my boss knows all about my illness. She is too kind, and has kept me on regardless of how much I struggle. My good days are great, my bad days are terrible, however, and I know my boss is more and more concerned everyday.

Thankfully, my wife and I will be leaving the country back to her land of origin- Thailand. This job is so stressful, it may have triggered my illness to a large degree, although I have been showing symptoms since I was a kid. In denial even now, just a little

A lot of my co-workers think I would be approved for SSDI, and I may apply.... I have been fired from every job I have ever had in the past 20 years

[onionknight]

Meh, I plan to get an advanced degree and work somewhere in academia. I do worry what effect the actual recurrent problems I face might have on that goal, not necessarily what would happen if people found out. I only talk about my mental health issues with people I really trust (or randomly online, go figure) so if I were in a safe work environment, I might touch on it. I plan to seek out progressive, inclusive communities, though.

But there are people who deal with mental illness and have jobs all over the job spectrum. We don't hear about them because where's the sensationalism in that story, and many people are afraid to come from the woodwork.