[Teddy Bear]

I'm a janitor and I volunteer at the food shelf. I feel I should be doing something more important. Do you ever wonder what your purpose is and what you could possibly do with your mental illness?

[sito]

I haven't figured out my life yet. I don't want to to ponder about my life because I would feel much more depressed.
I am taking heavy medication at this time.

[Skeezyks]

Well... I'm too old to worry about such things anymore. But there was a time when I used to. I'm an atheist though. So the concept of there being a purpose one might have, if one could just discover it, is foreign to me. From my perspective, we're all just here because... well... you know how we got here... That doesn't mean we shouldn't have a purpose though. But it means we each simply have to decide for ourselves what we want our purpose to be & then go out & make it happen.

I personally don't think that the fact you have mental health concerns should deter you from finding & pursuing a passion. In fact, from my perspective, this is one of the best ways to battle a mental illness! Yes there may be some things you can't do, or choose not to do. (I've always been petrified of public speaking. So I would never do anything that involved speaking to groups.) But then we all have things we're good at & other things we're not.

So your mental health concerns are simply a part of the list of things you perhaps want to avoid. Instead what you want to focus on is the list of things you enjoy & feel you are good at. And once you have some idea of what you feel you're good at along with what you enjoy, & what things you feel you want to or should avoid, then it's just a matter of figuring out what's important to you... what rocks your boat so to speak. At least these are my thoughts with regard to your post.

[ArchieAus]

What a momentous question , but also one maybe not to ask yourself too often . It can send you mad ( oh that's right , we already are) .
I believe I first contemplated this between the ages of 6 and 10 . Still don't have a difinitive answer .
If we look at it without emotion ..our purpose is to extend the species . Just be another number to ensure survival of humans . But we are doing ok in that regard so probably not that vitally important just now . There's been like 108 billion people who have ever lived ( most of them no doubt wondered at some point what their purpose in life was ) of which about seven and a half billion are alive today . The rest is a jumble of opportunities and restrictions which shape your life . I'm happy enough these days to accept there was no important destiny planned in the stars for me . The meaning of life , is life itself . The purpose is to live it , to stay in the game long enough for it to mean something ...to yourself . It's not about your employment , or if you have achieved amazing things . It just is . I sort of am envious of the religious people on that one . Wouldn't it be wonderful if you really believed in a higher power guiding things . The thing is for that to work you have to really believe . I don't . Too much evidence to the contrary for me .
The purpose of life is life itself . The meaning of life is to find peace and to be content . I'm still working on it 👍

[Ylba]

Originally Posted by Teddy Bear

I'm a janitor and I volunteer at the food shelf. I feel I should be doing something more important. Do you ever wonder what your purpose is and what you could possibly do with your mental illness?

I definitely feel like this. Becoming a peer specialist could be a good way to give back by helping someone else who is struggling with a mental illness. I applied to train and was accepted but my symptoms were still too bad to actually attend the training.

I'm still at the point where I'm struggling a little and need to focus on staying put where I am and continuing to work in accounting for a nonprofit. But I feel like I could be doing something so much more impactful.

So yes I definitely wonder what I could do with my mental illness.

[leomama]

I can relate to this but I don’t blame my ptsd or anxiety or stress but the emotional neglect I suffered as a child. I may make a similar post in the childhood emotional neglect forum.

[hyacinth1]

I use to think that way but did the family thing and my purpose until these kids grow up is work to put food on the table and a roof over their heads.

after they're grown up and out of the house, THEN maybe I'll figure out what I REALLY want to do.

As for the OP being a janitor and volunteer - well buddy, from how I see it looks like you have a good work/life balance. If I had some kind of trade like you do, oh yeah, I would love to use it and live a simpler life than the corporate bs I have to go thru in my daily office job.

[bpforever1]

To the op, I admire you for doing what you do. I think one of the suggestions about becoming a peer counselor is a good idea if you're not currently satisfied with what you are doing. I am a teacher and also volunteer at the Red Cross. What you do as a job should not define who you are. How you act and what you say should matter more. Some people are impressed by other people's titles and job. But, what is important is how they treat you and others.

Well, I have a form of amnesia (I am not kidding, years of listening to music while reading fiction has led to this... if the asphyxiation and head trauma were not sufficient) but before I knew that, or perhaps more accurately before the onset begun, I used to top my science class. I used to get at least above 80%. At the very, very least. Usual score was between 85-90%. Psychosis hit me when I came to ninth grade and lost all my passion for science. For a year. Then came my scientific salvation and I hit psychosis back. Literally. Like a punch to the disease. I studied science and managed to get 84% in the prelim. But for the board exam, I got only 68%... True, I was hearing voices and was delusional even in the examination hall (my friend broke up with me before the board exam, which was around two months after the prelim. the breakup happened in between.)


I was crushed. I thought I could get 90% as usual. It was more than two years ago. As my insight increased, my grades dropped. They never rose. They still haven't. I get less than 50% marks now. But I still haven't lost hope. I remind myself, while my whole class cheated, on only occasion., I got 37 out of total 40 marks. I didn't cheat. It was biology preparation exam. My handwriting was terrible as always, so were my diagrams, but I practiced day and night before the exam, like my whole future was based on it. I succeeded. But before the first semester exam... I discovered I have memory loss. That broke me down. I never topped a class again.

I haven't given up hope yet. I know I can be a doctor. I just have to work smart enough. I am re-giving the medical entrance exam. Till I get accepted. We have fourteen attempts, I have thirteen left. In those six and half a years (NEET, National Eligibility cum Entrance Exam, will be conduced twice a year starting from this December) , if I keep trying, I know I will eventually secure a seat for MBBS.

Memory loss, psychosis, tremors... nothing can stop me from becoming a doctor. After all, it's not only for myself I am becoming one. It is for my patients, a portion of mankind, I am choosing to become a doctor. If I am worthy of their service, I am pretty sure fate won't stop me from becoming one. Oh, f*k fate. I am my own maker. If I manage to control my dissociation, if I manage to study smart, if I manage to solve physics and chemistry numerical, if I manage to memorize biology.... I will secure a seat to MBBS.

Then as I would live in a government college hostel, there would be plenty of time away from my crazy parents. Which would slowly heal my cognition, I guess? Which would make a whole-brained person again. After all I topped my science class as a child, why cannot I top my medicine class as an adult? Which would completely heal me, deal complete, my field of choice of study heals not only me but also the people around me.

Such a wonderful profession medicine is! You get to heal people, anyone, right from telling them they're just over-worrying to saving their lives. Amazing, marvelous. Definitely where I will be spending my entire life. In the way I like.

[Teddy Bear]

I've actually thought about being a peer support or going back to Bible college

Do whatever that rocks your boat. If you enjoy studying the Bible, why not make a living out of it? I am following my passion. Or at least dying trying to.