Returning to gainful employment

Living with disappointment. That's what this illness does. It makes me feel ashamed of myself for not living up to other people's and my own expectations. Disappointment. I see it in their faces. I feel it everyday.

Yes, I qualify and have social security disability benefits. But, that's not enough to live on. Mainly it gives me my medical and helps pay for my medications which I am grateful for. But the disappointment lingers.

I want to work. I want to be able to provide a better quality of life for myself and my family. I feel so ashamed that I have this illness. I get depressed and feel trapped, hopeless.

Over the years I have attempted to return to work. The stress of dealing with (a certain type of) people usually causes my symptoms to pile up and I never can seem to work more than a few months before I am severely ill. The mania causes me to be irritable and the depression brings on all kinds of ailments such as body aches, migraines, low self esteem, tiredness, lethargic, anxiety, panic attacks and more. The medications they have me on also have side effects. Even as I'm writing this it looks pathetic. I have been fired from the last two jobs I've had. Still, I feel like I want to keep trying. No employer that I have worked for knew that I had a disability. How could I tell them? It's humiliating.

Of the last two jobs, the first one lasted two weeks. I was hired for my "real estate and mortgage experience" by a title company and was sent to a department that had me filing and copying. Mostly a lot of bending and stooping which I cannot do because of my knees and back problems. The two young girls I was working with had absolutely no background in this field and had worked previously in retail at the mall. They did not want to show me the software program they were using so that I could help them with the work. I went to the manager and told her that I do understand everything that is in those files and could do a better job if she just showed me how to work the software. I did say that I would not have accepted the position had I known I was going to be a file clerk. Probably not a good thing to say because after that, I was pretty much black balled. A few days later I got sick and was running a fever so they told me to go home. I did and the next day I was called into the managers office and told that by going home sick when I was new, didn't show them that I had a good work ethic so they gave me my final check and had someone escort me to pack up my desk and out of the building. I wasn't really sad about that one because the company had a sweatshop type of environment. Miles and miles of cubicles.

Next I was hired by a mortgage corporation as a loan processor. I didn't apply as a loan processor, I wanted to be a loan officer as that was my experience. I was hired temporarily as a processor with the promise that they would move me into a loan officer position.

About a week after I started working there the person who was in charge of training me left to go work for another company and I was left to fend for myself. I had to learn to use the software programs and learn the office protocol for sending files into our underwriters. I was experienced in mortgages so I pretty much knew how a file is processed for loan approval. It's just certain guidelines for particular loan programs that change and we need to keep up with it. So, I did okay with that job. In fact, I wrote a "how to" booklet for them so that any new hires could follow it and not have to go through all the trouble I did.

I loved the job, but of course there were certain people who were pre-madonnas and needed to be catered to. I did okay with that as well. As soon as I got promoted, I could be a pre-madonna too. Although, honestly, I think I am sensitive to people's feelings and I try not to be that way.

The brick wall I hit was a certain, "underwriter" who I had worked with years previously. (In the real estate field, it is typical to run into people you know from other companies.) Well, when I worked with her at another company and at one time we were friends but when we parted, we were no longer friends. Unfortunately, I told her some of my personal information. I told her I had bipolar disorder and anxiety and all that stuff. So....... here I am working with her again and this time she is an underwriter and I am a processor who has to turn my loan files into her. Well, she would take my loan files, underwrite them and then leave them on her desk and not contact me. I would call and leave messages, email her to no avail and hear nothing back from her. Finally, my manager would have to follow up with her to find out what the status was and she would tell them that she told me.... blah blah blah.... or emailed me blah blah blah..... So then in order to prove that I had turned in my work to her or had contacted her, I would have to send a copy to my manager. I'm pretty sure that she also told people stuff about my personal life. When we had our weekly office meetings, I would see her and I would try to be friendly but she would just give me a "look" and then ignore me. So, that wasn't pleasant. But still,..... I rallied on in my job. After all, I wasn't going to be a processor permanantly.

I was promised a promotion as soon as the company caught up with all the processing of loans that they were doing. I was even working in an office and not in a cubicle because I was to be doing this other job with another loan officer who I was sharing the office with.

I was barley there three months when they hired this "dude" and I mean it, he was a "dude". One of those slick willy sales people who does the "clicking thing" and winks as he walked by. He had absolutely NO REAL ESTATE OR MORTGAGE EXPERIENCE, he was a cell phone salesman and he was an idiot when it came to the mortgage industry and sales.

The day he came to work, he was introduced to me and he sat in my office with me and I showed him (babysat) around. Hmmm..... Well, the following Monday morning I come in and the IT guy is busy moving my computer to a cubicle while this guy is moving himself into my desk. Apparently his wife was best friends with the girlfriend of one of the guys who owned the mortgage company and he was being hired for the job I was promised and I was being moved permanently into processor cubicle hell. And.... on top of that, I was going to be slick Willy's processor. The equivalent of being his secretary!

I should have kept my mouth shut. I should have sucked it up and just let it go. Instead I started to confide in a person who I thought was a friend but who wasn't a friend. I probably moaned and groaned when I should have kept my feelings to myself. That seems to be a major issue I have about my "feelings".

This could have been a "trigger" that set off my mania and so I became more irritable and wasn't thinking rationally. Perhaps I had grandiose ideas, I don't know. But I ran my mouth and became obsessed about the situation.

I should have just appreciated that I had a good job that paid very well and full benefits. But noooooooo. I couldn't let it go. Then finally, when I was in a meeting with slick Willy and the woman who was at once my equal but who I was now working for (they were the team she and I were supposed to be). I opened my big mouth and announced that I didn't understand what had happened but I WAS NOT A PROCESSOR!!!!! I was so angry and I went back to my desk and the door to "their" office closed and it was quiet. I had plenty of loans to process so I went to work and by the end of the day my manager called me and asked me to meet with her. I turned to one of the fellow processors and said, "I'm fired.' She said, no she didn't think they would fire me, since I did such a good job. Well, when my manager got to the office I walked up to her and asked her if I was fired. She ushered me into her office and SHE started crying and she told me she was sorry but it wasn't a good match and she felt really bad. Well, I had to pack up my desk and that was the last of that job.

Since then I have been afraid to go to work again. I went through a severe depression afterwards and it took me awhile to get my social security and medical benefits reinstated. I'm not sure if I can get along with people on the long term. I know I don't want to work in the real estate industry anymore. I've never really worked in any other fields.

I'm not completely worthless. I do volunteer work and I am capable of typing and doing a lot of stuff. I speak good English and I write well. I can spell. I know how to work on web sites. Mostly the jobs that I got fired at were not due to my work, but due to how well I got along with people in my department. I usually do get along with people. It's when I get someone who is a total asshole that I come unglued. I cannot handle being berated or abused. I eventually explode. Then I find myself packing up my desk by the end of the day being escorted out by HR.

I wish I could find a job were I could work on the computer from home. That might work. I have signed up through the department of rehabilitation to get a job for the state through their LEAP program. They hire people with disabilities. Now our state is running out of money so there is a hiring freeze. I'm thinking about using my TICKET TO WORK and seeing if I can get a job through that program. Maybe if I get a job with an employer who knows I have a disability then I will be able to maintain steady employment. I'm not lazy. I want to work.

Living like I have been on social security disability has been life limiting and while I appreciate the help and the medical benefits it isn't enough to sustain the life I would like to live. My goal for 2009 is to get and keep a job.

What I am grateful for: The benefits, the doctors, medications that seem to be helping.
What I am manifesting: A job that pays well and offers great benefits and great people to work with.