What is your career? How did you find it?

[tired]

I can relate.  That is exactly the situation I am in.

About 20 years ago I went to school for a big time career but after I graduated I just gave up. I did some dog walking and meals on wheels, which I liked because I could be alone most of the time in my car.  Then I decided to get healthy and thought of taking the personal training exam. I did that and so now I'm technically a certified personal trainer.  I say technically because I haven't done a lot of actual work. Very part time for years, as in, a couple of hours a week.  You can imagine the problems I'm having; probably the same as yours.

I tried working for other people, gyms etc, and it was horrible. I gave up. Besides, there's not much money in that anyway.  I am trying to work from home and I've invested a lot of credit card debt into home equipment right in my tiny living room.  Basically taking over my house but I think this is the only thing I can do. When I'm home, I feel empowered and safe and as long as I'm selective about who comes in I feel pretty good.

I tried being a typical trainer and working to please people but I gave up on that and I am sticking to what I know.  I decided I will do what I do, offer what I have in terms of skills (I'm also good at cleaning and organizing) and hope for the best.  I don't know if I can make a living but this is probably all I can do.  I mean I'm almost 50 and tried pretty much everything else I can think of.

I have trouble getting people in the door (advertising) and also keeping clients. Sometimes when they don't show up I don't follow up and say hey where are you.  That sort of thing.  I'm not good at some interactions and I tend to avoid people.  I'm bad at paperwork and writing down plans but I force myself to do it because I'm terrified at how broke I am right now.  And the fact that a couple of people seem to like me is very motivating. 

I put an ad on craigslist for a personal assistant and I found a young woman with a history of csa who is young and understands social media and marketing.  She is very understanding of my issues but also pushes me and tells me things I have to do.  I arranged to barter with her and train her and her family for free in exchange for time she is putting into making my website and facebook page etc.  Knowing she's there helps a lot. 

I don't like asking for help and it sometimes makes things worse but getting help from one or two good people seems to be a good idea.

About figuring out what you like to do and who you are and your place in the world:

I paid attention to what I do when I just want me time.  How do I spend my time, energy, money, when there is no one else around and I want to destress?  The answers are:  I clean and organize, I buy exercise equipment, I think of ways to solve problems around the house.  What do I think about when I interact with people (aside from my social anxieties)? I think about how to help them clean their houses, organize their stuff, find ways to exercise that fit with their lifestyle, cook better meals, learn life skills.  That all translates into personal fitness, professional organizing, cleaning. 

I also recall things people say about me that are positive: I have a calm house. I have a calming influence. I give great advice.  I'm fun.  I understand quirky people.  I have good ideas about exercise.  I seem to have it all figured out (this is an image; it's not that I have it all figured out but the fact that people think I do is something that can relate to a job).

I am now at a place where I seem to be making tiny bits of progress, and I am terrified that I will fail again.  I've failed at this same thing many times and last year I took a long time off and dropped the couple of clients I had.  It was messy and depressing. But I took the time to regroup and figure out what was holding me back.  I had to learn to function normally day to day and so I took ten steps back and started over.  I put up signs in the kitchen 8am breakfast 9am clean kitchen things like that.  I went into more and more detail that way. I have a kid so I can tell people it's for her. Or I can say I'm an add coach (i'm not ) and not care if they think it's weird.  They don't anyway.  Turns out a lot of people say they have add and I have good ideas.

Anyway I'm at this place where i thinki i'm on a roll. Then last night my issues with my mom sent me into a panic and I looked at my room (giant mountain of laundry) and i said ok this is bad.  I told my daughter we can't do anything until this situation is fixed. no hobbies, nothing.  we have to get to a new level of organization because i can't have laundry get to this point where i can't be ready for the next client.  I think I'm going to have to add more lists.  what would i do for a client who had a disability like short term memory loss? tons of post it reminders, etc.  i might as well be brain damaged the way i have trouble functioning. it doesn't matter that the reason is ptsd and not brain damage. the effect is the same.

i decided that i have to settle on the idea that i can't see my mom and even the thought of it is ruining my life right now.  last night i realized how damaging it is to even consider it and feel the pressure. so i decided i absolutely will not and if the family hates me it's a small price to pay compared to the alternative. this helped.

today is a new day.  fingers crossed. 

[Multicolour]

Wow tired, you are so determined. It's so hard to keep on trying but you do.

I stopped seeing my mum some years ago. Every time I saw her I felt so awful, I had suicidal thoughts, I just felt worthless. It was so hard but it was worth it. I don't think I'd be here if 'd kept seeing her.

When you have lived with being unsafe for a long time i think it can make it very difficult to recognise when bad feelings are being caused by others. Instead of shrugging off a slightly bullying boss at work I felt worthless, angry and helpless. I saw colleagues do what she said but then laugh at her- it didn't hurt them in their core. Instead of laughing I felt worthless. But it wasn't me who should have felt bad- it was her!

The same with friends and partners, it's a constant battle to try to listen to how I feel and recognise it as a valid reaction to another person's actions, instead of thinking a worthless feeling means I am worthless. I like what steamy said about comparing my inside with the outside of others who seem to get on. I do this all the time, worthless me Vs confident Other, it's always a rotten exercise.

I believe that with imaging technology that scientists can now see the changes CPTSD causes in the brain: it is a form of brain damage. I operate in the world with a major, invisible, disability, that affects everything I feel and do.

[steamy]

I read VA2 and had to agree  "The core of the problem goes right back to my illness. I don't know who I am, and I don't know what I want. How can I set career (or life) goals and create a "personal brand" without those two things to start with? And my self-loathing internal critic still sees my job history as one massive train wreck, so it feels utterly dishonest for me to try to put a positive spin on it."

I spent $300 on a profession CV writer to put the spin on my train wreck, a few jobs have been merged and some left off completely. I could not see the achievements of the last 30 years, it often takes somebody else to give us an outside view of ourselves.

Although I have a profession, I have no career, what I do seems to be hanging by a thread. At 48 the eternal optimism I had at 30 is all gone and it feels like everybody has been beating me up the last 20 years. I tried to do a masters degree to reinvent myself, that put $10,000 on my credit card and has only given me a broader view of how life is unfair for the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.

Last week I attended an interview for a job as a development worker, ironically the interview was attended by a psychologist, who picked up on a few things and told me that despite 15 years as a development worker I didn't have what it takes to be a development worker. I think that despite psychology moving on like it is, it will be a long while before we see positive discrimination for people with mental health issues. As our personalities radiate our state of mental health, it is that we get rejected on our personalities, people don't like us, are annoyed by us or simply don't warm to us, which might not affect our effectiveness, and that is prejudical, its exactly like not giving a job to somebody who has difficulty walking. It would be, pardon the pun, a big step forward if our society was to help people with CPTSD to maintain a job and provide them with the support to recover from the trauma, the continuous disappointments and ongoing hurt from rejections and failures means that we often continue to accumulate trauma instead of shedding it.

[samantha19]

I agree it would be fairer if people with mental illness' were given help to get a job, and their illness' considered a bit more.
I currently work as a programmer and I got that job through an apprenticeship program. It's a good field to get in to cause they're constantly hiring and skilled people are limited in this area.
So yeah, it's a good job, although I struggle with being around people so much, it feels like I'm in a living *. I hope this gets better as I recover more and can socialise with better ease. I'm a freeze type so when I get triggered, which is often, I completely shut down and don't want to talk to, or even look at or be around anyone.
I guess the good thing about working with computers is isolation doesn't often affect my work, I can type away on my lonesome ownsome.
This isn't where my passion lies really, although it is quite a good job.
I want to pursue writing as this is my passion and what I done in college, although maybe just as a hobby mostly, I don't really care how much money I make.
I also really want to get involved in health and wellness, more than anything really, that's my dream job. I want to open my own naturopathic wellness centre, that's the dream :-)

[Sesame]

I know this is an old topic, but I had to reply.

I think mental illness is definitely something that should be taken into account when helping people find work. While the daughter of my parents' friend sailed through school with straight A's, my top grades took a nosedive at the most crucial point thanks to C-PTSD and still living in a situation where I regularly encountered the causes. This meant I got the worst grades of my life for going to university. My record would show a smart, capable student, but they place the emphasis on the final grade that relies on exams. How is it fair to compare the achievements of one person who has a smooth, straight, clear path to the one with the winding obstacle course? You cannot expect them to both be able to achieve the same thing.

I had no self-esteem, no confidence. I didn't believe I could live on my own, so I chose universities based on being able to commute from my parents' house. I did choose something I liked, but I admit my low self confidence deterred me from my first choices. Especially if it involved venturing outside home or having to interact with people. At that stage in my life, I was still sure everyone was out to get me.

I'm sure no one will be surprised to know I never finished that degree. Any form of social thing I had to do as part of the course terrified me and realising the university was one of the worst choices I could have made only further destroyed my self-esteem.

During this time I met my husband, who offered to help me finish the degree in another country, as it was more affordable and had a much more developed course in comparison to the one I was taking. Unfortunately, the university staff made a mistake which meant I had already moved to that country before being told I would have to pay three times as much. It was impossible. Despite this, moving away from my toxic situation was the best decision I ever made. I had time to start healing and rebuilding. It was slow and painful, but my journey to a stronger, more confident self had begun.

My husband is highly educated. As such, we were relying on his income. His line of work takes him around the world. I decided to get a qualification for something I could do anywhere in the world: freelance proofreading in English. It took a long time to get permission to work in the country we lived in, but then he got an excellent job offer back in Europe. I worked for an English-language newspaper once, but then the recession hit almost as soon as I got the job and I was back to square one.

We ended up in East Asia, in a country where it was completely illegal for me to work as a person without a university degree (many, many countries have this rule, unless you are married to a local). We never had the money for me to get a degree and I wasn't sure how I could put what I would be most interested in to good use (psychology). I thought of translation, but that would take twice as long as a regular degree. In the end, I began working as an English teacher for cash. I taught several children. Some kids I liked fine, others were uncontrollable and their parents did not discipline them. In the end, I decided I did not enjoy the teaching itself enough. I was always happier to be going home than to teach. It did lead to more confidence in myself, which helped me, but I did not enjoy those years.

We moved again within East Asia and a friend lent me his graphics tablet. Drawing has always been a hobby of mine. Little did I know my drawing skills and proofreading qualification would lead to me having a job. It's not much of a career, but people appreciate and respect me. They love what I do.

Still, the dream will always be to create. To write and to draw, maybe learn how to paint. If only I could find the time. I get some satisfaction from the drawing I do at work, but it's not the same as having that freedom to do what you want.