GaryP - RA Survivor

 Employment
My experiences with employment, problems and what I have worked out about what is going on.


Where do I start? I have had a variety of kinds of jobs, but have never been able to sustain employment, especially if it was full time. So what kind of problems do I have? Well, it's much easier to understand from this point of view: I have the same kinds of problems when I do anything for MONEY.

It's not so much employment, it's money. I discovered this when I tried my hand at making money from selling stuff on a market stall - I still had the same problems and issues come up, and there was no employer to direct them at. Then, as I became more self-aware, I realized I had milder versions of these problems with doing what was required to get welfare payments. So here are the problems:

Suspicion/paranoia:

I became suspicious that I was being manipulated secretly, that I was being forced to do things that I didnt know about. That I was being tricked, taken advantage of. I feel that I am being bought, that I am only getting money because I am doing something bad.

Irritability/confrontation:

I get annoyed, and angry, and irritable, because I feel that things are happening to me that I don't like, against my will. I start being less friendly, more unfriendly.

One of the problems with seeing what is going on is that I don't have a great awareness of all this. It is very difficult for me to have any awareness of my actual outward behavior. I have not the ability to see that people are reacting to me differently, so I cant conclude that I am behaving differently.

The result:

I have gradually settled for being poor, because the possession and getting of money is simply too traumatic. Currently I am in a situation where I do not have to involve myself too much with the maintenance of my income, and can concentrate on getting myself to a point where I can work. So far this has not been easy. I have only partly uncovered the mechanisms that interfere with my attempts financial gain.

How do I now explain all this?:

When I started realizing that my behavior was being affected - when I was diagnosed with ADHD - I was still unable to actually perceive my own behavior. This is still mostly true today.

The first place where I worked as a telephone interviewer gave me a wonderful opportunity to increase my self understanding. The first time when I worked there in 1995, I got sacked because of my behavior. I was asked by my employing agent if drugs were involved in my problems.

Later on, I called that agent to inform her that I had been diagnosed with ADHD and was on medication for it - I believed then and now that my ADHD symptoms were related to what happened with my behavior. Because of doing this at apparently just the right time, I was offered a position on another survey, because it was short and I was trained on their system already. One of the other workers who was also there when I was the first time remarked how amazingly different my behavior was - that I was like a different person, so much more stable and less agitated. Also, I didn't get sacked this time. It was valuable to me to get such feedback about my behavior - I could not perceive any difference, yet others could.

This inability to perceive my own behavior mystified me, yet I knew it was central to the reasons why I had behavioral problems.

My problem is now, how do I get myself to a stage where I can work without needing medication, when I am unable to sense my own behavior?

My current explanation:

Back to the money issue. The other aspect of my behavior is that the bad stuff is triggered by money. Money drives me crazy, so to speak.

Since that time, I have associated my reaction to money to memories involving my being prostituted as a child by my parents. This is the trigger. The mechanism I have identified as personality characteristics that I have no awareness or control over - what is commonly known as Multiple Personality Disorder. I am not diagnosed with this, but I sure have looked into it a lot, and it really seems to fit what I am experiencing and explain the problems in my life.

This explanation also is consistent with my present inability to fix the problem. I haven't healed my separations of consciousness, or my perception of money. As I have discovered, this problem of employment is a very difficult one to repair. Now I know why.


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