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Key points
- It's natural to feel shame and worry if you have been let go from a job due to symptoms of mental illness.
- Even if you have to let go of a career, it doesn't always mean all that hard work will go to waste.
- Sometimes you can surprise yourself when starting over, discovering new professional strengths.
Collateral damage often results from psychotic breaks. You can lose a job or a career from having a psychotic break observed at work or an email you sent out. You can sustain enough cognitive impairment from having a psychotic break that the job or career you had prior to the break is unsuitable for you now. Doors can close, leading to frustration and shame when it comes to your resume. A question can be: How do I move forward from this? Will I ever work again? If I do work, what job is right and appropriate for me now? Have my interests or priorities shifted in the wake of my illness, leading me in a new direction? Who would want me now that I have gaps and red flags on my resume?
I worked so hard to return to college after my first bout with psychosis. I managed to graduate, only to be underemployed in jobs where I was mistreated and ultimately forced to resign multiple times. I was hard-working, nice, and did what people told me to do, but somehow, I was misunderstood in a way that was beyond my control. I was on antipsychotics during this time, while what was my actual problem was a mystery to psychiatrists. When I had few options with work, I went back and got a Master’s degree, which led to joining a Ph.D. program. Academia suited me well. But during this time of academia, I had three full-blown psychotic breaks in two years. I left the Ph.D. program after a year, closing what was an exciting direction for me, and went back to square one. I went from being a promising junior faculty member at a major university to not being sure if I could ever work again.
I did recover and entered the workforce again, where I was willing to do the work to relentlessly seek employment, start from an entry-level position, and chart a new path. I now do marketing, which is how I pivoted from academia, and I also use my writing skills developed in school to write about psychotic breaks and emotional recovery. Everything finally fell together for me over the course of a decade, as if this is how it always was meant to be for me. Here are my thoughts on reestablishing yourself professionally after psychosis.
Reconsider What Work You Truly Find Meaningful and What You Really Enjoy
Experiencing psychotic breaks is so devastating that it can be life-altering. When I had to fight for my will to live, anything other than what made me happy got filtered out. I’ve heard before that if you know what you love, you better just go ahead and do it now because that’s what you’re going to end up doing anyway. Limitations gave me clarity on what matters, and part of my choice to endure these psychotic breaks, where I chose life, was doing what feels meaningful. When looking for motivation to live, sometimes that personal reflection provides perspective and clarity. Are you living through your own eyes or someone else’s when it comes to your career? In a way, having psychotic breaks was like getting a reset for me. I believe it can be a crossroads where you have the opportunity to reevaluate what really matters to you and begin anew.
Keep an Open Mind About Where Your Professional Life Takes You
I thought my life was over when I had psychotic breaks that led to disability papers to sign. I thought there was only one profession I could do, and I couldn't do that anymore. The truth is, there are multiple options for all of us that can feel just as rewarding. We always must keep in mind that we are not capable of knowing where life will take us. We don’t always know how we get from our current circumstances to where we actually want to be through everyday opportunities and choices we make. Sometimes you just have to take the next step offered, or take what may not sound exactly what you have in mind professionally, to segue into what is right for you. Every little positive decision we make, whether we realize it or not, can take us in a new direction which can actually be a better one, where you just have to have faith and patience in yourself. Getting that first job is a huge accomplishment and a step in the right direction, regardless of whatever job it is. You never know how the experiences on your resume line up to be the perfect fit for a specific future job offered that you will really want. Just remember that having any job makes it so much easier to get that job you really want.
Sometimes There Is Such a Thing as Great Mistakes
Some people believe that everything happens for a reason, and I eventually became one of those people. I did not feel this way at all when I was in the acute stages of recovery from psychotic breaks — when I was penniless, jobless, homeless, and totally in debt from school loans and hospital bills. I didn’t see how my life or career for that matter, could recover. I didn’t see how I could ever take pride in myself again.
The truth is, though, had I not let go of academia and research, I would have never learned I am a creative writer and blogger, too. I had a dissertation topic that I was set to study and become the authority on for the rest of my professional life, but now I have a new topic, emotional recovery from psychosis. In addition to blogging, I've published a number of poems and have finished a memoir on the same topic. This new topic is much more important to real people in their daily lives than my other topic. I think I’m making a greater difference this way.
Everything I do, through both marketing and writing, is in one huge defiance of the illness I battled against. The greatest mistake would have been to not learn from my psychotic breaks and improve myself for the better. So as devastating as psychotic breaks are, maybe they were great mistakes that knocked me off course, because maybe I was headed in the wrong direction. I know that I am headed in the right direction now.
