Kyle's Job

I posted this the other day on Bipolar Support, but we're so happy about it, I'm reposting it here.

Kyle has a job again, and the change in him is remarkable. This happens whenever he gets a job, his confidence returns, he gets more productive in his day to day life, and he is just a different person.

This shows me that disability is most likely a huge mistake for him. In fact, I can see how disability could be a huge mistake for most people in his situation.

Please don’t misunderstand this. Disability is ABSOLUTELY necessary in many scenarios, and I am in no way supporting any curtailing of any program designed to help those with bipolar or mental challenges. I am saying that collecting disability can cause a spiral of dependency. The lack of self worth causes more issues, potentially leading to the substance abuse that is so prevalent among those of us with this condition. It’s an insidious trap – the job gives the self confidence necessary for a normal life, yet they can’t hold a job due to their condition. Go on disability, and they can’t take a job as their assistance will terminate or cut back to nothing. So their confidence and self-worth will never be what it could, and they will never become contributing members of society. This leads to…

It’s the song that never ends.

I did have a comment on the other post that disability helped increase confidence by allowing her to contribute financially to her household. I understand this also, but it's not that way for Kyle.

But back to the positive. Kyle is happy, cheerful, and doing things around the house. He did his own laundry yesterday. He’s a joy to be around.

Now if we can talk him into getting on a program of meds he stands a fighting chance of keeping the job. But he feels so confident and good about himself right now he’ll never consent to start meds.

It’s the song that never ends.

In other news, I finally decided to sacrifice 4 hours a week at my part time job and take another class at a local college. So I'm taking a Visual Basic.Net class. I am fairly proficient in VB6, and other technologies. I've worked with VB.NET, but never had a class. I read an article the other day about how dot net developers are in very high demand, so thought I'd get on it while the getting's good. I'll post from time to time on how it's going. I'll get an A, when I decide to do something, nothing else would be remotely acceptable. And I'm so damned competitive, I'll make sure I'm at the top of my class. That's something I don't like about myself, how I can't look at someone in that kind of environment without trying to out-do them. I rarely come away from something like that with friends, of course I have very few friends anyway. I know a million people (almost), and am known and mostly respected by many, but have very few friends. With my personality, it just doesn't work.