I've suffered from discrimination. Have you? My story

[lorenuciadoekes]

This is a long post so I might have to divide it up.  Here goes. A snap shot of my life with mental illness:
My husband and I live in Sun City, Arizona. He's retired, and I'm unemployed. We both have issues with being able to let things go. I know that I am definitely energetically blocked. I think my history will explain these blockages.
I had an extremely violent childhood which included losing my virginity at 9. When I started menstruating at 11, I didn't know that blood clots were normal and I thought that I had been pregnant and lost the baby, and now cancer was growing inside of me. For years I worried about the cancer that I was convinced my body harbored. I couldn't tell anyone, because then, it would have been discovered that I wasn't a virgin. I had what I now believe was a yeast infection when I was 10 and living with my grandmother. I would pour rubbing alcohol on my genitalia to try to stop the itching. When I was 16 I came home in a drunken state and finally begged my mother to take me to the doctor. It turned out that I had the beginning of cervical cancer. Thankfully, it was caught in time. At 23, I was gang raped while on a trip to Guatemala. For years I thought that I had contracted lice or crabs from that experience and would bathe in anti-parasitic medication, boil my clothing, vacuum my apartment incessantly, spray my mattress and pillow with insecticides until I thought that I had finally killed them. Then a couple of months later the delusion would return and I'd be off on another cleaning frenzy. I was also convinced that I had been infected with aids from the rape. I went weekly to a public clinic and used false names to be tested for venereal diseases including aids. When they told me I was completely clean, I didn't believe it. I thought that they had made a mistake. Every time I went I would use a different name, and they would ask "Haven't you been here before?" I'd give them my best dumb look. I was also extremely bulimic from age 23 until being treated at age 33. Then in my late 30's I developed bi-polar disorder with psychotic features. I'm completely normal now and have been stable since mid 2000 when I was committed to a state hospital and medicated. Don't get me started on the horrors of state hospitals where treatment only consists of medication. End of story. Therapy, you say? Not in the state hospital to which I was committed. I've never been so bored in my life. I spent almost 6 months there, but still thank God for medication. I am also a recovering alcoholic. The years that I was actively mentally ill, I had delusions of being raped several times a day by devils. I thought that I was dead and in hell. I thought that my entire family was lost to me, and that the people I sometimes talked to were devils pretending to be my loved ones in order to torture me. I cried for hours everyday mourning the loss of my family. I cried so many tears that I could have replenished the oceans. I thought that all my food and water was poisoned and resorted to drinking rain water and my own urine to survive. I would slam my head against the wall to get the devils off of me. I had lumps on my head and once even got a black eye from slamming myself face first into the wall. I shaved my head in the hope that I would be so ugly that the devils would not rape me. The year I spent locked up alone in my apartment, my heat went out. I didn't call the management to fix it, because I believed the devils had done it. I wore my winter coat inside to keep warm. I slept under a mound of blankets to stave off the bitter cold. I took hot bathes to warm myself. The hinge on my front door broke making it very hard to get in or out of my apartment. Again, I thought it was the devils at work. I bought a fold up ladder and climbed up or down the balcony of my first floor apartment if I decided to go out. I broke off the handle of a steak knife and taped it between my legs so that the devils would be hurt when raping me. The knife would sometimes turn and cut me. I knew that it was the devils trying to gain easy access to me. It took a half an hour to use the bathroom as it was quite a lengthy process to un-do the packing tape that held the knife in place. It ripped bits of skin off. For months after being hospitalized I had marks on my skin from the tape. It was quite a traumatic situation.

[zzzmykids]

Thanks for writing back.   Those are good goals.  You do have at your disposal your unique ability with languages.  My sister lives in Paradise Valley and pays thirty dollars an hour starting with travel time and ending with travel time for tutors.  One son is dyslexic to the max and another wanted to learn a language.
Server? Who's talking server?  Basha's is your local grocery store, pays  05 cents above union stores and Eddie Basha  is still hands one with the business.  Grocery teller or grocery clerk.
There was an influx of indian and oriental/asian nurses brought to the area about five years ago.  My sister, ten years ago was at the top of her field as a charge nurse at the most prestigeous children's hospital when she got sick.  She just graduated from taking a year of updates and can't get a job....so check into hiring before spending money for school.
Really, is there a reason you won't try going to International School of Business to see if they need interpretors?
Or learn  one more language at Phoenix College...Sign interpretation, then use your talents with languages for City or Phoenix Day School for the Deaf.

Just ideas.
Good luck in all you aspire to accomplish,
zzzmykids

[lorenuciadoekes]

Thanks for the compassion.  I feel like the survivor of a war.  Right now, I'm waiting to get my third and final shot of the hepatitus B vaccine so that I can do the 6 week class to become a certified nursing assistant.  I don't want to be a server anymore, because of having to serve alcohol.  I'm also thinking of going to a local school to become an acupuncturist.  I have to find a way to come up with the tuition.  Thanks for the words of encouragement.

[zzzmykids]

Wow.  The words to express my sorrow for all that you have endured are too simplistic. So I will say, I am so sorry you have endured all this excruciating pain.
I think we are all discriminated against when we allow people to know we have a mental disorder.  Instead of thinking we are just in a really bad mood, they think, ahaa.
Here's some things I think you could do:
Go to Basha's and apply as a cashier, it is really family oriented. I still have friends from working there.
Go to Alaska Airlines they hired my niece who at the time was extremely heavy and undiagnosed for bp1 dilusional.
I like N.A.M.I and another one for help for bp advocating,  the other one is a twelve step bipolar support group....send me a message and I will look it up again.
Have you tried Boswell for working in customer services since Sun City is a multicultural area of Phoenix Metro.
How about 311 line for metro...need different languages and it is not as stressful as 911.
There are many, many churches and synagogues in Sun City, most reach out to the homeless and have missions in other states and countries
International School of Business not ASU affiliated but it's own school in the Glendale area.
There are several private schools that may be interested in employing you to teach languages, or do it through the craigs list and charge 25 to 30 an hour per student at their own homes.
I am an Arizonian by birth, my parents, sister and her family and brother and his family all still live on in Arizona.  I love home, Arizona, but enjoy a healthy distance far away from all the turmoil.

Please take care, know you can't change the past, live in the present vibrantly and know the future is yours to make.
Sincerely,
zzzmykids

[lorenuciadoekes]

Thanks for your post.  I feel my suffering has made me a stronger person.

[ILADVOCATE]

That's a very traumatic life overall. I can't imagine coping with it. However, if you've faced disability discrimination you can contact the EEOC and as for disability advocacy issues your local independent living center would be a good resource. There's one in every county of every state:
http://www.ilru.org/html/publications/directory/index.html
You won't neccessarily have to face tardive dyskinesia or diabetes as there are new antipsychotics in development that wont' cause either of those side effects. I've been asked to confine the information to my journal entries but you can read them as I am in a clinical study for a new class of antipsychotics and have been documented as making a full recovery from schizoaffective disorder. In the meantime there are many available FDA approved mood stabilizers. Here's a full list:
http://www.psycheducation.org/depression/meds/moodstabilizers.htm
I too have faced discrimination but since I often legally contested it it would not be appropriate for me to discuss on a public thread. I have had favorable experiences from psychiatric treatment though and am actively working with the system to have safer and more effective treatments be FDA approved.
  You can't take back the terrible things that were done to you but you have rights as a person with a disability and you can fine out more how to safeguard them and contest them when they are violated.

[lorenuciadoekes]

Cont'd: a snap shot of my life with mental illness:


I feel that I've dealt with most of my traumatic past at this point. I did a lot of sharing in AA meetings and had a few months of counseling when I got out of the hospital. Now, I'm up usually around 5 and walk my dog with my husband. I go regularly to my health club for yoga and step aerobics and weight training. After years of sometimes consuming up to 10,000 calories a day when bulimic, I am now very happy with my diet. My problem is feeling unable to get my space organized. I once organized my mother's whole house during a month long manic episode. These days, it's hard to get motivated. My husband, having been very poor as a child, also finds it hard to let go of things. I also think my blockages are preventing me from finding a new career. I was a flight attendant for almost 25 years. When I became ill, I was too sick to fill out my private insurance paperwork for disability. The deadline had passed when I woke up from my two and a half year nightmare in the hospital. My company (Delta) placed me on a medical leave with no benefits. Since I got out of the hospital, I tried mightily to get my job back. All of my doctors said that I could return to work, but Delta's doctor disagreed. Every year since 2000 I have asked to be re-evaluated to see if I could return to flight status. Every year I was denied. In January, they sent me a letter informing me that I was fired since I had been on leave too long. They did at some point give me a number to call to see about getting a job on the ground. I called and the lady I spoke with said "Why don't you just quit?" Then she informed me that there were no positions at that time. When I had gotten out of the hospital back in Virginia where I was living at the time of my active illness, I had gone to live with my mother and step-father because I lost everything due to my illness. One evening I said to my mother "Mother, you're drunk." My step-father gave me two weeks to move out. Thankfully, my aunt and uncle took me in for a few months. Then I moved to Arizona to live with my sister in Glendale. I love living here so that any possibility of a ground position with Delta would have surely meant that I would have had to move. If I could have gotten my flight position back, I could have commuted to Los Angeles as I commuted to the New York base while living in Arlington, Virginia. That's why I didn't really pursue trying to get a job on the ground. I speak 5 languages fairly fluently and have a degree in International Studies with honors from the School of International Service at American University. However, I had been an international flight attendant for so long, I didn't have a clue as to what I could pursue when I arrived in Arizona. I wound up working as a server at Outback Steak House for almost a year. Feeling secure in that job, I let it slip that I was bi-polar. The next day, I came into work to discover the new schedule posted on the wall. My work week had been cut from 5 days to 2 days. The manager and I were the only ones on the premises at that time as I was in early to open. I told him point blank that I thought this was discrimination and he said "You're fired." When I applied for unemployment benefits, he claimed that I had walked off the job so that I had to fight to get my benefits. Later, I found a job as a server at the Olive Garden. After 6 months there, I was talking with another server one day who told me that her sister was bi-polar. I told her that so was I. A couple days later I had a complaint from a customer and was fired. I think she might have told management about my illness. I then found a job with Black Angus where I worked without problems for 2 years. I met my husband while working there. When I moved to Arizona, I had been sober for 12 years. Even when I was ill, I kept pointing out to God that I didn't deserve to be in hell, because I had overcome bulimia, marijuana use when very young and alcoholism. When I was training at Outback, I was told I had to sample their specialty drinks to work there. I told them that I didn't drink, but the trainer more or less indicated if I wanted to work there I had to try their product in order to be familiar with it and sell it. I thought to myself that I should be able to handle it with so many years of sobriety under my belt. Boy was I wrong. Within days of tasting alcohol again, the craving was back full force and I started drinking in the evenings after my shifts hiding it from my sister. I never drank before or during work only after work. I averaged between a bottle and a bottle and a half of wine a night. When I met my future husband, I was a full blown active alcoholic. He agreed to pay for out-patient treatment for me. Black Angus told me they couldn't guarantee the 3 mornings a week off that I would need. The supervisor who told me this was a woman who I believe didn't like me because I could speak fluent Spanish with the kitchen staff and she couldn't speak word one. Alcohol was killing me. I gave my 2 week notice. I've been sober now since May 15 of 2006. The first year of sobriety, I spent going to a lot of meetings. My husband supported me. The 2nd year I seriously applied for server positions, but I believe I was unsuccessful because I'm now 53 and most restaurants want 20 year olds. Plus on my work history now I have to list 2 jobs from which I was fired. Also, I'm conflicted about working around alcohol. Anyway that's the situation in a nutshell. We aren't paupers, but if anything were to happen to my 76 year old husband, I couldn't count on his social security until 65 and in the event of his death his pension payments would cease. I need to find a new direction and getting my space clear, I think, would open my world up. I just feel so blocked that I'm not moving forward. I'm on geodon, and it works great for me. Of course I worry about the side effects like developing tardive dsykenisia or diabetes, but what choice do I have? I still have mild highs and lows. I have to be careful with the highs though as I tend to spend too much money, but mostly it's manageable. I do miss the full blown manic episodes. That was the greatest feeling in the world. I know it was dangerous, but boy did I enjoy it. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this rather lengthy missive. I might even post this on a couple of other websites so that people can become aware of the discrimination faced by the mentally ill.