The Job for Me

Posted on May 18, 2006 in Stigma

We’d met in a session about suicide. The Meeting of the Minds is an annual affair where mental health consumers, advocates, therapists, psychiatrists, social workers, bureaucrats, and — this year — law enforcement officers gather to hear testimonials, the latest self-help techniques, and panel discussions on mental health issues. This man was a probation officer and I encountered him again in front of the DBSA table.

It began and ended as one of those “what bipolars can do” conversations. I talked about how the disorder afflicted many intelligent people. What about me? I told him about my other conditions. The ticky heart, the asthma, the diabetes. I was hardly a poster child for health.

Surely there must be something you can be trained for. Some little job…..”

I found a pretext to end it there. I walked him over to meet someone who was interested in working with law enforcement, a woman who I think doesn’t think much of me because I am not a creature of statistics and pressed suits. As I walked away, I thought about the kind of job which he meant, a job where I passed papers or ran a machine. Somewhere where I didn’t get to use my mind or my soul or my lust for creative expression. The kind of job that he would never take.