Does Your Career Accommodate Ptsd?

[KwanYingirl]

I'm feeling grateful for the career I made for myself. In the 90's I was overexposed to darkroom chemicals ( no pun intended). My body developed a true allergy to a wide number of synthetic chemicals, exhaust, scented anything, tobacco smoke, etc. so I had to give up my career and was disabled. After many attempts to get a job that I could do without exposing myself, I finally settled into a nice gig, Electrolysis.

Chemical problems aside, it's also a skill that really works with my PTSD. I'm the boss, I have to hyper focus through a magnifying lens onto a small area of skin. Then I have to use precise hand-eye coordination to get hair out. The mental focus I use is like Zen meditation. I can make my schedule to work around my need for rest and renergizing. I don't make a lot of money, but I get by.

How compatible is your career with your PTSD?

 

[The Albatross]

Mixed bag for me... some of it can be very challenging... like when I started accepting male clients a couple years ago, or the volume of the television... in other aspects being one on one has been a benefit. I am at the mercy of a scheduler, but I have the right to refuse certain clients... so some control.

 

[Aggie]

My past job was exciting, stimulating, fast paced, rewarding and all that. It allowed me to eat up my adrenalin and anxiety. It kept me very busy where I didn't have much time to process...just do. I did it for 12 years. Loved the international travel especially.

Now I have a job that is slow, easy, (better paying), not much of a challenge at all. It comes very easy. Now the adrenalin/anxiety isn't being eaten up and I have time to process. I have better control of my triggers, but with the down time comes higher levels of depression and just down right hard times.

The end result is that I miss living on adrenalin, but I actually believe I am getting more real healing by having to deal with things.

 

[3turff]

i actually was fired from work due to my ptsd. I could not concentrate or focus and this bitch that i worked with started to make comments about my ptsd and that just triggered me and i couldn't do anything. i went to management many times and nothing was done. Then i was fired and she was promoted. WTF!

 

[Ronin]

Depends.

There's parts of what I do that seriously give me life. They also happen to be most anything on the scale of unnerving to downright traumatizing, but I tend to cope with some PTSD aspects when I have something to do that doesn't outright bore me.

My semi-regular job these days is way slow paced for me, but it fills some gaps in my life, which is helpful. So I think a mixed bag.

 

[KwanYingirl]

I have had to terminate a male client. It was very difficult but I did it and if I ever have another inappropriate make I'll nip it in the bud.

 

[theshadowoftheliving]

My career isn't friendly. It's one of those fields that should be, but I can't have absences and I can't show up unprepared, which is excruciating at times. Coffee helps, but doesn't solve things. But the satisfaction I get from it is huge, and I wouldn't trade it for an easier job at all.