I’m going to talk in coming blog entries about topics linked to National Disability Employment Awareness Month.

After this I’m going to return to talking about fitness and nutrition.

My contention is that schizophrenia recovery outcomes are rosier than most people think.

It’s hard to peg how many people are doing well because most of us with jobs and careers and other successes are afraid to disclose.

Yet I refused to live in hiding. To remain silent would be complicit in reinforcing the rhetoric that no one can recover.

My motto is: “If you can see it, you can be it.”

Peers need to know that there are people just like them who have succeeded at finding and working at jobs we love, not just jobs that pay the rent or are the means to get off disability.

We shouldn’t be pigeonholed into accepting jobs simply because a vocational counselor thinks someone with our particular disability is suited only to those kinds of job.

What if you don’t want to be a janitor yet you’re told you should do that?

What if you want to do something that you’re told is impossible because you have a certain diagnosis?

Either way I’m here to tell you that a myriad of jobs exist. You can even create a job for yourself that fills a need in society.

Having the job or career you love can reduce the impact of your disability.

I say: if you want to work, you deserve to try to make that happen.

In the end working at the job or career you love is a kind of adjunct treatment.