*sapphoq healing tbi
Saturday, August 23, 2008
The Rigging of Failure 8/23/08
a big shout-out to the unknown damsel
The stoopid saga of VESID sucks carries on. The job handler/job developer/employment consultant whatever has transferred to a different job herself. The VESID-sucks counselor (my third) is apparently absent from work due to personal/medical whatever. Consequently, I have once again attained the status of limbo without the use of drugs.
As damsel has pointed out in a couple of comments over at Blogaholics, VESID-sucks has as a modus operandi the rigging of failure. Specifically and anecdotally only (based on googling various and sundry terms such as "VESID sucks" and "VESID horror stories" and "VESID complaints") one problem is the mindset to shove us into a job any job without much regard to anything. The other problem is the tendency of VESID helpers to declare many of us as being somehow falling short in the intelligence department and the blatant advice to lower our goals. Of course, if picking up pins with a tweezer and putting them in a container is a measure of anything at all-- the stoopid it burns-- then lots of people should automatically settle for a two year community college degree or a secretarial course or a job in retail or at a supermarket packing groceries. Sigh.
Anecdotally only, a good friend of mine was advised by his O.V.R. testers in another state that college would be an "impossible" goal for him to reach as well. Friend is brilliant. Friend went on to achieve 4.0 in college courses. See, the rub is that if any of our employment situations, college enrollment in courses or a pursuit of study, etcetera is not in line with what VESID sucks (or O.V.R. sucks) assumes is "realistic" based on our putting pins into a container using tweezers, they don't have to support it. In other words, I can be denied job coaching if the lousy little part-time job I have demands that I do something that VESID doesn't think I should do or am capable of doing. And folks who wish to obtain bachelor degrees or more can be denied needed funding by VESID or O.V.R. because the rigors of academia are a far stretch from what their stoopid testing shows that those folks should be able to do.
Could it be funding? The organization that is supposed to provide me with job development and job coaching services is getting paid more than three thousand dollars for one year of their non-services. (Just as soon as I provide a doctor's note indicating that a temporary exacerbation of vertigo into a two-week "attack" is now resolved for the time being and I can "return to work" which I don't have, my non-services can resume. Just as soon as someone figures out that I am on their caseload that is.)
VESID stands to benefit financially by talking people down into two years of college or a secretarial course versus bachelor's level studies and more. And VESID benefits financially by setting their counselors' objectives to get the disabled customers working (at anything) as soon as frickin' possible. To hell with our aspirations. To hell with what we want. To hell with MEANINGFUL employment. No love, VESID sucks, no love.
The three thousand bucks VESID has wasted on my non-employment this past year could have been used to send damsel to her very much wanted and sought after bachelor's degree. Ah, damsel wasn't even eligible for financial aid from VESID sucks and they made her take those stupid tests anyways. Those of us who are not totally broke don't get to have our tuitions paid. Books and twelve cents a mile was the last I heard. At the price of gas these days, twelve cents a mile is a bad joke. Considering that the professional VESID helpers are getting around three times that amount for their mileage, it is an insult.
Another two friends recently found themselves as "trainees" or whatever the fancy word is at a local sheltered workshop. Apparently, those of us who are judged severely disabled do get encouraged to spend at least twenty hours a week at one of those places. It's part of the process of getting the disabled into jobs. The two friends were told that this was now their best chance at gaining supportive employment down the road. Other avenues-- community college courses or a job developer calling them up on Fridays and nagging them-- failed to produce a job of any sort for my two friends. Who exactly refers the VESID failures to sheltered workshops? I still have not found the answer to that question. Neither the VESID sucks counselors nor the job developer have admitted to initiating referral. I asked. I searched the website for clues. No clear information was given. But I digress.
It is LEGAL to pay a disabled "trainee" less than the minimum wage at such places. Way less. The assumption is (based on "timed studies" often conducted with staff volunteers) that a disabled worker cannot possibly be fast enough or good enough to make the minimum wage. The disabled worker in a sheltered workshop is subject usually to piecework, pro-rated of course. If the disabled "trainee" is lucky enough to qualify for training off-site (welding or warehouse loading or potato peeling or newspaper insert stuffing or cleaning), the disabled "trainee" still will not receive minimum wage. Under the law, the workshop is not required to pay it. In effect, the "trainee" is furnishing part of the salary of the on-site rehab counselor (separate from the VESID counselor), part of the salary of the workshop supervisor, part of the salary of the off-site trainer, part of the salaries of all of the staff people who come in contact with the trainee. And of course, part of the profit of the sheltered workshop comes from the trainee's pittance because the workshop is able to low-ball other businesses when it comes to bidding.
Meanwhile, the absence of vertigo attacks is the least of my concerns. I continue to have serious problems which concern me far more than the fact that my world drifts to the left 24/7. As usual, anything worth having is worth working for. And I shall have to force my damaged brain to think of other options to reach my goals and other people who can point out some ways to proceed. There is a word for those people who are willing to help yet aren't professional helpers-- natural supports. All of this leads me to tentatively conclude that VESID sucks must therefore be the unnatural supports.
Oh yeah and VESID sucks: fruck you.
sapphoq healing t.b.i.
p.s. damsel, if you ever want to get in touch with me, my insanejournal blog (user name sapphoq) allows anonymous comments which are screened. Or, you can e-mail sapphoq. sapphoq has an e-mail account at google.
a big shout-out to the unknown damsel
The stoopid saga of VESID sucks carries on. The job handler/job developer/employment consultant whatever has transferred to a different job herself. The VESID-sucks counselor (my third) is apparently absent from work due to personal/medical whatever. Consequently, I have once again attained the status of limbo without the use of drugs.
As damsel has pointed out in a couple of comments over at Blogaholics, VESID-sucks has as a modus operandi the rigging of failure. Specifically and anecdotally only (based on googling various and sundry terms such as "VESID sucks" and "VESID horror stories" and "VESID complaints") one problem is the mindset to shove us into a job any job without much regard to anything. The other problem is the tendency of VESID helpers to declare many of us as being somehow falling short in the intelligence department and the blatant advice to lower our goals. Of course, if picking up pins with a tweezer and putting them in a container is a measure of anything at all-- the stoopid it burns-- then lots of people should automatically settle for a two year community college degree or a secretarial course or a job in retail or at a supermarket packing groceries. Sigh.
Anecdotally only, a good friend of mine was advised by his O.V.R. testers in another state that college would be an "impossible" goal for him to reach as well. Friend is brilliant. Friend went on to achieve 4.0 in college courses. See, the rub is that if any of our employment situations, college enrollment in courses or a pursuit of study, etcetera is not in line with what VESID sucks (or O.V.R. sucks) assumes is "realistic" based on our putting pins into a container using tweezers, they don't have to support it. In other words, I can be denied job coaching if the lousy little part-time job I have demands that I do something that VESID doesn't think I should do or am capable of doing. And folks who wish to obtain bachelor degrees or more can be denied needed funding by VESID or O.V.R. because the rigors of academia are a far stretch from what their stoopid testing shows that those folks should be able to do.
Could it be funding? The organization that is supposed to provide me with job development and job coaching services is getting paid more than three thousand dollars for one year of their non-services. (Just as soon as I provide a doctor's note indicating that a temporary exacerbation of vertigo into a two-week "attack" is now resolved for the time being and I can "return to work" which I don't have, my non-services can resume. Just as soon as someone figures out that I am on their caseload that is.)
VESID stands to benefit financially by talking people down into two years of college or a secretarial course versus bachelor's level studies and more. And VESID benefits financially by setting their counselors' objectives to get the disabled customers working (at anything) as soon as frickin' possible. To hell with our aspirations. To hell with what we want. To hell with MEANINGFUL employment. No love, VESID sucks, no love.
The three thousand bucks VESID has wasted on my non-employment this past year could have been used to send damsel to her very much wanted and sought after bachelor's degree. Ah, damsel wasn't even eligible for financial aid from VESID sucks and they made her take those stupid tests anyways. Those of us who are not totally broke don't get to have our tuitions paid. Books and twelve cents a mile was the last I heard. At the price of gas these days, twelve cents a mile is a bad joke. Considering that the professional VESID helpers are getting around three times that amount for their mileage, it is an insult.
Another two friends recently found themselves as "trainees" or whatever the fancy word is at a local sheltered workshop. Apparently, those of us who are judged severely disabled do get encouraged to spend at least twenty hours a week at one of those places. It's part of the process of getting the disabled into jobs. The two friends were told that this was now their best chance at gaining supportive employment down the road. Other avenues-- community college courses or a job developer calling them up on Fridays and nagging them-- failed to produce a job of any sort for my two friends. Who exactly refers the VESID failures to sheltered workshops? I still have not found the answer to that question. Neither the VESID sucks counselors nor the job developer have admitted to initiating referral. I asked. I searched the website for clues. No clear information was given. But I digress.
It is LEGAL to pay a disabled "trainee" less than the minimum wage at such places. Way less. The assumption is (based on "timed studies" often conducted with staff volunteers) that a disabled worker cannot possibly be fast enough or good enough to make the minimum wage. The disabled worker in a sheltered workshop is subject usually to piecework, pro-rated of course. If the disabled "trainee" is lucky enough to qualify for training off-site (welding or warehouse loading or potato peeling or newspaper insert stuffing or cleaning), the disabled "trainee" still will not receive minimum wage. Under the law, the workshop is not required to pay it. In effect, the "trainee" is furnishing part of the salary of the on-site rehab counselor (separate from the VESID counselor), part of the salary of the workshop supervisor, part of the salary of the off-site trainer, part of the salaries of all of the staff people who come in contact with the trainee. And of course, part of the profit of the sheltered workshop comes from the trainee's pittance because the workshop is able to low-ball other businesses when it comes to bidding.
Meanwhile, the absence of vertigo attacks is the least of my concerns. I continue to have serious problems which concern me far more than the fact that my world drifts to the left 24/7. As usual, anything worth having is worth working for. And I shall have to force my damaged brain to think of other options to reach my goals and other people who can point out some ways to proceed. There is a word for those people who are willing to help yet aren't professional helpers-- natural supports. All of this leads me to tentatively conclude that VESID sucks must therefore be the unnatural supports.
Oh yeah and VESID sucks: fruck you.
sapphoq healing t.b.i.
p.s. damsel, if you ever want to get in touch with me, my insanejournal blog (user name sapphoq) allows anonymous comments which are screened. Or, you can e-mail sapphoq. sapphoq has an e-mail account at google.
Labels: employment, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, VESID sucks
¶ 10:51 PM 0 comments links to this post
VESID sucks comment
Somehow I missed it. Over at the Blogaholics Anonymous Gr0up Blog, one of my rants against the organization VESID-sucks garnered a comment which can be seen here
If you wish to read the comment by damsel, you will have to scroll down to almost the end of the page.
In case the link does not work, it is at:
http://the-blogaholics-anonymous.blogspot.com/2008/05/
face-to-ass-with-past.html?showComment=1218955740000#c7960326866138253548
sapphoq healing t.b.i.
If you wish to read the comment by damsel, you will have to scroll down to almost the end of the page.
In case the link does not work, it is at:
http://the-blogaholics-anonymous.blogspot.com/2008/05/
face-to-ass-with-past.html?showComment=1218955740000#c7960326866138253548
sapphoq healing t.b.i.
Labels: employment, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, VESID sucks
¶ 10:47 PM 0 comments links to this post
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Job Handler, Employment Consultant, Job Developer-- oh my
Laura Hersey's words echoed in my brain this morning as I was dealing with one tiny segment of the bureaucracy-- "You Get Proud by Practicing"
(to read it, goto:
http://www.cripcommentary.com/poetry.html#PROUD).
I was a bit fatigued and consequently not able to play the good grateful consumer role. That is what happens when I am called too early in the morning. I suck at that particular role anyways. My irritable brain makes that role damned near impossible to pull off on a good day.
VESID is helping to wreck the R.C.I.L.s. I read something like that somewheres and I am believing it. The Independent Living Centers in their truest grassroots form are supposed to be teaching us to do it for ourselves, not providing services to do it for us. Ah, my t.b.i. verbosity again. That is a thought to be developed and explored and researched on some other day. Yup, I'm angry. Today is the day that I am in. And today I am angry enough to take a break from seeking out more lindens to play with on secondlife and write this inane little driveling essay. The word essay comes from the French. This essay is my attempt to sort through things.
I asked this morning. Which one are you? Job handler, Employment Consultant, job developer. I was introduced to her by the first title, the most recent communication was signed off with the second title, VESID literature available on-line refers to the third title. In all of this mess, I wanted one straight answer. Indeed, the third title is the official one. Sigh. That led to my observation of what I remember how job developers worked in two neighboring counties when I was running group homes. Which led to her hot defense that she had called the one hospital and gotten nowhere (so she had told me before) and that she had called two other hospitals (oh really?) because I had "seemed interested in working in that setting." She went on to use her hot two dollar words like job carving. Not in this county. If it doesn't apply, let it fly.
The other straight answer-- sort of-- is "right now your case is on Hold but it cannot be on Hold Forever." I don't recall asking for forever. The words she had zeroed in on during my most recent vertigo attack was "getting worse." She had documented this. Of course, she reported this to the VESID Counselor and of course on the recommendation of a puny job developer I am now required to get a note for a two week attack of vertigo. The last three docs I visited within the last three weeks did not seem overly impressed by this. Logically vertigo is worse during an attack. Duh. I wasn't clear enough in my despair immediately after my attack apparently. I think it would not have mattered if I had been.
Benign Positional Vertigo. I found myself explaining this unasked. I informed the job handler that the vertigo is in my records, that surely someone from VESID should not have been surprised by the attack which is standard operating procedure and akin to having the flu. My position remains the same. If VESID has concern about my vertigo interfering with my employability, then perhaps VESID should pay for a work-up. The idea of having to get a doctor's note for having "the flu" is a requirement manufactured out of the brain of someone who is not familiar with medical terminology. It is a ridiculous requirement. I spike declare it to be so. In my unprofessional unasked for opinion, this idea of having to get a doctor's note is stupid. Next time I have a vertigo attack or any other transient business-as-usual medical thing, they can find out by reading this blog. Because I sure as fuck am not going to tell them. Damn them all. I have an appointment with the E.N.T. doc who follows my sleep apnea in June or July. The E.N.T. doc can write the note. The job developer can write that down in her report for the VESID counselor. Screw it.
I have years of experience in human services. I have some really nifty computer skills. VESID's emphasis from the beginning has been to get me into a job as soon as possible. Hang my application for the 55b/c state program. The shrink who follows my t.b.i. as well as my t.b.i. exacerbated major depression said to wait for that to come through. Somehow my wish to have a job coach lined up specifically for a 55b/c position got lost in the VESID mandates. Fuck it all. Let my own individuality and self-determination hang on the clothesline that is the ghetto where the dreams of the disabled are murdered. I refuse to live in that ghetto.
Listening to Peter Kahrmann (on the B.I.A-N.Y.S. board) talk about the brain injury itself making things difficult and how we are not our brain injuries coalesced into my determination not to live in the ghetto. The job developer didn't tell me in so many words to apply for entry-level positions because nothing in human services was coming through for me. She didn't tell me to settle. She didn't say I had to just take any job for the sake of the VESID mission statement. I internalized that idea from somewhere. Quite frankly, traumatic brain injury is an insurance liability. So here I go all dressed up with my need for ankle braces and possibly a cane, hat, glasses, inability to multi-task, a bit of expressive aphasia, don't lift more than ten pounds, don't reach overhead, vertigo, fatigue, out of work for over four years due to a car accident which was not my fault, and who knows w.t.f. the last place is saying about me-- pen at the ready. Hire me. I can't even get a gig delivering newspapers. And I want out of the disability wasteland that I have been consigned to. Yeah right. Yes, that is correct. Up and out. Watch me.
This isn't working for me. As Nathaniel Branden declares, "Doing more of what doesn't work doesn't work." VESID jerked me around for several years before I even got to see a job handler. VESID jerking me around has been VESID's standard operating procedure. Me jerking VESID around gets me labeled hostile, uncooperative, and difficult. I am hostile. To that I will admit. I suspect that most people faced with the loss of a career would not want to be cooperative while being jerked around, even if some lack the gumption to fight it. Difficult? I am not difficult. My brain injury is difficult. Frontal lobe damage makes self-regulation of emotions difficult when fatigued, Peter Kahrmann explained. Coffee soothes the savaged ravaged irritated lobe beasties, my brain screams at me. Coffee now DAMMIT. Oh shut up. In a few minutes.
The thing is, I don't want a job that will leave me starving in more ways than one. I want my career back. Or a new career. I have a traumatic brain injury, yes. I know I am impaired. I can even identify when my impairment sticks out in everyday life. I cannot pass for someone with typical neurology and I am not willing to. I have to do something. I have to do something else. What I've been doing isn't working. The "help" that I have gotten from VESID so far has been less than useless.
Maybe I need to start over and look at this whole thing again. I am sure that VESID works for traditional people [who are willing to be compliant and work for slave wages in sheltered workshops while their futures are canceled out.] Perhaps I do need to take a few courses [or get a Masters degree or more] to update my human services stuff or get some training for computers. It was then explained to me that I get to do one or the other, job hunting via her or some kind of schooling with the VESID counselor. Not both. It has to be one or the other. The job developer assures me she will report these concerns to the VESID counselor as well. Fine. She will write the VESID counselor an e-mail. Go for it. Do I have an e-mail address so she can send me a copy of said e-mail? Let's see. I could have given her fruckVESID at resistant dash witches dot com. Instead I gave her the short answer. No, I don't have an e-mail addy. Send me a copy in the snail mail. Will I be home today so the VESID counselor can call me? She stopped herself there. I heard the maybe. I will be in and out, I said. I am not sitting home in the disability ghetto watching television to wait on a call from the VESID counselor that may or may not arrive today. Damn these people.
Even if I was capable of being meek and mild, why the fuck should I want to be?
sapphoq healing t.b.i.
(to read it, goto:
http://www.cripcommentary.com/poetry.html#PROUD).
I was a bit fatigued and consequently not able to play the good grateful consumer role. That is what happens when I am called too early in the morning. I suck at that particular role anyways. My irritable brain makes that role damned near impossible to pull off on a good day.
VESID is helping to wreck the R.C.I.L.s. I read something like that somewheres and I am believing it. The Independent Living Centers in their truest grassroots form are supposed to be teaching us to do it for ourselves, not providing services to do it for us. Ah, my t.b.i. verbosity again. That is a thought to be developed and explored and researched on some other day. Yup, I'm angry. Today is the day that I am in. And today I am angry enough to take a break from seeking out more lindens to play with on secondlife and write this inane little driveling essay. The word essay comes from the French. This essay is my attempt to sort through things.
I asked this morning. Which one are you? Job handler, Employment Consultant, job developer. I was introduced to her by the first title, the most recent communication was signed off with the second title, VESID literature available on-line refers to the third title. In all of this mess, I wanted one straight answer. Indeed, the third title is the official one. Sigh. That led to my observation of what I remember how job developers worked in two neighboring counties when I was running group homes. Which led to her hot defense that she had called the one hospital and gotten nowhere (so she had told me before) and that she had called two other hospitals (oh really?) because I had "seemed interested in working in that setting." She went on to use her hot two dollar words like job carving. Not in this county. If it doesn't apply, let it fly.
The other straight answer-- sort of-- is "right now your case is on Hold but it cannot be on Hold Forever." I don't recall asking for forever. The words she had zeroed in on during my most recent vertigo attack was "getting worse." She had documented this. Of course, she reported this to the VESID Counselor and of course on the recommendation of a puny job developer I am now required to get a note for a two week attack of vertigo. The last three docs I visited within the last three weeks did not seem overly impressed by this. Logically vertigo is worse during an attack. Duh. I wasn't clear enough in my despair immediately after my attack apparently. I think it would not have mattered if I had been.
Benign Positional Vertigo. I found myself explaining this unasked. I informed the job handler that the vertigo is in my records, that surely someone from VESID should not have been surprised by the attack which is standard operating procedure and akin to having the flu. My position remains the same. If VESID has concern about my vertigo interfering with my employability, then perhaps VESID should pay for a work-up. The idea of having to get a doctor's note for having "the flu" is a requirement manufactured out of the brain of someone who is not familiar with medical terminology. It is a ridiculous requirement. I spike declare it to be so. In my unprofessional unasked for opinion, this idea of having to get a doctor's note is stupid. Next time I have a vertigo attack or any other transient business-as-usual medical thing, they can find out by reading this blog. Because I sure as fuck am not going to tell them. Damn them all. I have an appointment with the E.N.T. doc who follows my sleep apnea in June or July. The E.N.T. doc can write the note. The job developer can write that down in her report for the VESID counselor. Screw it.
I have years of experience in human services. I have some really nifty computer skills. VESID's emphasis from the beginning has been to get me into a job as soon as possible. Hang my application for the 55b/c state program. The shrink who follows my t.b.i. as well as my t.b.i. exacerbated major depression said to wait for that to come through. Somehow my wish to have a job coach lined up specifically for a 55b/c position got lost in the VESID mandates. Fuck it all. Let my own individuality and self-determination hang on the clothesline that is the ghetto where the dreams of the disabled are murdered. I refuse to live in that ghetto.
Listening to Peter Kahrmann (on the B.I.A-N.Y.S. board) talk about the brain injury itself making things difficult and how we are not our brain injuries coalesced into my determination not to live in the ghetto. The job developer didn't tell me in so many words to apply for entry-level positions because nothing in human services was coming through for me. She didn't tell me to settle. She didn't say I had to just take any job for the sake of the VESID mission statement. I internalized that idea from somewhere. Quite frankly, traumatic brain injury is an insurance liability. So here I go all dressed up with my need for ankle braces and possibly a cane, hat, glasses, inability to multi-task, a bit of expressive aphasia, don't lift more than ten pounds, don't reach overhead, vertigo, fatigue, out of work for over four years due to a car accident which was not my fault, and who knows w.t.f. the last place is saying about me-- pen at the ready. Hire me. I can't even get a gig delivering newspapers. And I want out of the disability wasteland that I have been consigned to. Yeah right. Yes, that is correct. Up and out. Watch me.
This isn't working for me. As Nathaniel Branden declares, "Doing more of what doesn't work doesn't work." VESID jerked me around for several years before I even got to see a job handler. VESID jerking me around has been VESID's standard operating procedure. Me jerking VESID around gets me labeled hostile, uncooperative, and difficult. I am hostile. To that I will admit. I suspect that most people faced with the loss of a career would not want to be cooperative while being jerked around, even if some lack the gumption to fight it. Difficult? I am not difficult. My brain injury is difficult. Frontal lobe damage makes self-regulation of emotions difficult when fatigued, Peter Kahrmann explained. Coffee soothes the savaged ravaged irritated lobe beasties, my brain screams at me. Coffee now DAMMIT. Oh shut up. In a few minutes.
The thing is, I don't want a job that will leave me starving in more ways than one. I want my career back. Or a new career. I have a traumatic brain injury, yes. I know I am impaired. I can even identify when my impairment sticks out in everyday life. I cannot pass for someone with typical neurology and I am not willing to. I have to do something. I have to do something else. What I've been doing isn't working. The "help" that I have gotten from VESID so far has been less than useless.
sapphoq healing t.b.i.
Labels: employment, frontal lobe, Peter Carmen, t.b.i., traumatic+brain+injury, treatment, vertigo, VESID, vocational rehabilitation
¶ 10:44 AM 0 comments links to this post
Saturday, May 10, 2008
T.B.I. on SecondLife and on-going VESID stupidity
I took a break from blogging for a bit in order to explore SecondLife(trademark owned by Linden Labs)-- a virtual world created by Linden Labs. If anyone is interested, well then you can go check it out at:
http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=492430f4263844fdb2cb9ef952ebf4a1
or at the potentially less threatening:
http://www.secondlife.com/?u=492430f4263844fdb2cb9ef952ebf4a1
and for those of you who aren't interested, obviously you don't gotta. End of unpaid commercial.
Anyways, my avatar (a little figure in clothing used to represent me in Second Life, thus from here on in will be referred to as "my avie" or simply "I" -- past English teachers be dammed) got to pick a gender and some clothing, went through utter confusion of orientation, and then was deposited along with other newbies at a Welcome Center. From there, my avie went off exploring. SecondLife is total eye candy in 3D.
After flying around for a bit and collecting a bunch of free clothes, I found that I was lonely for human communication. I went to some 12-step meetings (we're everywhere!) and found a few folks there to talk to. I began studying the events notices, joined a few groups, bought a bit of land. I began my first brain-damaged experimentation with 3D building and started going to events and classes regularly.
My avie got a job as a stripper in a club, something for which I make no apologies. The Lindens (money in SecondLife) are good. Real life mate doesn't care what I do in SecondLife. Dancing is varied and automated. The mobility and vertigo problems which plague me in real life are absent there. Plus, like most other avies, my avie is younger in appearance, skinnier, hotter, and has better hair than I do!
Besides exotic dancing and other events, I also found that the Asperger's community is alive and well on S.L. That made me happy and I now have some friends to hang with who do not expect great social feats from me. Many of them have some of the same passions that I do and that is excellent!
And yes, there is a t.b.i. group on SecondLife. We meet usually on Saturday mornings S.L. time at a comfortable and extravagant 3D clubhouse on a beach. The house is situated on an island. There is the ocean right there, a pleasant deck, several dogs, the meeting room itself, and offices upstairs. The man who facilitates the t.b.i. group lives in the States. He is very welcoming. I immediately found myself at home there.
When I told him about the most recent VESID stupidity, he was appalled and asked me if I have a case manager, case worker, or service coordinator. I am not eligible for Medicaid and thus not eligible for the T.B.I. waiver in my state (a situation which pisses me off-- the financial hit we have taken from my car accident and subsequent loss of career has been astronomical) and so I could not navigate the system well enough to get a Service Coordinator. I had tried but nothing much happened there. The facilitator-- also a T.B.I. survivor-- offered to meet with his case manager in order to seek out information for me and will be checking back with me soon. He also suggested that I call the Office of the Aging and the United Way in my county. I hadn't thought of that. More on the hunt for service coordination as it evolves.
The last time I had spoken with the job handler (a young woman who means well I suppose but who is young enough to have a MySpace account under her own legal name) she expressed grave "concern" over the latest two week bout of vertigo. This should not have been news to her or to anyone else related to VESID. It has been documented in my records that I have benign positional vertigo. The benign means it isn't a tumor or anything causing it. The positional means it is outside of myself, that is to say that the room/the world slides to the left. Vertigo means dizziness of a sort. Thus, I am not dizzy. The world is dizzy. I am used to it. I consider my 24 hour vertigo to me similar to allergies. And the occasional attack--where the world dips and spins madly-- to be akin to a common cold.
The attacks are annoying. The singular medication which the doctor demands I take during the worst of the attacks is annoying. The med leaves me able to navigate my home looking like someone who is slightly tipsy rather than totally plastered. There is not much that I can accomplish during an attack. Feeling miserable, I spend a bit more time sleeping than I usually do. Although I cannot do what I used to do, I certainly am not "home watching television." (That is what most voc-rehab counselors assume that folks with disabilities not slaving in sheltered workshops are doing with their days.) During the attacks, I am too miserable to even consider much teevee or much of anything else. So sleeping fills the bill. And serves to keep me from descending into total fatigue afterwards.
Consequently, when the job handler expressed her cloying concern over my latest two week attack I was not feeling a need for sympathy. I was feeling pissed off. And I knew that her concern was a smokescreen for another message. I may be brain damaged but I am NOT stupid. The job handler went on to inform me that until I got a doctor's note saying I am healthy enough to be nagged by her on a regular basis over where I had put in job applications and gotten interviews that the VESID counselor was putting my case on hold. I asked her, "Is the VESID counselor paying for my doctor's visit to obtain such a note?" Her answer was obviously no. "Well then, the VESID counselor will have to wait until I go to the doctor anyways for such a note. Do what you have to do." Shit. The primary care doc does not require me to see him before, during, or after these attacks. And as I've said already, vertigo to me is like allergies and colds.
I thought that would be the end of it until I delivered the note. But no. The job handler called my answering machine twice more. I didn't return the calls because: 1. a close friend who is also an addict was in the hospital and I was busy in a daily fight for her to get adequate pain relief, 2. I figured if my "case" was on hold then that meant that I didn't have to deal with the job handler, and 3. I just plain didn't feel like it. Angry? Oh hell yes. I was angry and I still am. I am not grateful for the crumbs. I can't get Walmart's to hire me, never mind any agency that offers jobs in my previous career. Hell. I can't even get the local newspaper to agree to give me a route. And I intensely dislike cloying concern and people nagging me for information about exactly where I've applied for work. To top it off, I am at the point where I am not sure that I am able to get back to work of any description. What part of, "I don't fucking feel well enough to do anything for four hours a day, never mind eight hours" is not clear English?
I am not a quitter by nature. I am tired of VESID, tired of incessant demands, tired of nagging whiny voices, tired tired tired. The shrink who understands t.b.i. has maintained from the start of all of this foolishness that the original plan is NOT to work even part-time until a 55b/c job comes through with the state. He tells me repeatedly that the 55b/c program expects me to be a fuck-up (not in so many words, he says it nicer) because I will be hired with the knowledge that I am disabled. With the 55b/c program, I will provided with a job I can do and a salary that I can live on. And the added benefit because I will be hired as a fuck-up, I would really have to be outrageous in order to get fired. The problem I am having in my interviews is that it is obvious that I have some serious impairments and no company wants to deal with a new employee who has vision problems, auditory processing problems, non-existent capacity for multi-tasking, can't navigate stairs well (the vertigo), and is at risk for falling in spite of the braces and cane. And let's not forget the fatigue.
So there is SecondLife. I have a sort of goal there to amass enough Lindens to go into virtual business for myself. And there is VESID and the professional and para-professional paid "helpers" associated with VESID. And there is my life and there are my crumpled dreams.
http://www.secondlife.com/join/?u=492430f4263844fdb2cb9ef952ebf4a1
or at the potentially less threatening:
http://www.secondlife.com/?u=492430f4263844fdb2cb9ef952ebf4a1
and for those of you who aren't interested, obviously you don't gotta. End of unpaid commercial.
Anyways, my avatar (a little figure in clothing used to represent me in Second Life, thus from here on in will be referred to as "my avie" or simply "I" -- past English teachers be dammed) got to pick a gender and some clothing, went through utter confusion of orientation, and then was deposited along with other newbies at a Welcome Center. From there, my avie went off exploring. SecondLife is total eye candy in 3D.
After flying around for a bit and collecting a bunch of free clothes, I found that I was lonely for human communication. I went to some 12-step meetings (we're everywhere!) and found a few folks there to talk to. I began studying the events notices, joined a few groups, bought a bit of land. I began my first brain-damaged experimentation with 3D building and started going to events and classes regularly.
My avie got a job as a stripper in a club, something for which I make no apologies. The Lindens (money in SecondLife) are good. Real life mate doesn't care what I do in SecondLife. Dancing is varied and automated. The mobility and vertigo problems which plague me in real life are absent there. Plus, like most other avies, my avie is younger in appearance, skinnier, hotter, and has better hair than I do!
Besides exotic dancing and other events, I also found that the Asperger's community is alive and well on S.L. That made me happy and I now have some friends to hang with who do not expect great social feats from me. Many of them have some of the same passions that I do and that is excellent!
And yes, there is a t.b.i. group on SecondLife. We meet usually on Saturday mornings S.L. time at a comfortable and extravagant 3D clubhouse on a beach. The house is situated on an island. There is the ocean right there, a pleasant deck, several dogs, the meeting room itself, and offices upstairs. The man who facilitates the t.b.i. group lives in the States. He is very welcoming. I immediately found myself at home there.
When I told him about the most recent VESID stupidity, he was appalled and asked me if I have a case manager, case worker, or service coordinator. I am not eligible for Medicaid and thus not eligible for the T.B.I. waiver in my state (a situation which pisses me off-- the financial hit we have taken from my car accident and subsequent loss of career has been astronomical) and so I could not navigate the system well enough to get a Service Coordinator. I had tried but nothing much happened there. The facilitator-- also a T.B.I. survivor-- offered to meet with his case manager in order to seek out information for me and will be checking back with me soon. He also suggested that I call the Office of the Aging and the United Way in my county. I hadn't thought of that. More on the hunt for service coordination as it evolves.
The last time I had spoken with the job handler (a young woman who means well I suppose but who is young enough to have a MySpace account under her own legal name) she expressed grave "concern" over the latest two week bout of vertigo. This should not have been news to her or to anyone else related to VESID. It has been documented in my records that I have benign positional vertigo. The benign means it isn't a tumor or anything causing it. The positional means it is outside of myself, that is to say that the room/the world slides to the left. Vertigo means dizziness of a sort. Thus, I am not dizzy. The world is dizzy. I am used to it. I consider my 24 hour vertigo to me similar to allergies. And the occasional attack--where the world dips and spins madly-- to be akin to a common cold.
The attacks are annoying. The singular medication which the doctor demands I take during the worst of the attacks is annoying. The med leaves me able to navigate my home looking like someone who is slightly tipsy rather than totally plastered. There is not much that I can accomplish during an attack. Feeling miserable, I spend a bit more time sleeping than I usually do. Although I cannot do what I used to do, I certainly am not "home watching television." (That is what most voc-rehab counselors assume that folks with disabilities not slaving in sheltered workshops are doing with their days.) During the attacks, I am too miserable to even consider much teevee or much of anything else. So sleeping fills the bill. And serves to keep me from descending into total fatigue afterwards.
Consequently, when the job handler expressed her cloying concern over my latest two week attack I was not feeling a need for sympathy. I was feeling pissed off. And I knew that her concern was a smokescreen for another message. I may be brain damaged but I am NOT stupid. The job handler went on to inform me that until I got a doctor's note saying I am healthy enough to be nagged by her on a regular basis over where I had put in job applications and gotten interviews that the VESID counselor was putting my case on hold. I asked her, "Is the VESID counselor paying for my doctor's visit to obtain such a note?" Her answer was obviously no. "Well then, the VESID counselor will have to wait until I go to the doctor anyways for such a note. Do what you have to do." Shit. The primary care doc does not require me to see him before, during, or after these attacks. And as I've said already, vertigo to me is like allergies and colds.
I thought that would be the end of it until I delivered the note. But no. The job handler called my answering machine twice more. I didn't return the calls because: 1. a close friend who is also an addict was in the hospital and I was busy in a daily fight for her to get adequate pain relief, 2. I figured if my "case" was on hold then that meant that I didn't have to deal with the job handler, and 3. I just plain didn't feel like it. Angry? Oh hell yes. I was angry and I still am. I am not grateful for the crumbs. I can't get Walmart's to hire me, never mind any agency that offers jobs in my previous career. Hell. I can't even get the local newspaper to agree to give me a route. And I intensely dislike cloying concern and people nagging me for information about exactly where I've applied for work. To top it off, I am at the point where I am not sure that I am able to get back to work of any description. What part of, "I don't fucking feel well enough to do anything for four hours a day, never mind eight hours" is not clear English?
I am not a quitter by nature. I am tired of VESID, tired of incessant demands, tired of nagging whiny voices, tired tired tired. The shrink who understands t.b.i. has maintained from the start of all of this foolishness that the original plan is NOT to work even part-time until a 55b/c job comes through with the state. He tells me repeatedly that the 55b/c program expects me to be a fuck-up (not in so many words, he says it nicer) because I will be hired with the knowledge that I am disabled. With the 55b/c program, I will provided with a job I can do and a salary that I can live on. And the added benefit because I will be hired as a fuck-up, I would really have to be outrageous in order to get fired. The problem I am having in my interviews is that it is obvious that I have some serious impairments and no company wants to deal with a new employee who has vision problems, auditory processing problems, non-existent capacity for multi-tasking, can't navigate stairs well (the vertigo), and is at risk for falling in spite of the braces and cane. And let's not forget the fatigue.
So there is SecondLife. I have a sort of goal there to amass enough Lindens to go into virtual business for myself. And there is VESID and the professional and para-professional paid "helpers" associated with VESID. And there is my life and there are my crumpled dreams.
Labels: employment, O.V.R., ovr, professionals, Second Life, SecondLIfe, t.b.i., thinking, traumatic+brain+injury, vertigo, VESID, vision, vocational rehabilitation
¶ 1:22 PM 0 comments links to this post
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Making Work Work
"Even in the future, nothing works!" -Dark Helmet in the movie Spaceballs
A job interview today. For a job for which before my car accident I was considered to be overqualified for. I interviewed well, she told me. She enjoyed talking to me. It lasted an hour. She said she was leaving for vacation and did not wish to leave me hanging. She would discuss with personnel and tell them to go ahead and have me interview with other people.
Damn this brain injury. Damn these feet, the vision, the inability to multi-task, the bad back.
Her concern-- the position is a third shift and take-downs would surely be involved. Could I do them now? The job is very physical. That was her concern. And it is a legitimate one.
The only thing I could say in response was yes that is a valid concern however (insert words that mean I am one determined mutherfrucker no matter what and that I can learn anything I need to learn) and perhaps I would need some extra practice with the other two staffers that I would be working with...their styles...all of that. What I didn't tell her is that I've always hated doing SKIP-R. I hated doing two-person escorts at my last job the few times I had to. And I didn't tell her about the vertigo even after being asked specifically about all of the t.b.i. crap
and complications and residual effects.
The fairly useless job handler claims she will go in tomorrow to get me those follow-alongs (in the other three departments) that the moronic VESID folks funded me for. "VESID won't support any jobs that are not within your limitations," the job handler tells me. She is young enough to have a MySpace page as her main blog, complete with an exaggerated description of her profession. And stupid enough for her user name to be the same as her legal name.
(Yes I have a MySpace page too, however it is primarily to keep up with heathen
news that a friend publishes there.)
Has she even read the list of limitations from various doctors? One of them says 15 hours a week. I'm guessing that the morons from VESID skipped over that one too. Too inconvenient. It would require a filing of a form to get an exception for the usual requirement of "must be able to work at least 20 hours a week." No overhead reaching. No lifting over 10 pounds. Avoid night driving. No carrying loose things downstairs. There's a bunch of them, along with bunches of diagnoses from various doctors of things all related to my brain injury, or made worse by my brain injury. I specifically pointed out the limitations to her several times. The civil service job she told me about today was for being a corrections officer for crying out loud. I wanted to bang my head against the wall after that revelation. I already have diagnosable brain damage (yes folks, traumatic brain injury is a polite word for brain damage) so I resisted the impulse.
Bits of depression threaten to rain down on me. Time to keep going. Routine helps. E-mail, blogging, and cognitive work tonight. Drug court tomorrow with a friend's daughter and keep putting in those applications. I won't stop with that until a job offer comes through. Walk with the dog. Practice walking on uneven ground with the dog. Housework would be a good thing. Water the plants before death ensues. Do the next clean thing. You drink, you drug, you die. A line from a rehab movie I saw once during my torturous time tutoring adolescents. I prefer adolescents in groups of one. Huge problem. There were 26 of them. But I stuck it out for my obligatory 3 years before beating feet out of there. The money wasn't worth it.
And fuck VESID. It would be nice to have their support (i.e. job coach) on a job however if that becomes "not able to happen by golly because whatever job violates some limitation or other" I'm going to go to work anyways. Even if it means working at the local Walmart as a tire-changer and an oil-changer. Even if it means using a fricking cart to bring the tire to the car.
The local Walmart is so desperate for help that I have an interview to do that on Monday. "Did you apply to be a mechanic by mistake?" the woman asked me on the phone after she found out that I never done either. "No," I told her, "I applied for all of the positions. I am willing to learn whatever you or someone wishes to teach me." Then I heard, "Oh well that is really hard work and blah blah blah I will call you back when there is a service writer position open and blah blah blah." She called me back an hour and a half later. That interview was supposed to be tomorrow but she changed it to Monday. That's okay. I haven't run out of places to apply to.
Because I am going to work this year. Even if it means missing the week in Maine with my husband this summer and the week visiting my friend Philly Dave this summer. I am going to work this year. I am going to work this year no matter what. If nothing in the future works, then I am going to make it work or beat it beyond recognition in my endeavor.
sapphoq healing t.b.i.
A job interview today. For a job for which before my car accident I was considered to be overqualified for. I interviewed well, she told me. She enjoyed talking to me. It lasted an hour. She said she was leaving for vacation and did not wish to leave me hanging. She would discuss with personnel and tell them to go ahead and have me interview with other people.
Damn this brain injury. Damn these feet, the vision, the inability to multi-task, the bad back.
Her concern-- the position is a third shift and take-downs would surely be involved. Could I do them now? The job is very physical. That was her concern. And it is a legitimate one.
The only thing I could say in response was yes that is a valid concern however (insert words that mean I am one determined mutherfrucker no matter what and that I can learn anything I need to learn) and perhaps I would need some extra practice with the other two staffers that I would be working with...their styles...all of that. What I didn't tell her is that I've always hated doing SKIP-R. I hated doing two-person escorts at my last job the few times I had to. And I didn't tell her about the vertigo even after being asked specifically about all of the t.b.i. crap
and complications and residual effects.
The fairly useless job handler claims she will go in tomorrow to get me those follow-alongs (in the other three departments) that the moronic VESID folks funded me for. "VESID won't support any jobs that are not within your limitations," the job handler tells me. She is young enough to have a MySpace page as her main blog, complete with an exaggerated description of her profession. And stupid enough for her user name to be the same as her legal name.
(Yes I have a MySpace page too, however it is primarily to keep up with heathen
news that a friend publishes there.)
Has she even read the list of limitations from various doctors? One of them says 15 hours a week. I'm guessing that the morons from VESID skipped over that one too. Too inconvenient. It would require a filing of a form to get an exception for the usual requirement of "must be able to work at least 20 hours a week." No overhead reaching. No lifting over 10 pounds. Avoid night driving. No carrying loose things downstairs. There's a bunch of them, along with bunches of diagnoses from various doctors of things all related to my brain injury, or made worse by my brain injury. I specifically pointed out the limitations to her several times. The civil service job she told me about today was for being a corrections officer for crying out loud. I wanted to bang my head against the wall after that revelation. I already have diagnosable brain damage (yes folks, traumatic brain injury is a polite word for brain damage) so I resisted the impulse.
Bits of depression threaten to rain down on me. Time to keep going. Routine helps. E-mail, blogging, and cognitive work tonight. Drug court tomorrow with a friend's daughter and keep putting in those applications. I won't stop with that until a job offer comes through. Walk with the dog. Practice walking on uneven ground with the dog. Housework would be a good thing. Water the plants before death ensues. Do the next clean thing. You drink, you drug, you die. A line from a rehab movie I saw once during my torturous time tutoring adolescents. I prefer adolescents in groups of one. Huge problem. There were 26 of them. But I stuck it out for my obligatory 3 years before beating feet out of there. The money wasn't worth it.
And fuck VESID. It would be nice to have their support (i.e. job coach) on a job however if that becomes "not able to happen by golly because whatever job violates some limitation or other" I'm going to go to work anyways. Even if it means working at the local Walmart as a tire-changer and an oil-changer. Even if it means using a fricking cart to bring the tire to the car.
The local Walmart is so desperate for help that I have an interview to do that on Monday. "Did you apply to be a mechanic by mistake?" the woman asked me on the phone after she found out that I never done either. "No," I told her, "I applied for all of the positions. I am willing to learn whatever you or someone wishes to teach me." Then I heard, "Oh well that is really hard work and blah blah blah I will call you back when there is a service writer position open and blah blah blah." She called me back an hour and a half later. That interview was supposed to be tomorrow but she changed it to Monday. That's okay. I haven't run out of places to apply to.
Because I am going to work this year. Even if it means missing the week in Maine with my husband this summer and the week visiting my friend Philly Dave this summer. I am going to work this year. I am going to work this year no matter what. If nothing in the future works, then I am going to make it work or beat it beyond recognition in my endeavor.
sapphoq healing t.b.i.
Labels: employment, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, VESID
¶ 10:15 PM 0 comments links to this post
Monday, January 21, 2008
Total Aggravation
I got accepted into a 55b/c program which basically means that I may be able to get a (real) State job with accommodations. The shrink (who is well acquainted with more than drugging people to death and is actually keeping track of what is happening with my traumatic brain injury (from a car accident); and who is familiar with the program) tells me this is my best bet for getting employment after being out of work for four years due to my car accident. I don't just want any old job where the chances are high that the salary will be not enough for me to live on and that I will get fired. I can't multi-task at all anymore. I wasn't really good at it but now any ability I had to multi-task is totally dead. I want a job coach to assist me during the first couple of months or so at the State job which I haven't gotten yet. This has been my plan since I first heard about this 55b/c program.
(VESID is OVR in other places but in New York State it is called VESID).
I told the VESID "counselor" (third in less than three years) this. Apparently, the paperwork, my suppos-ed Individualized Employment Plan-- which took a couple years in the making because I had refused to go to their favored agency connected with the sheltered workshop for job coaching services-- requires a specific job goal. Fine. A couple of months ago, I rattled off several job choices so that way just maybe I could finally get to the agency of my choice to arrange for job coaching.
I finally got to meet with the job handler who then would assist me in helping me find a job. Again, I repeated myself by telling her that I want to get a job with the State via the 55b/c program. (She has never heard of said program). Again, the suppos-ed Individualized Employment Plan requires a specific job to fill in the blank. "Working for the State" is not adequate. The job handler changes the job goal from "animal care technician" to a state job title. This requires the VESID "counselor" to rewrite the I.E.P. but I don't care about that.
During the meeting with the job handler, I learn that VESID approved my request for job trials. A job trial means I would get to follow someone on a job for a couple of hours to see if I could possibly stand doing a job like that one. I am approved for 15 hours. 5 for the job handler to set up a few. 10 for me to actually shadow people on several jobs. I tell the job handler very clearly that I had asked for this and that I want this. This was in December. Okay.
Now it is January. The job handler assumes the role of a nag. She calls me with a lead for a full-time job in the newspaper-- one that would require extensive multi-tasking but no matter. Note full-time. (My plan has been to start part-time to see if my fatigue level will allow me to work up to full-time. I can do this at the State with accommodations under the 55b/c program. (My aunt is the one who is actually helping me regain some stamina because the professionals do not understand how freaking tired I am from the brain injury. I am glad that my aunt is working with me on this because no one else is). I am a bit aggravated but that's okay. I decide to go to the Job Service place which is part of unemployment because they will re-vamp my resume for free. The job handler is nagging me to go there to look for work.
Now it is several days and a weekend later. I am leaving for my appointment with the shrink. I get a letter in the mail from the job handler. It is an advert for a "job fair" listing several full-time positions with an agency and a note advising me to attend said job fair if I am interested in any of these jobs. (The jobs happen to be in direct care with people living in group homes and I cannot lift due to my spinal injuries {car accident}. All of these things are documented in my records which both VESID and the job handler have. But no matter. The job fair ended shortly before the postman came with the letter.
This is January. There is no longer any talk of job trials. There is no acknowledgment by the job handler that I am endeavoring to get a State job at which time a job coach might be useful. I go see the shrink after the mail comes. I determine that I am going to call the 55b/c program people to find out if there is anything I can do to help them get me a State job. The shrink says they are just supposed to find me one and I don't really have to do anything except wait. An acquaintance who had gotten accepted for 55b/c last year in fact was offered a job some time later without having to do anything. Still, I think that sending them a new fancy resume and talking to them on the phone might be a good idea.
VESID's whole focus is to get me working ASAP and it doesn't matter about what is best for me. And VESID in the region where I live is the worst one in this state.
I would tell VESID and the job handler to bugger off except that if I quit VESID, the delayed review of my disability would then take place. I can't afford to lose disability right now unless I am working and able to maintain the full-time thing. My mate is totally obsessed with money and thinks I should have magically gone back to who I was before my car accident several years ago so there is that. My good friend keeps pushing me to get jobs at various places where I know I just can't do it. (For example-- a bilingual staff at a telephone hotline for tax help. Problem. I can write Spanish better than I can read it and read it far better than I can speak it. My voice is too soft to be effective on the phone, I can't multi-task, and people who speak Spanish tell me they cannot understand me and I am butchering their language). My primary care doctor thinks I should have gone back to work full-time two weeks after my car accident and the last two times I saw him, I got a bit angry when he asked me, "So, where are you working now?"
I have determined my course of action and I am taking steps toward my goal. I even have a plan B in case the 55b/c program can't come up with a state job for me in the three years allotted for this before I would have to apply again.
I feel like the people around me (except for my aunt and the shrink) are all nagging me to hurry up, go to work full-time and forget about what I want to do. Additionally, the people around me (except for my aunt and the shrink) are acting as if I am nuts and they are the sane ones. My fatigue is real. I am not a faker or a poser. The last several years have been really really taxing to say the least. I now have sleep apnea (I love my c-pap machine and before that, I felt like I was sleepwalking through life) and supposedly I now have "hypertensive heart disease, undifferentiated, without hypertension" (a gift from the pc doc and I may have to go on a cholesterol-lowering drug if the diet hasn't done enough. I've had untreated high cholesterol for seven years now because my good cholesterol is really really high. After awhile, the good cholesterol can stop being as effective and then a script has to be given). I have the fibro-related aches and pains which I treat with exercise. The brain fatigue which I treat with extra sleep. The cognitive difficulties which I keep doing the computer exercises for. And a bunch of people who are nagging me who I keep trying to ignore. Because trying to explain to them my Plan A and Plan B hasn't worked.
If there is anything that I am not perceiving here, please tell me.
Thanks,
spike
I got accepted into a 55b/c program which basically means that I may be able to get a (real) State job with accommodations. The shrink (who is well acquainted with more than drugging people to death and is actually keeping track of what is happening with my traumatic brain injury (from a car accident); and who is familiar with the program) tells me this is my best bet for getting employment after being out of work for four years due to my car accident. I don't just want any old job where the chances are high that the salary will be not enough for me to live on and that I will get fired. I can't multi-task at all anymore. I wasn't really good at it but now any ability I had to multi-task is totally dead. I want a job coach to assist me during the first couple of months or so at the State job which I haven't gotten yet. This has been my plan since I first heard about this 55b/c program.
(VESID is OVR in other places but in New York State it is called VESID).
I told the VESID "counselor" (third in less than three years) this. Apparently, the paperwork, my suppos-ed Individualized Employment Plan-- which took a couple years in the making because I had refused to go to their favored agency connected with the sheltered workshop for job coaching services-- requires a specific job goal. Fine. A couple of months ago, I rattled off several job choices so that way just maybe I could finally get to the agency of my choice to arrange for job coaching.
I finally got to meet with the job handler who then would assist me in helping me find a job. Again, I repeated myself by telling her that I want to get a job with the State via the 55b/c program. (She has never heard of said program). Again, the suppos-ed Individualized Employment Plan requires a specific job to fill in the blank. "Working for the State" is not adequate. The job handler changes the job goal from "animal care technician" to a state job title. This requires the VESID "counselor" to rewrite the I.E.P. but I don't care about that.
During the meeting with the job handler, I learn that VESID approved my request for job trials. A job trial means I would get to follow someone on a job for a couple of hours to see if I could possibly stand doing a job like that one. I am approved for 15 hours. 5 for the job handler to set up a few. 10 for me to actually shadow people on several jobs. I tell the job handler very clearly that I had asked for this and that I want this. This was in December. Okay.
Now it is January. The job handler assumes the role of a nag. She calls me with a lead for a full-time job in the newspaper-- one that would require extensive multi-tasking but no matter. Note full-time. (My plan has been to start part-time to see if my fatigue level will allow me to work up to full-time. I can do this at the State with accommodations under the 55b/c program. (My aunt is the one who is actually helping me regain some stamina because the professionals do not understand how freaking tired I am from the brain injury. I am glad that my aunt is working with me on this because no one else is). I am a bit aggravated but that's okay. I decide to go to the Job Service place which is part of unemployment because they will re-vamp my resume for free. The job handler is nagging me to go there to look for work.
Now it is several days and a weekend later. I am leaving for my appointment with the shrink. I get a letter in the mail from the job handler. It is an advert for a "job fair" listing several full-time positions with an agency and a note advising me to attend said job fair if I am interested in any of these jobs. (The jobs happen to be in direct care with people living in group homes and I
This is January. There is no longer any talk of job trials. There is no acknowledgment by the job handler that I am endeavoring to get a State job at which time a job coach might be useful. I go see the shrink after the mail comes. I determine that I am going to call the 55b/c program people to find out if there is anything I can do to help them get me a State job. The shrink says they are just supposed to find me one and I don't really have to do anything except wait. An acquaintance who had gotten accepted for 55b/c last year in fact was offered a job some time later without having to do anything. Still, I think that sending them a new fancy resume and talking to them on the phone might be a good idea.
VESID's whole focus is to get me working ASAP and it doesn't matter about what is best for me. And VESID in the region where I live is the worst one in this state.
I would tell VESID and the job handler to bugger off except that if I quit VESID, the delayed review of my disability would then take place. I can't afford to lose disability right now unless I am working and able to maintain the full-time thing. My mate is totally obsessed with money and thinks I should have magically gone back to who I was before my car accident several years ago so there is that. My good friend keeps pushing me to get jobs at various places where I know I just can't do it. (For example-- a bilingual staff at a telephone hotline for tax help. Problem. I can write Spanish better than I can read it and read it far better than I can speak it. My voice is too soft to be effective on the phone, I can't multi-task, and people who speak Spanish tell me they cannot understand me and I am butchering their language). My primary care doctor thinks I should have gone back to work full-time two weeks after my car accident and the last two times I saw him, I got a bit angry when he asked me, "So, where are you working now?"
I have determined my course of action and I am taking steps toward my goal. I even have a plan B in case the 55b/c program can't come up with a state job for me in the three years allotted for this before I would have to apply again.
I feel like the people around me (except for my aunt and the shrink) are all nagging me to hurry up, go to work full-time and forget about what I want to do. Additionally, the people around me (except for my aunt and the shrink) are acting as if I am nuts and they are the sane ones. My fatigue is real. I am not a faker or a poser. The last several years have been really really taxing to say the least. I now have sleep apnea (I love my c-pap machine and before that, I felt like I was sleepwalking through life) and supposedly I now have "hypertensive heart disease, undifferentiated, without hypertension" (a gift from the pc doc and I may have to go on a cholesterol-lowering drug if the diet hasn't done enough. I've had untreated high cholesterol for seven years now because my good cholesterol is really really high. After awhile, the good cholesterol can stop being as effective and then a script has to be given). I have the fibro-related aches and pains which I treat with exercise. The brain fatigue which I treat with extra sleep. The cognitive difficulties which I keep doing the computer exercises for. And a bunch of people who are nagging me who I keep trying to ignore. Because trying to explain to them my Plan A and Plan B hasn't worked.
If there is anything that I am not perceiving here, please tell me.
Thanks,
spike
Labels: employment, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury, VESID
¶ 2:30 AM 0 comments links to this post
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Job Ideas for spike q. poet
*Disclaimer: not necessarily approved of by the local unimaginative VESID/O.V.R. office*
1. Grow hissing cockroaches, crickets, and earthworms-- may distress lover.
2. Photograph frogs.
3. Breed frogs-- too technical. Apparently frogs in captivity can't figure out how to do it without
human intervention.
4. Rescue unwanted or hurt amphibians-- lover thinks fifteen frogs are enough.
5. Raise llamas--- may really distress lover.
6. Trail guide and llama trekking-- requires llamas.
7. Breed snakes-- lover will move out.
8. Receptionist at very quiet office with no telephone lines.
9. Starving artist-writer.
10. Inspirational speaker.
11. Career coaching.
12. Have year round yard sales.
13. Sell things on the web-- requires things that people will want to buy.
14. Drive a truck-- spinal problems will rebel.
15. Teacher's aide-- hate kids in groups of more than one.
16. Landlord-- been there, done that, ain't doing that to myself again.
17. Event planner-- poor organizational skills.
18. Be a clown or stand-up comic.
19. Start a new religion-- bad karma.
20. Grow flowers in a greenhouse-- requires greenhouse.
21. Professional poker player.
22. Raise corn, hay, and other stuff-- requires farm.
23. Own a human services agency-- would rather manually shovel cow shit.
24. Restaurant hostess at a very slow restaurant.
25. Cook at a small diner-- people will die.
sapphoq healing t.b.i.
1. Grow hissing cockroaches, crickets, and earthworms-- may distress lover.
2. Photograph frogs.
3. Breed frogs-- too technical. Apparently frogs in captivity can't figure out how to do it without
human intervention.
4. Rescue unwanted or hurt amphibians-- lover thinks fifteen frogs are enough.
5. Raise llamas--- may really distress lover.
6. Trail guide and llama trekking-- requires llamas.
7. Breed snakes-- lover will move out.
8. Receptionist at very quiet office with no telephone lines.
9. Starving artist-writer.
10. Inspirational speaker.
11. Career coaching.
12. Have year round yard sales.
13. Sell things on the web-- requires things that people will want to buy.
14. Drive a truck-- spinal problems will rebel.
15. Teacher's aide-- hate kids in groups of more than one.
16. Landlord-- been there, done that, ain't doing that to myself again.
17. Event planner-- poor organizational skills.
18. Be a clown or stand-up comic.
19. Start a new religion-- bad karma.
20. Grow flowers in a greenhouse-- requires greenhouse.
21. Professional poker player.
22. Raise corn, hay, and other stuff-- requires farm.
23. Own a human services agency-- would rather manually shovel cow shit.
24. Restaurant hostess at a very slow restaurant.
25. Cook at a small diner-- people will die.
sapphoq healing t.b.i.
Labels: employment, t.b.i., tbi, traumatic+brain+injury
¶ 2:01 AM 0 comments links to this post
Friday, June 29, 2007
Letters to My Self *suicide, trigger*
Forgive me, if you will, my familiarity. I have known you for your whole life, although--like one in the deepest of comas-- you have consistently failed to recognize me. I am skin of your skin, blood of your blood, your breath, your everything. And you are mine.
You say you are endeavoring to fit your life together like a puzzle. Yet the puzzle has no pieces and nothing can be glued together. Stop that.
Here is something for you that you can do. Throw out those old puzzle boxes. Your life is an intricate weaving together of diverse elements into patterns. Patterns that defy the status quo. You are you.
You are not your labels, problems, disabilities. You are you and only you. There is no path for you to be on. You are a trailblazer who has been growing new legs. Get up now and walk on those legs, receiving the strength that is yours and yours alone. Then go out and share that strength. Only in the interconnection of all life will you ever find happiness.
Love Always,
All That Is
Dear "All That Is,"
What kind of stupid-ass name is that? I don't much like you. You and your talk about interconnections and weavings and patterns.
I have suicidal thoughts. They are my Plan B. Plan B is persistent and seductive in her constant whisperings. Plan B says,
"You won't find any jobs. Look, see there are no state jobs waiting for you in the wings. You are
scheduled to language away trying to catch up to the grindstone. There is poverty and degradation .
I'm a secret Plan B. You mustn't tell. Anyone."
You try living with Plan B, always there in the background with her twirly sheer skirts and flirty ways. It's not easy to be me and I may die. Still, it is a lot better than being you. You pompous assinine zipperhead. And by the way, I am no one's "heartlove."
In Total Apathy,
spike
Dear Heartlove,
"I always have options. I just don't always know what they are." Didn't you used to say that?
Love,
All That Is
Dear Pompous One,
Bugger off.
spike
Dear Plan B,
You are not a real Plan B. I name you Imposter. You are a collection of lies and old tapes. I repudiate you.
I may not know where I am going. I do know that I will make it through this.
You can bugger off too, along with that "All There Is" Pompous Asshole.
Basta,
spike
Forgive me, if you will, my familiarity. I have known you for your whole life, although--like one in the deepest of comas-- you have consistently failed to recognize me. I am skin of your skin, blood of your blood, your breath, your everything. And you are mine.
You say you are endeavoring to fit your life together like a puzzle. Yet the puzzle has no pieces and nothing can be glued together. Stop that.
Here is something for you that you can do. Throw out those old puzzle boxes. Your life is an intricate weaving together of diverse elements into patterns. Patterns that defy the status quo. You are you.
You are not your labels, problems, disabilities. You are you and only you. There is no path for you to be on. You are a trailblazer who has been growing new legs. Get up now and walk on those legs, receiving the strength that is yours and yours alone. Then go out and share that strength. Only in the interconnection of all life will you ever find happiness.
Love Always,
All That Is
Dear "All That Is,"
What kind of stupid-ass name is that? I don't much like you. You and your talk about interconnections and weavings and patterns.
I have suicidal thoughts. They are my Plan B. Plan B is persistent and seductive in her constant whisperings. Plan B says,
"You won't find any jobs. Look, see there are no state jobs waiting for you in the wings. You are
scheduled to language away trying to catch up to the grindstone. There is poverty and degradation .
I'm a secret Plan B. You mustn't tell. Anyone."
You try living with Plan B, always there in the background with her twirly sheer skirts and flirty ways. It's not easy to be me and I may die. Still, it is a lot better than being you. You pompous assinine zipperhead. And by the way, I am no one's "heartlove."
In Total Apathy,
spike
Dear Heartlove,
"I always have options. I just don't always know what they are." Didn't you used to say that?
Love,
All That Is
Dear Pompous One,
Bugger off.
spike
Dear Plan B,
You are not a real Plan B. I name you Imposter. You are a collection of lies and old tapes. I repudiate you.
I may not know where I am going. I do know that I will make it through this.
You can bugger off too, along with that "All There Is" Pompous Asshole.
Basta,
spike
Labels: a.b.i., acquired brain injury, acquired+brain+injury, employment, suicidal thoughts, t.b.i., traumatic+brain+injury
¶ 2:23 PM 0 comments links to this post
