[PoeticSilence]

Recently disabled after working nineteen years at a job I LOVED. Despite their "stay in the closet" attitude for gays, and the high levels of stress, and the impossible expectations.

If you boil it down, I was doing collections work. Asset Recovery. But I loved the job, and my company despite its flaws and many of the peoples attitudes. The fact that my company was willing to work with my disabilities to keep me, and I do mean work, because they would have had to make a lot of exceptions, was something that nearly broke my heart. After everything I'd been through and experienced there, all the bad and the good. They changed me in a lot of ways, and I know I changed many of them. Four months later and I still get managers that email me to see how I'm doing. In the nineteen years I worked there, when I left, there was only one person in my whole area that had been there as long as I had, we went through over eighty people in that time because of different reasons, but mainly because the place is stressful.

I wish I could do it all over again, or better yet, be well enough to go on. I love a good challenge and that job challenged me nearly every day. Maybe I thrived on the stress, but doubtful, since a lot of my illness has to do with stress-related illnesses. I feared losing my job (a realistic concern) almost every day but I was so happy when Monday came along so that I could go back to work.

Being disabled is so much more difficult than working, I'm going to have to learn how to not be at work. I identify with work as being a sign of respect and reliability...