Author: Christina Bruni

Christina Bruni is the author of the new book Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers. She contributed a chapter "Recovery is Within Reach" to Benessere Psicologico: Contemporary Thought on Italian American Mental Health.

Working from Home – Part One

The rise of work-from-home or WFH has become a reality in the post-COVID world. Being successful on the job working remotely comes down to time and project management tactics that will give you an edge.

Not having a long commute to the office has its advantages in terms of setting yourself up for a successful day. All you must do is shower, get dressed, have breakfast. Then walk to your desk or dining table to use your computer or laptop.

This gives you benefits you don’t ordinarily have. How to reap these rewards?

Schedule your work and life routine into five parts: getting ready/self-care; morning work; lunch; afternoon work; ending of day/transition back into home life.

Not having to commute to work with a bus, train, or car gives you extra time to devote to self-care in the morning. Why not apply makeup to feel good even though no one else will see you? Or write down five things you’re grateful for in a grateful journal. Meditate for ten minutes if you’re able.

Or simply compose yourself with a breathing exercise I do anytime anywhere when I’m under stress: breathe in for a count of three, hold the breath for a count of four, breathe out for a count of five.

Dress in the business attire you ordinarily would on the job. For breakfast, I recommend scrambling eggs and veggies if you’re not a vegan. Some people cook oatmeal. I don’t advise that you have any kind of boxed cereal.

Without having a long commute to the office this is where having a leisurely healthful breakfast can make your day by fueling you up for the tasks at hand.

 Like at the office, schedule your work in one-hour blocks. Get up from your desk every half hour to rest your eyes from the computer screen. Take one short break in the morning and one short break in the afternoon.

To be continued with Part Two

Recovery Ink

I’ve lived in recovery for 33 years so far.

What I’ve learned:

You need to like yourself when you’re in your own company.

It doesn’t matter whether other people like or approve of you outside your home.

Only you need to be impressed with the person you are and will become.

I would like to believe that kind and compassionate individuals exist in the world.

The point is that you should take pride in yourself regardless of whether you have a fan club or don’t.

Being jealous of others will only keep you stuck. You’ll be unable to move on when you’re living in a mental garret you’ve enclosed yourself in.

The remedy for this self-stigma is to go the other way as hard as it can seem to do this.

I love reading empowering books and memoirs that successful people publish.

I want to soak up their habits and wisdom. To see what got them where they are today.

No–I’m not envious. I want to join them in their winner’s circle.

In the spirit of empowering blog readers I’m going to continue to write about topics that are in the vanguard that relate to my book Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers.

While the COVID-19 outbreak has not ended this has shifted my focus to topics like WFH–working from home and interacting with others on Zoom video conferencing.

In the coming blog entry I will talk about working from home. This trend might remain in effect after the pandemic ends.

In future blog entries I will give interviews with women with mental health issues on the topics of having a job and having a family while living through the pandemic.

Failing Boldly

In 1990 when it was unheard of for someone with schizophrenia to hold a job I obtained my first position as the administrative assistant to the director of an insurance business.

From 1990 to June 1997 I was laid off–that is terminated–from 4 out of the first 5 jobs I held in that time.

One office manager told me over the telephone not to show up the next day.

I was in my twenties and early thirties when I thought that having a corporate insurance office job was what I wanted in life.

I was 25 when I started my first job in that field.

Decades later I shake my head wondering what possessed me to to want to do that.

Here is what I can tell you:

You might have wanted to work at a job or career and it turns out not to thrill you years later.

You might have been convinced you wanted that job or career and it goes up in flames because it’s not the right one for you after all.

Failing boldly is nothing to be ashamed of. I don’t like to use the word failure because it’s a loaded word.

There’s a negative connotation to failing in American society.

It’s doubly hard to allow yourself to switch gears when you live with a mental illness.

The average Joe or Josephine on the street doesn’t get their behavior scrutinized half as much as we peers do.

Only when an option you chose didn’t work out it’s not that you failed–it’s that the strategy simply wasn’t the right one for you to pursue long-term.

I’m 55 years old today. Thirty years after failing boldly in my first career I’m a different person than I was at 25 years old.

So much of what we peers could do starting out in recovery might be done in reaction against our diagnosis–in the quest to be “normal.”

I would tell readers to choose from different alternatives the option that resonates with you today.

For any number of reasons–and for those not having to do with having an illness–your first choice might not work out.

What you learn along the way in life–either picked up on a job or in a relationship or with a hobby–is hard-won wisdom.

This wisdom will serve you well throughout your life.

I’ll end here by saying that sometimes the best of us can be in denial. We ignore the subconscious dreams we have at night that are red flags telling us not to continue down the road we’re on.

Or we’re afraid to risk doing the thing that is our wildest desire in life.

Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of rejection, and fear of other people’s judgment among other hurdles must be overcome if you and I are to have a life of our own design.

In the coming blog entry I’ll talk more the way I see things. I’ve been living in recovery for 33 years so far.

The more I live my life the more impressed I am with peers who have the courage to stand in their truth and tell their stories without feeling guilty or ashamed.

Be proud of yourself for risking doing something, for trying and possibly failing, and for continuing in the face of this setback.

Coming up what I’ve learned from living in recovery 33 years.

Finding a Job with a Purpose

One of the benefits of collecting SSI or SSDI is that you can do volunteer work or get an internship in the field you want to work in. You don’t have to get paid on an internship because you have the government check coming in.

This is the counterpoint when others claim that individuals on a low income can’t afford to do an internship.

It’s also the counterpoint to the idea that you should take whatever job you can get. And be happy to have that job even if it turns out you hate the job.

The remedy as I see it is to use the internet and the resources available to you to narrow down your job leads to 2 or 3 careers.

Then you can choose the one that resonates with you right now as the goal to make happen.

Seek out others who have gone down this road before you or who are going down this road along with you today.

Get feedback encouragement and advice from them and give your own feedback and encouragement and advice to others.

You will need reinforcement when things take longer or don’t go as planned or don’t pan out.

Doing things that give you joy as you embark on your job search will boost your mental health.

I think that it helps to not expect yourself to do the impossible. Give yourself a realistic and attainable lifeline for achieving a goal not a restrictive deadline.

Enjoying the process counts more than obtaining the goal. Research indicates that it’s in the striving to achieve a goal that we feel the happiest.

In the coming blog entry I will talk about what failing at my first career taught me.

It was the job I thought I wanted.

Sometimes a dead-end is the exact detour you need to go down to find out what your purpose in life is.

Persistence is Key

I checked out of the library a great resume writing and career guide Be the Captain of Your Career.

The author Jack Molisani talks in the book about persistence. He wrote that when you know how long it will take for you to achieve a goal that giving up halfway isn’t an option.

The author is a recruiter for the tech industry. It takes him 30 tries to be awarded a contract to find a candidate.

The author then knows that if he’s come up short 29 times he’s going to succeed on the 30th try.

Sitting in a chair in the waiting area of the law firm I was approached by a man in a suit who sat down next to me. He inquired as to if I was going on an interview and how the process was going.

My response was: “It’s like this–you get nine no’s and on the tenth try you get a yes. So you shouldn’t give up.”

Long ago in 1998 then I had picked up on what author Jack Molisani knows is true: giving up isn’t an option when the goal matters to you.

In coming blog entries I’ll talk more about goal-setting when it comes to finding a job.

Risking

I say: express your feelings to a therapist or trusted friend or mentor.

It can be scary risking doing something. As the pandemic starts to end–hopefully by early next year–this is when it can make sense to take a risk like finding a job or going to school or get trade or vocational training.

Establishing a support team can help you weather the uncertainty of whether you will succeed or not.

When you give a goal your best shot there can be no shame if what you wanted to do doesn’t work out.

It’s natural to fear failure and it’s also natural to fear success.

What might be happening is a bout of self-stigma or having the mindset that you don’t deserve to have fortune.

Either way your thoughts can influence what you feel which can hold you back.

For one goal I’ve decided to employ the “act as if” technique of acting boldly even when I might be scared.

I’ll end here by saying that the objective is to try, to risk, to fail, and to try again..

In the next blog entry I’ll take about risking in more detail.

The Right to Fail

It’s my contention that the average Joe or Josephine on the street doesn’t get their behavior scrutinized half as much as people living with mental illnesses do.

On the flip side, the push to advocate for recovery for everyone can be well-intentioned. Yet it can set a person up to feel crummy when a goal they set for themselves doesn’t pan out.

Pat Deegan was prophetic in advocating for The Right to Fail.

I don’t like to use the term failure precisely because it’s a loaded word. Thinking that you have failed sets you up to not want to try again.

Instead you should think in terms of the action you took not panning out. You’re not a failure–you simply tried to do something that wasn’t viable in the end.

Living through the pandemic I’ve been thinking often about giving myself permission to fail at doing things.

For one I’m temperamentally unsuited to clean my apartment. Instead of doing my own wash I have a laundry service pick up and deliver back my laundry.

As well there are two donation bags that have been on the floor since March to take to the Salvation Army.

Fail boldly, I tell you.

Take the risk to achieve a goal. The outcome might sink like a lead balloon in a pond. That’s the signal to do things differently or to do a different thing.

My failed first career in corporate insurance offices is a cautionary tale about failure. It’s also a redemptive one.

I’ll talk next about the emotions that come up surrounding taking risks. And why sometimes you just have to risk trying one thing and then trying another.

Learning from our failures is the goal.

The Dignity of Risk

Pioneer mental health advocate Pat Deegan talked about “the dignity of risk and the right to fail.”

I want to talk first in this blog entry about the Dignity of Risk. In the coming blog entry I’ll talk about the Right to Fail.

Too often peers could be afraid to take risks. Mental health staff could have a poor impression of what a person is capable of doing. This could rub off on their patients.

As well family members might abandon their loved ones. It can be harder to take risks when there’s no one in your corner cheering you on.

The boxing match between you and your illness could be ferocious enough on its own. Thus the thought of tackling a grand goal can seem out of reach.

These factors add up to learned helplessness: the thought that it’s not worth trying to risk doing something so why bother.

Dare–I tell readers–dare!

To quote Michael Jordan:

Don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid not to try.

This guiding motto is inscribed on a metal paperweight on my desk.

Too I have this quote magnet guiding me:

Proceed as if success is inevitable.

Only sometimes your best-intentioned plans go awry.

I will talk about having the Right to Fail in the coming blog entry.

After this I will give a pep talk about risking finding a job.

Recovery as an Act of Bravery

In my Queens Library presentation which I gave from memory without reading notes (!) I talked about the 3 factors that enabled me to recover fully: having family support, adhering to treatment by taking medication every day, and using the creative process on and off my librarian job.

To wit I said:

Only by expressing your identity will you thrive in recovery. Your diagnosis does not define you. You define you.

I identify as an Artist. My 5 great joys in life are art, music, fashion, books and writing, and exercise. I’m happiest performing on stage at poetry readings.

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Recovery is an act of bravery.

It takes courage to be yourself in a society where there’s a lot of hate and judgment going on.

Yet the only way to live is Your Way.

My failed first career in corporate insurance offices is a testament to how I became ill by squelching my true Self.

Like Pat Deegan expressed peers should have “the dignity of risk and the right to fail” in any arena in our life–even in our careers and our relationships.

I took the risk to have a career that I thought I wanted to have. All along I ignored the subconscious warning signs that I was going down the wrong path.

It took me 7 years followed by 2 years in a law firm office library before I realized I wouldn’t ever be happy and healthy working in a business where I had to button-up my Artist self.

Expressing yourself is an act of bravery too.

I relate to LGBT individuals who were asked to submit to conversion therapy to straighten themselves out.

Early on in my recovery I tried to conform to what was deemed “normal” in society. And I failed miserably in my attempt to be someone else.

I would ask readers: “Why have you been afraid to express yourself?”

Here I am telling you as one peer to another:

You are worthy. You are beautiful.

Show yourself to others. Live out loud. Shine on.

There is no other way to live.

Queens Library Talk

Drs. Costakis and McKelvey of Zucker-Hillside Hospital Northwell Health talked about schizophrenia using a PowerPoint slide show listing symptoms medication and other facets of treatment.

At the end there was a Q&A. One question was directed at me re: what I wrote in Left of the Dial to the effect: I strive to be creative and express myself yet want to blend in.

The person’s question was about how to set that boundary.

I want to go into more detail here to expound on what I told the listeners on Tuesday.

The boundary lies in how you interact with others in an appropriate way and with respect. Not sharing private information about your life indiscriminately. Being able to discern what is fair game to reveal and what should be kept to yourself.

To the people listening to the talk I had said:

I think you cannot act false to yourself. You must act true to yourself. Early in my recovery I had jobs in corporate insurance offices and I had an apartment. So it appeared that I had recovered because I had a “normal” life.

Only I don’t consider myself to have recovered until I started my librarian job when I was 35 years old. The library was a different environment.

Working in the corporate offices I wasn’t able to thrive. Not only that it failed to give me economic opportunity.

I would say that you should show up as yourself in every interaction you have with other people.

That is the answer I gave to the question. At the end of the event I think I could’ve said more along the lines of:

Today I have no desire to blend in. Certain things I wrote in my memoir when it was published I see differently today.

For one–how I was impressed with women I called “living museums” with the perfect hair impeccable pocketbook and smashing clothes.

The idea of wanting to blend in no longer holds an allure either.

This is because for years after the book was published I’ve thought that you cannot repress your soul and expect to be well.

I would go further to say that that you should choose your job carefully when it comes to the type of work environment you will thrive in.

In the next blog entry I’ll talk in more detail about my own career trajectory to illustrate this point.

It comes down to what pioneer Advocate Pat Deegan called having “the dignity of risk and the right to fail.”

Sometimes you don’t know until you try on a job or career for size that it’s not the right one for you.

I was 24 when I expressed that sentiment about wanting to blend in.

I’m 55 years old today and things are different.

When you’re first starting out making a compromise might be necessary to get your foot in the door of having work experience.

Only I still think it’s a slippery slope in terms of finances and self-actualization to hide yourself and your light from view at any time in your life.