New Thinking on Disclosure

I might every year come up with fresh insight on the topic of disclosure.

Today I think that the belief that a person living with a mental illness “should” want to disclose publicly to others can do more harm than good.

What if you were in a hospital long-term? Not all of us like Susannah Kaysen can turn our experience into a memoir like Girl, Interrupted with a film that took off from her narrative.

For an ordinary person if you were in a hospital for 5 years I understand that you would likely choose to put that past behind you. Who wants to relive any kind of pain by talking about it over and over?

Given enough time between then and now you could have the necessary distance to view and interpret what happened more objectively. I say at that time you can revisit telling others.

Each of us has the right though to Just Say No to disclosure. It’s our choice. It hit me recently that it’s OK not to tell others.

Only I tell a person after they’ve revealed that their nephew/mother/stepson has schizophrenia. Then again I think it’s because I’m open that it gives those people permission to open up.

The choice is always yours and mine. The catch is this: being overtaken by symptoms and ending up in a hospital is a trauma that no one else seems to have empathy for when it happens to us.

We don’t need to have the anti-psychiatry folk shame us for taking medication if we choose to. A mental illness is a medical condition like any other. Yet when the word mental is added before the word illness others think they have free reign to label psychiatry a sham medical profession.

The Mad crowd is quick to advise you and me not to take medication. They think we should then accept what can become a life of permanent illness. Funny how those critics don’t tell us to let our cancer progress without getting chemo or radiation.

I rest my case in a society where those of us who are open and honest face this kind of censure.

I’m all for telling your story only if you want to. Even my literary agent a decade ago told me it’s not my place to tell anyone else to either take medication or not take it.

What I do say to audience members in talks I give is at I’ve been symptom-free and in remission for over 30 years because I’m in treatment.

Who would want to take medication if we didn’t have to? The illness might not be cured however it can be healed.

I’ll end here by saying that we should honor each other’s pain and accord dignity to all individuals whose brains have malfunctioned through no fault of that person’s own.

The science is credible that mental illnesses are real medical conditions. Until the day when others see this light those of us who choose to take medication won’t get a fair shake.

Why shake up our lives and our mental health doing battle with Mad in America combatives?

Think about what I’ve written here and decide for yourself what you want to do. Click on the Disclosure category to the right of the blog to read what I’ve written about the topic before.

Jobs for Earning Extra Income

To Earn Money

  • Become a busker.

See about earning extra cash by singing at a café where you pass around a jar to get tips from audience members. One vocalist did just this at the Muddy Cup when I saw her perform years ago.

A woman named Maria used to sing and play guitar on the Staten Island Ferry. She was at this gig for over ten years. Riders tossed dollar bills in her open guitar case.

  • Monetize a hobby.

Are you a baker or photographer? Do you have a skill you can get paid for? Do it for dollars.

  • Walk dogs for neighbors.

You can find clients on www.wag.com.

  • Freelance as a writer.

Use www.upwork.com or www.mediabistro.com to find work.

  • Become a Cooking Coach.

Like a friend of mine you can help clients create recipes for cool cash.

  • Do coding or computer projects.

Go on www.guru.com to find work.

  • Sell products you craft.

Either through www.etsy.com or your own Instagram account.

Set up a “craft fair” at your job for coworkers at holiday time.

  • Translate documents.

Should you be fluent in reading and writing in a second language.

  • Teach a language.

Have a method for doing this that will enable students to remember what they learn.

  • Edit or proofread manuscripts.

These days it’s computer-based.

  • Enter a cooking or writing or other contest.

Maybe your chocolate chips will be a winning recipe.

  • Paint portraits.

For the Artists among us.

  • Join a focus group or research study.

www.register.maxionresearch.com

https://www.gigworker.com/side-hustle/paid-focus-groups

  • Get a Mystery Shopper job.

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/high-paying-mystery-shopper-jobs

  • Become a Personal Assistant

www.thumbtack.com

www.taskrabbit.com

  • Provide tutoring services

www.takelessons.com

www.skooli.com

  • Cut hair in people’s homes.

Superb with a scissor? Find clients like my aunt—she had a hairdresser come to her apartment.

  • Become a private-pay Home Health Aide.

In New York City Aides charge twenty-five dollars per hour.

  • Clean apartments or houses.

Should you not have a car tack on an extra fee for transit fare.

  • Provide tailoring and alterations.

A friend of a friend came to my apartment to pin up my outfits. She charged ten dollars for her transit costs plus the fee for hemming the clothes. Then came to my apartment to drop off the items after she was done.

  • Become the go-to tech person.

For individuals who don’t know how to install or update or use their devices. Help them do this for a fee.

  • Code websites.

Freelance as a web designer. Find clients at www.guru.com. That’s where I hired my designer.

  • Find clients for your editorial or other literary expertise at www.patreon.com where you can get benefactors to pay you.
  • Gain credentials as an expert in a field so that you can be paid to do public speaking. Use the Open to Work designation on your LinkedIn account to drum up business.
  • Write a Substack newsletter for paying subscribers to read at www.substack.com.
  • If this doesn’t clash with your ethics I’ve heard that people can be paid to take part in legal protests and demonstrations. The company Crowds on Demand offers positions. The Google AI information on this states that some believe hiring protestors undermines the authenticity of the activism.

That said nonprofits can offer paid stipends and fellowships for organizers and activists working on campaigns. Should you follow along and care deeply about a specific issue you might try to get paid to promote the cause.

No law exists in the United States requiring disclosure of who is funding political protests. Provided you’re not engaging in illegal methods for the organization you’re rallying around the choice is yours whether to pursue this income stream.

Monetizing a Skill

Heck today a cat playing a toy piano can monetize their videos to earn income. I’m going to talk about getting extra money by using a skill or skill set on a job you create for yourself. More in the next blog entry about the specifics of where and how you can do this.

My experience is that a person should use LinkedIn to look for jobs and to recommend our connections for jobs. If you list on LinkedIn that you are Open to Work in a specific field you will get other LinkedIn members come calling for your service.

Here’s the word up about this though: I’ve been wary of persons who figure out what my personal email address is and send me a message to that account that is a cold call for me to hire them as the go-between for me and prospective clients of my services.

One man who sent me an email claiming he could get me public speaking gigs I confess I thought of as a pimp. Two others–a woman and a man–also claimed they could get me speaking engagements.

Just no. That’s about as reputable as trusting a business that staples their telephone number to a wooden telephone pole out on the street.

The worst is that you could get like I have a recruiting firm soliciting you via your work email. At first I hit reply to tell the person to stop sending job posting emails to my work account. Then I realized a real person wasn’t lifting a finger to click send to give me the postings every day. The person set up an algorithm to auto-blitz my work email. That’s when I had to click Report Spam.

It’s easy for a recruiter to find out your work email address when your employer has a website. They can simply guess how your name is spelled in the account and then type @queensuniversity for example after your first initial and last name.

The idea that a headhunter is using robo-emails like robo-calls on the telephone doesn’t sit well with me as an effective strategy. At my first job at the insurance firm the prime ethic was to “qualify your leads” for pitching to prospective clients. Not everyone is going to be in your target market so why pitch to them?

It might cost pennies on the dollar to auto-email people job listings. That’s really not cost-effective though. This is a “lowest common denominator” approach that should be frowned on.

You and I should be the ones self-initiating getting jobs that monetize our skills. LinkedIn is the ideal venue for reaching out to others and having them contact you as well.

It’s said that a person should post a comment to their LinkedIn feed 2 to 3 times per week.

In the coming blog entry I will begin to post a list of specific jobs us peers can get using a skill or skills we have.

On Not Getting Political

Simply going out your front door and walking or rolling down the street and daring to exist is a political act when you have a disability.

The trajectory of my recovery alongside the political sphere in America I’ll talk about. It’s the backstory to the prior posts I published here.

What has happened to me was the deciding factor in not writing about politics anywhere at all going forward.

Early in my recovery getting well was my prime focus. Helping others was put on the back burner shut off.

In college in the 1980s I wrote an 18-page term paper for an Economic Geography course on the effect of sanctions on apartheid in South Africa. In the 1990s I was aware that what was going on in Rwanda was genocide.

Only that was the extent of my foray into politics. Until 2011 when I attended an MLK Candlelight Vigil for Peace in January. Innocent I was in giving the host of the event my email to find out about the gathering in the future. She gave my email address to other political organizations. Who then gave my email to scores of others fringe groups.

I’ve had to shut down that email account and open a new one precisely because the old address was overrun with junk mail from people attacking the current president and what’s going on in the government.

After this I chose not to write about politics anymore in the blogs or elsewhere.

I’m here to tell everyone of my followers that your recovery from whatever illness trauma or injustice you face should be the number-one priority in your life.

I see where America is heading and it’s not in the continuation of a zero-sum game where a few people of privilege win and everyone else loses.

In America today anyone–be it the media darlings spreading attacks against you and me and others; the anti-racist folk like Kendi and di Angelo; or anyone who either feels entitled or passed over by immigrants or Black Americans succeeding–who wants things to be given to them should think twice about expecting a free lunch.

It’s clear to me that in the age of authoritarian rule there’s no snowball chance in hell of ever going back toi how life used to be.

I’m writing a second recovery guide that I think I must publish after all in lieu of what’s going on. In the book I list over 100 ways to save and earn money in the new America.

I see the writing on the wall. People who collect SSI or SSDI can earn extra money “under the table” and also with taxable income from a part-time job.

I’ll end here by saying that the fact that I or you or any other peer chooses to make our own health wealth and happiness a priority is not shameful. It is not selfish. It is not a sin.

In fact we will not survive in America unless we take our recovery into our own hands. The new normal is not normal.

In the blog coming up I will write about ways to earn money under late-stage capitalism that don’t involve selling our souls or doing emotional labor for pennies on the dollar or breaking our backs.

Follow-up to Last Post

Sorry if I upset others with the force of the last post. WordPress lists me as having only 28 followers now.

Either WordPress hit a glitch or 72 people ended following me after the last post. I’ll be the first to say that I regret having voted for some of the dangerous clowns I pulled the flapjack for or slid the ballot into the machine for.

Did I upset people by recounting what Allen Frances, M.D. wrote? Only algorithms fuel antagonistic clickbait that keeps Americans juiced up and judging each other. No one can deny that this falls under the rubric of a collective psyche that has become business as usual and could be considered pathological. Attacks go viral in nanoseconds. So does the hearsay about what other people are doing and saying that the original writer posted in a malicious attack.

Everyday American life shouldn’t be like this. No one benefits from scrolling this kind of social media two hours a day. If there was a WordPress glitch that ended 72 followers to this blog then I’m sorry too that the readers who left are missing out on competitive career advice.

We can’t deny that Americans get who we elect. Not every Democrat president has been OK either. In the coming blog entry I’ll talk about my choice of not getting political in the blogs anymore.

It begs the reality of the popular vote versus the electoral college. As things stand no elected leader has a vested interest in doing away with the electoral college.

You could say Kamala Harris won the popular vote. Only the election night map that I saw was red red red all over the United States. This led me to believe that the majority of Americans voted for the president.

A woman told me that she thinks Elon Musk rigged the election. Funny how no Democrats claim election fraud when a Republican wins. No Democrat slandered Georgia election officials.

You see why I refuse to write about politics in the blogs any more. It detracts from the focus of health and fitness and of career advice and of beauty and fashion and book reviews.

The next blog entry will be about why exactly I choose not to get political. And why I think followers and other peers should keep politics out of our play.

Because really Americans hating each other and attacking each other has been not normal. Putting our faith in whatever political candidate comes around every four years promising us the sun moon and stars hasn’t always been to our advantage.

Like I said: there have been Democrats that I wish I hadn’t voted for too. Now is the time to hold our elected leaders accountable for doing what they said they will when they campaign for us to vote for them.

Again I want no part of writing about politics any more. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Left of the Dialogue 11/6/2025

My father told me when I was a teenager: “Capitalists will sell you the shovel to dig your own grave.” Over 30 years later this has come true today.

This Left of the Dialogue will talk about how we got here and how we can dig ourselves out of this mess. The fact is as psychiatrist Allen Frances, MD wrote in his book Twilight of American Sanity President Trump is not the problem. He is a symptom of American’s pathological collective psyche.

In every sphere of my writing and conversations I choose not to write about politics anymore at all. This is because Americans are accountable for what is going on that elected leaders are doing.

An 87-year old woman told me the other day: “Sometimes you have to buck up and do something you don’t want to do.”

In terms of advocating for others who are disenfranchised or marginalized this is exactly true. It’s because of my earliest experiences in life that were documented in my memoir Left of the Dial that I wanted to act as a cheerleader for peers who are told (often by mental health staff!) that there’s not much we can do.

My overarching goal is to influence peers to choose hope over helplessness. Together we can go after our goals with gusto. It’s because Americans like you and me can’t rely on the government that I’m going to begin posting to this blog competitive strategies for getting ahead in the world of work and in the arena of life.

The president is set to raise from 67 the age at which Americans can collect our government social security retirement benefits. Along with needing to work until 70 to get these payments the money we get will be reduced. In effect we’ll be breaking our backs for capitalism until we’re nearly dead.

To have the capacity to work until we’re 70 I’m going to write in here about strategies for earning an income in this scenario.

Let’s face it our elected leaders are likely millionaires who won’t need our government retirement benefits to live on after they retire. For the rest of us Americans these benefits are often a lifeline even though the SSA check income is barely livable for those of us who had average wages or salaries during our working life.

In the coming blog entries I’m going to detail strategies for earning alternative income that can sustain us when we’re forced to work until 70.

Stay tuned.

Harassment on the Job

Our mental health on the job should be our first priority. If you’re harassed and the coworker has violated the guidelines I say figure out the right person in HR to email your grievance. Document in the email the name of the employee their job title and dates times and specific illegal behavior committed.

In my experience if you tell your immediate supervisor they won’t go to bat for you with HR. This is because they want to cover their own *ss. They could be implicated in having allowed the harassment to happen.

Some companies require all staff to watch an anti-harassment video each year. In my experience too a harasser could watch the video and nothing will change about their behavior.

You can Google definition and types of on the job harassment should your employer not require you to watch a video.

I’ve been harassed on a job. It’s likely more common than not that a person could get harassed on the job.

You should use your cellphone notes or journal app to record the information before you send the details to the HR person.

Coming up ideas on how to preserve your mental health on the job.

The Truth About Resumes

A person’s anonymous resume might get them called for an interview. Once the hiring manager sees the candidate in person it could influence whether the person gets a job offer.

Today AI is used in the interviewing process. Hiring managers are using AI to figure out who’s the best applicant to hire. Artificial intelligence–not a person’s own intelligence–is now a factor in helping an interviewer decide who to give a job offer.

As well you and I cannot get around using AI on our jobs. There are even AI resume builders. In fact using the software could lead to every job applicant creating an identical AI resume.

I don’t think this the way to go about choosing who to hire. If a company is using the “same old same old” criteria for who they think is best qualified to do a particular job that’s not a competitive approach if you ask me.

Two other ways are to have a candidate come in for a one-day work trial or to submit a work sample.

“Business as usual” should not be the standard operating procedure.

I’ve chosen to pay for a ChatGPT individual account. As I’ve read that you can use AI to type in a list of food items you have. Then the bot will generate a list of recipes you can create with the food you have.

This is one use of AI that I can recommend. As otherwise AI can be biased and generate what’s called hallucinations or information that is not right. There’s also the issue of AI software violating the original content creator’s copyright.

Yet even with the drawbacks I think everyone seeking to get a job should become proficient in using AI. Better it is for all of us to learn and use AI judiciously.

The difference is in analyzing the AI output and customizing it to your needs. Instead of relying on cutting-and-pasting the information without discerning if it’s good to go as is.

Coming up in future blog entries I will talk about preserving our mental health once we get our jobs.

The Truth About Lower Standards

Lower standards are given everyone it appears and this has a historical precedent:

In college in the 1980s an English professor told me that the term paper topic I chose was too hard. He had me pick an easier one. This discouraged me. Luckily I got a B in the course not a C.

High school students are given no motivation to do their best either today. A White female public school teacher told her Black students: “It’s OK to just get a 75 grade.”

Skill sets for Black White and every other person have to be modeled and taught to kids as early as kindergarten. Why do you think public libraries host story times where children’s librarians read books to babies and toddlers and encourage their parents to read to kids as soon as the child is born?

Makes sense right.

Today there are college graduates who can’t compose a proper English sentence let alone create an effective LinkedIn profile. Some of them have master’s degrees. No kidding.

The solution is NOT to throw the DEI baby out with the bath water to use that expression. I still think the judicious use of affirmative action and DEI workplace policies should be mandated.

Happier healthier workers will be more productive and help their companies generate increased sales. Again I might refer followers to read the book Emotion by Design by Nike’s former Chief Marketing Officer Greg Hoffman. He started as a Biracial art intern at Nike and rose up to be the CMO.

No kidding. If your employees look like your customers and share your fan base’s culture that’s a win-win every time right out of the starting gate.

This is a true sstory.