classes with really uninteresting teachers—were my difficult subjects. But what was most difficult about school was the social aspect, particularly communication. Perhaps that’s why I was so very quiet. It got so I just didn’t have anything to say. Another great difficulty was creating—making something up. I have an extremely difficult time writing creatively. I’m best with literature reviews. There, the ideas are already present for me. I have difficulty putting things into my own words, so sometimes I find it almost impossible not to plagiarize. I shall never write a novel. I would never be able to think of a plot and then flesh it out. I have a similar difficulty with art. I have to have something concrete in front of me. I have trouble just “drawing from my head”—drawing something imaginary. If I do, the quality is inevitably very poor and quite juvenile. The same was true with music, back when I played. I had to have music in front of me. I couldn’t play “by ear.”
Just about everything else came to me easily. I particularly liked diagramming sentences, algebra, geometry, aesthetics, biochemistry, and neurochemistry.
MENTORS
Nancy Magi showed up in my life as my 11th-grade English teacher at Loma Linda Academy. She was young and pretty, and she took an interest in me. I liked her. I think all the students did. In 12th grade, I was her “reader.” Somehow, she became my friend. I remember accompanying her to the beach one sweltering summer day, wearing my navy blue wool pea jacket. Sometimes I went on picnics in the mountains with her and her husband, Enn. Even though she was my friend, I remember feeling very, very awkward and alien. When I moved away, she kept in touch.
Shirley Macaulay came along when I was at college in La Sierra. Her son, Doug, was in one of my music classes, and somehow I ended up at her house for dinner occasionally. Shirley took an interest in me. She probably took an interest in everyone, but she was very kind to me. She’s remained a very dear friend. Often, when she visited her daughter, Diane, in Ann Arbor, we would get together. I remember when I was living in a house in downtown Riverside, and life was very black, I sat in a booth at a diner one night with Shirley. She talked to me and tried to understand me. She was very supportive.
I was quite disturbed at the times when I met Nancy and Shirley. Enn was a child psychiatrist, in residency, when I first met Nancy. Shirley was, I think, a school psychologist. Maybe this helps explain why they took an interest in me.
Employment as a Teenager
When I was 14, I volunteered as a candy striper at the old Loma Linda University Hospital. I remember delivering mail to the patients and taking stool samples to the lab. I liked the work. I was with Debbie Picard, a friend, so she was the one who spoke with the patients. I just ran errands.
When I was 16, I assisted the accountant, Mr Dale, in the business office at Loma Linda Academy. I helped with the bookkeeping, particularly the entry of the accounts receivable. I had studied bookkeeping in school the previous year, and I worked alone.
Babysitting as a teenager was awkward for me and rather traumatic. I hated it. I didn’t have a clue as to what to do with children, much less their parents. One summer, I babysat for the Liu family up the street. There were two little girls. They were cute, but alien. One day, Dr Liu was home in his study while I watched the girls. I was so, so uncomfortable. The girls ran through the house, and I didn’t stop them. I just watched. One little girl bumped a vase, and it fell to the floor and shattered. I stood and watched as Dr Liu came out and cleaned up the pieces. I have no idea why they didn’t hire a more competent sitter.
Another summer, I watched two very homely children, a little boy and his baby brother. For some reason, I was boiling a pan of water—to heat up a bottle, perhaps? And I boiled the water dry. Confrontation has always been very difficult for me, and I was afraid to tell the mother what I’d done. So I stuck the pan in the very back corner of the cupboard and hoped nobody would notice.
During the summer between 11th and 12th grades, I worked in a lingerie department. This would classify as a “worst job,” except it did not last as long as the babysitting did. I had no clue what to do in this job. I was no help to the few customers I encountered. I had no words and poor conversation skills.
I also worked in the back of a pharmacy, weighing and packaging medicinal herbs. I worked for my father, and I worked alone. My father told me to measure each package an ounce over the desired weight—rather like the “baker’s dozen,” which really appealed to me morally. I liked this job.
EMPLOYMENT AS AN ADULT
I Love My Present Job
My present job is the best job I’ve had. I am much older, at an entirely different place in my life, and I’m doing very well. My life basically began in my 50s, when I “woke up” from the long nightmare of severe mental illness. I talk and laugh and smile. I whistle when I work. And I like people, although I still do not connect. This, however, I see as an advantage. In my work, a risk is that one may become too emotionally involved. I do not run this risk. I do not take my clients home with me, so to speak.
In my work as a psychiatric rehabilitation practitioner and peer-support specialist I help individuals with severe mental illnesses. I facilitate workshops and teach classes on recovery, WRAP (Wellness Recovery Action Plan), PATH (Personal Action Toward Health), money basics, financial management, life issues, and stress management/relaxation, which I love. I connect people to needed resources, such as food, housing, and benefits. I work with individuals in crisis. I mentor. I advocate. I listen and share my recovery story.
The people I work for—the individuals with severe mental illnesses—really seem to like me. They miss me when I’m absent from work. I seem to be able to establish a good rapport and a positive relationship with them easily. This work is within my realm of expertise, and I am an expert in recovery, which is what this whole job is about.
I Was Helped by an Understanding Boss and Toastmasters
My job has allowed me to grow personally and has given me needed freedoms to do my work. Some time earlier, I had become a member of the public-speaking group Toastmasters, and there I became comfortable speaking in front of groups. This is a skill I use constantly in my work. My supervisor is aware of my autism spectrum disorder, has done reading on the disorder, and works with me when I encounter problems, such as saying or doing something inappropriate. I am very fortunate to have a very kind and understanding supervisor. She has added to the pleasure of the job.
It’s interesting—I work with people and interact with them, often one on one, much of the day. And, I am comfortable doing so, unlike earlier in my life. I don’t know what has happened to change this. It’s like I’ve suddenly blossomed, the proverbial “late bloomer.”
RELATIONSHIPS
My mother says that I was a cuddly baby and that I was extremely shy. She relates the story of how I came home from the first day of 1st grade, boasting that I’d made a new friend. However, despite the fact that Suzanne was my “best friend,” I was remarkably unattached. I had no more reaction to her than I would have had if she had been a stranger. When we were 20, her entire family died, one by one. And while I was quite fond of her father—he used to take me and Suzanne to Catalina Island on his boat on the weekends—I felt nothing when they died.
