Being Back To Work Has Been Major Moral Booster

While being on disability pension it is easy to to start working slowly self employed, I am still on a trail period with my Boss as he discovers my capabilities. He owns quite a few buildings here in Montreal, with one in close proximity to where I live, thus making it easier for transporting my tools to the work site. I was always good with a tool in my hand, starting from my youth with my Tinker Toy and Meccano set. It evolved into buying a used ten speed bicycle to rebuild and maintain, then the Coast Guard College studying Marine Engineering. I went through a lot trying to work and have a future as a Tradesperson in Quebec at the Coast Guard. My Boss questioned the Government Welfare system and why all the money is needed there, I responded to his statement with "you know my background, I am a sample of how the system works." I was more open to my Boss about my schizophrenia issues earlier. I had told him in conversation that I was trying to get off disability pension with explaining my situation a bit. I always worked at keeping my hand at my Trades while educating my self at CEGEP in Engineering Tecnology. At this point in my life I do not regret much, I am a compatant Tradesman with my Internet art at:

http://www.angelfire.com/folk/docgmcreations . I do not get much time at present to do my art, I am always getting my tools ready for the next day and organized as I sort through my tool boxes again with putting them to work. I got the job through an ad in the Montreal Gazette's classifieds. The ad was asking for a part time worker for maintenance in buildings, so we will see how it goes for now, I will get back to this posting to write more about working while on medication.

When I first came back from the East Coast I ended up going through a rehabilitation process within my self, while being in a post hos[pitalization day program. I wanted to work again some day, while I new I had to rebuild my my skills as a person that was well educated before dealing with the schizophrenic issues of the paranormal. Psychiatry never accepted my approach to the relavent subject matter as the paranormal. For example, while in the day center attending a art therapy session, I did my first apparition/hallucination in art after practicing with the different mediums in the art therapy session. I drew my first master piece inspired by a Godly force, which I witnessed in some illuminated photons from a sun beam, while in a holding cell for accusations of being being anti Pope back in 1984 during the Papal visit. His Holyness Pope John Paul came to me somehow as part of a vision which I later figured to being about mankind and faith. When I drew it in art therapy in the day center I even wrote a message to the attending Psychiatrist about it. The Psychiatrist was of the Jewish faith and I see him now as a brillient Religious Philosopher with a Psychiatric slant or a stupid idiot. I do not know which. I always wanted answers about my vision which I got over a twenty year span. So the brillient Jewish Psychiatrist played the hallucination card to let me figure out my own vision, the price of intelligence!!! After the day center I went into the Preperation For Work Program which is affilliated with the English Montreal School Board and the Canadian Federal Government to get people into the work force again. As I worked in arranged training programs in my field of work as a tradesperson, I soon learned I had to learn a whole lot over again from not having my hand at work and forgetting things that make the job easy. My first job that I had as an apprentise electromechanic proved very difficult with the Psychiatrist's medication levels. I used to get home from work and fall asleep in the bath soaking to get the greese off my arms and hands. Then I would wake up and not be able to sleep , hence I would sleep in and be late for work. It took me twenty years to build my working mans body to preform on the the job while consuming medication and I am proud of what I have accomplished.I found that I had a lot to learn and rebuild on psychiatric medication which I did. I will post more about this subject with working on medication in other postings.

It has been a great spring into summer

on low dosages of a generic form of haldol

Since I have made arrangements to get away from being treated at the Out Patient Clinic attached to the Montreal General Hospital, I have maintained my psychological stability while consuming 2mg of haloperidol, the generic form of haldol. Nobody around me finds a problem with living or socializing with me, while I still have the encounters with seeing my seven colours of creation along with religious apparitions/hallucinations. Finding myself waking up early and having a productive day with my endeavors with my art and working self employed around buildings doing maintenance. I only skip taking my medication when I have an onslaught of extra paramidal side effects in the morning hours after I get up, then I will not take any pills that night to control the EPSE. With being in good mental state and holding on to my good personal moral with desire to succeed with things I take upon my self, I know my finances will get better. In the last forty days since responding to the Out Patient Clinic, from them telling me if I do not like the treatment to go else where, I have been more productive around the house and never sleep during the day unless it is a afternoon snooze on the couch in extreme heat and humidity. Feeling in shape to take on more work I have faxed a proposal from my company to maintain and clean a new small condominium project close to my home. I even got involved in a moving contract and landed the painting of the apartment after the original painting team had to cancel. As the seniors get settled in a bit, I will be going back to paint with my buddy who has worked with me before. I have been more or less working on and off depending on my situation for twenty years now, while on various levels of medication. Still, I was not to be really believed by the General's Out Patient Clinic, regarding my knowledge and expertise as a licensed tradesperson in the Province of Quebec. A Nurse at the Clinic even went to the point of trying to tell me what I am allowed to do with my apprentice maintenance electricity license around buildings. I went through quite a few hospitalizations standing up for the Canadian National Building Code and what was not proper renovations in the building where my girl friend lived. It was like it was easier for people to phone 911 and get me out of the way by getting me put in hospital, than admitting that I knew what I was talking about and getting the techical problems in the building getting rectified. The Montreal General Hospital just treated me as dullusional and pumped me full of anti-psychotic, not ever verifying what I had to say. Another situation that got me really fustrated was when I shared a creative e-mail with the staff at one of my follow up appointments at the Clinic. I had become creative in a e-mail to a friend, the writing was simulated through an exercise in the art group at the Clinic which is animated by a person from the English Montreal School Board. The Psychiatrist could not understand what I had written and seemed to be dazed and confused after reading the e-mail in question about the brain, it reads as follows:

Hey you pavement pounding urban soldier, have you checked recently if your left soul is worn a bit more than your right, or vise versa. If there is anything to having a left and right side of the brain, can you have a left and right side of your soul too. I do not know which side of my brain is working better right now? I have conflicting reports from the center of my brain, that the left side of my brain containing my engineering logic has gone through some theological evolution. Which inspired the right creativity side to imagine the left and right side of the soul playing chess in an endless battle of consciousness. Where it gets confusing, is where the subconscious wants in on some of the action by wanting to over see the center of the brain to balance its whistle blowing of the mind. How do I explain this to my Psychiatrist in layman's terms, any idea?

All the staff members present at my appointment read what I had written, the top dog Psychiatrist was the only one that did not understand what I had written, yet I am supposed to submit myself to his treatment of higher medication levels or a different type of injection to control my EPSE. Enough is enough, I see another Psychiatrist at a local Clinic near the end of July to get my presciption and hopefully have some interlectual conversations surrounding the subject matter of my apparitions/hallucinations. Stand by for completion of this post, I have had trouble getting my postings up without loosing my writings. While I was not making back to having started working in my trade as a Building Techician, I have decided to start a new post with more positive aspects of survival in psychiatry.