For the longest time, I wondered, “Why Do I Work?” It used to not be important if I worked, but eventually I learned that it is a crucial part of my life and my mental health. It has never been the job itself that has often been the issue, but many times the circumstances around it that caused my mental health to skyrocket my anxiety and frustration around why I wanted to work.

Sometimes, you must have the right things to fall into place as to why things get better. Over the past year or so, that has happened for me. While I have been working for the same employer for over 14 years, my office has moved four times. As we were preparing for the move from the last one last year, I had a horrific relapse from not doing what was right to care for my mental health. To this day I could beat myself up for not continuing sound choices that have been proven to work.

But having the time off last year to get my mental health under control and eventually get into the new building was one of the pieces that helped me see that I needed to care for myself and that having a job was important in my mental health recovery. A few months later, the way that I was transported to and from my home changed with just a week’s notice. After 20 years of using the vans of day service, there was a transition to the county shared-ride paratransit system.

And while I had many misconceptions about making this change and wanting to avoid everything all together, eventually I gave in to the change, where it became easy to adapt to and was a better experience than what I had been experiencing for many years. There was a great deal of emotional abuse on my part that I experienced and continued to experience after the change was made because I was led to believe certain things that I had no business believing or knowing. Currently, those feelings have started to subside more where they are hardly apparent.

This summer I experienced another type of relapse where I believed that I did not need day services. Eventually that is proved wrong and now I am using the time I am at day service to work on shoring up my mental health so that I am taking care of myself property each day. By doing so, the past theories about how things should have been since the change have started to diminish slowly to the point that they are nonexistent. They are there sometimes; they just aren’t as loud as they once were because I have accepted that they are not true or valid and things are in a much better place with the systems that are in  place that ensure that I get where I need to go and that I do have the best settings at work to thrive.

I know what I need to do to stay well and what is working is what is working because it has been proven to work. Working is important to be because it brings in the additional income that is needed for me to live comfortably and that I am not constantly stuck at day service or in my apartment with nothing to do.

While I am working on finding better things to do in the days where I am off, I know that working is helping me and that I am a valued asset to the team I am on. I am a knowledgeable and resourceful person. I love being able to share my talents with those that are willing to have me part of their life. I know that I am valued, and  I matter.

I work because it has now been a part of my life for an extraordinarily long time, and I cannot see life any other way. It is something that I have been used to doing and now that things are the way that they are, they are more comfortable for me to experience. I no longer must go through the pain that I once did and that alone is a big relief.

I know that work is not for everyone, but for me it has been quite an impressive experience. I would not give it up for anything in the world. I am out there making my small bit of difference to society and there are many people that are glad I am a working person.