This is a common occupational hazard for me. Because I am a mental health peer support worker this automatically marks me and stigmatizes me in the workplace. Even though I am well-recovered and have never been on the receiving end of mental health services, my highly paid and highly educated coworkers, be they psychiatrists, case managers, rehab professionals or office staff all seem to view me through the same lens of professional, and perhaps personal, disdain.
This happened again today at one of my work sites. It is often as though I am completely invisible when we are working together in groups with our clients. Some do give me the time of day but generally in such a way as to reinforce that to them I am more client than coworker, even if I have never received services from any of them and even if I try to persuade them that having only received treatment for four years from a private psychiatrist without meds and no hospitalization would maybe alter their perceptions a bit. It never happens.
Once a consumer, always a consumer. Even if you`ve never been a consumer.
What doesn`t help is that I am also receiving the lowest pay, twelve whopping bucks an hour, and as a contract worker have absolute squat in the way of benefits.
I am not getting younger, being four years from retirement. My pension is going to be scant and I will likely have to continue working if I don`t want my last years on earth to be too intolerably bleak. There is absolutely no opportunity of promotion or raise and any requests I have made are routinely ignored or blocked.
I need this job to pay the bills, and I might try to go on working part time after I turn sixty-five though I really do not look forward to a future full of condescending and patronizing treatment, especially by people young enough to be my kids.
Besides the fact that it keeps me alive, the one saving grace for me about this work is my clients. I love them and I am devoted to participating in their journey of recovery.
Everyone else can go to hell.
Aaron - thank you for the invaluable work you do with those in need! I'm sorry to hear that some others in your work don't recognize your contribution but clearly your clients do, which is far more important.
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