From ab8a0c24798eb4e0d5956e1d3800a79af76453d9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: John-Michael Reed Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2024 12:27:45 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] Update README.md --- README.md | 6 ++++-- 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/README.md b/README.md index ab776c0..9673ef0 100644 --- a/README.md +++ b/README.md @@ -37,9 +37,11 @@ ________________________________________________________________________________ ### Cognitive Issues -Anyway, the first reason I'm not working is cognitive issues. I made a work attempt in October to November 2019 and I lasted less than 30 days because I cognitively could not do my job. You have to learn things when you start a new job and I couldn’t learn. Either that or I'll make a little progress and then later I will revert to my previous ways and the progress will be unlearned (this is what previously happened when instructors tried to train me how to be a bus driver, see paragraph on why I can't drive) - training me to do a job is an issue. This next example happened at a work attempt before the latest one (I'm not sure exactly when the cognitive issues first started as they happened very gradually, like it definetely wasn't a sudden change like a head injury), but I remember one time I was told instructions that I was to follow when I got to my desk, and by the time I got to my desk I forgot the instructions. I actually asked the guy at work if I could use my cell phone to record his instructions because I knew that I have trouble remembering things that are spoken to me and it's illegal to record a conversation without the other person's consent in some US states, but he refused to give consent for me to record. I need procedures and instructions to be in written form because I am much more likely than other people to forget them when they're just spoken. I mean if someone says something short, immediate, and direct like "You pick up that box now" I can do it (with them possibly needing to repeat the simple instruction once or at most twice if I'm not paying attention) but real work related procedures usually have multiple steps and there's often a time gap between when I get told the procedure and when I have to execute it, so when it comes to real world work procedures I have problems. I've tried to write down things that were spoken to me before but I can't read my own handwriting when I write fast and when I write legibly I write very slowly (for this reason I gave up trying to write down notes when I was in school and I just learned the information by reading and sometimes underlining or highlighting the textbooks). Continuing on the related subject of memory related issues, on 11/18/2022, while on vacation in Washington D.C., I went to my hotel's front desk to ask for late check-in and they asked me my room number, and even though I had been in that room for a week and taken a photo of the room number with my phone, I still told the front-desk guy the wrong room number, so I have specific little memory issues. For example, on 2/15/2023 I walked from the kitchen counter to the cupboard to get a packet of oatmeal, and when I got back to the counter, there was already a bowl with a packet of raw oatmeal in it, so apparently I already got myself a bowl of oatmeal to microwave for breakfast even though I had no recollection of having done that. Sometimes I send myself emails containing things I need to do or remember in the future, and I noticed that I emailed myself the same reminder (only worded slightly differently) on May 6, 2023 at both 9:22 AM and 9:45 AM and I had no knowledge or recollection that I had done this twice, so I forget stuff in a way that is more normal for a person in retirement than for a 29 year old. Sometimes I walk between two places that I have walked between maybe a hundred times and I don't recognize my surroundings and need to check Google Maps to make sure I followed the correct path—there's a very specific kind of memory which is used for navigation (and also some other things) that I lack. Like I think other people, when they drive around or are working with a web of computer code, they have some sort of mental map in their head which I lack. Anyway, sometimes I cannot absorb information or have issues focusing. I used to be able to read hundreds of pages in a single sitting (for example I remember as a kid I read a thick "Harry Potter" book in under 24 hours), but all the recent times I tried to read a novel I gave up after a few pages. Not only am I not able to focus for more than a few pages, but I keep forgetting the characters and names and having to go back and re-read because I'm lost while trying to read a book. I used to read through lots of books for fun, but years ago I gave up on that entirely. On 10/11/2022 I watched a YouTube video about the guy who invented artificial ammonium based fertilizer and the poisonous chlorine gas used in World War 1, and when they mentioned his name again I was like "Who is that?" and had to check the video description because I kept forgetting his name - I watched the video twice and as of 10/12/2022 (the next day) I still don't remember his name as my memory for names is very bad (for example on 11/12/2022 I tried to read the Wikipedia page for the TV show *Parks and Recreation* because I was considering watching it for the first time and I couldn't read the page because I couldn't keep in my head who each of the characters in the show are). To give you an idea of just how unreliable my memory for names is, my closest family members other than my parents are my cousins Karina and Kristina and I mixed up their names from time to time for about 10 years—I still sometimes mix up their nicknames ("Kika" and "Kara"). I tend to remember the first sound of a word or name and mix up words or names that start with the same sound. For example, I have repeatedly mixed up the names of the newspapers "The Wall Street Journal" and "The Washington Post" as well as the names of my second cousins "Amanda" and "Aryana". I have the apps “Pandora internet radio” and “Panera Bread” on my phone and I sometimes search for or pull up one when I was looking for the other because they both start with the same sound. Changing subjects to my concentration issue, when I listen to an audiobook or podcast, even if it's the best audiobook or podcast I've ever listened to and I actually have motivation (which is rare), I keep having to rewind and relisten to parts because I keep spacing out. At a previous work attempt I remember at meetings other employees would talk and I could never follow and understand what they were saying (I mean when they said "Hello" I understood that but when they would talk about technical stuff I couldn't understand and follow even though I have a relevant education in the technical stuff). On 2/27/2023 I attended a city committee meeting because I had a comment that I wanted to say and I noticed I had the same issue keeping focus and following what people were saying that I described in the previous sentence even though what was being said at the city meeting was not technical. When I was around 26 or 27 I got my psychiatrist Dr. Pushka to prescribe me Adderall (an ADHD medication) to try to help improve my focus in hopes that that would allow me to work, and I noticed my attention, in particular my visual attention, jumped around all over the place less, but my other cognitive issues like lacking a certain form of memory were not improved and so I could not do the computer programming job I used to do, and then after a month of Adderall I ended up needing a psychiatric hospitalization which might have been caused by the Adderall (Adderall can cause manic or psychotic episodes in the bipolar or schizophrenic), so I don't take Adderall anymore (and also my current psych doctor APRN Matamoros is under Memorial Outpatient Behavioral Health which doesn't prescribe controlled substances like Adderall). Dr. Pushka and I knew ahead of time that Adderall can trigger mania or psychosis in some people with bipolar disorder, but I risked it because I really wanted to work, and honestly I'm not even 100% sure if the hospitalization was caused by the Adderall because I took it for weeks before the hospitalization occurred, and Adderall doesn't take that long to work, so maybe the timing was a coincidence; I would have to take Adderall again for a month and have another hospitalization to know for sure that it wasn't a coincidence (but I have no plans to do that). When I was in kindergarten I was diagnosed with ADHD but I didn't receive any ADHD drugs (until I received the Adderall I mentioned in the previous couple sentences) because my parents were against the psychiatric medication of children. Anway, when I was a student in school I relied heavily on the textbooks because what was spoken in lecture did not stick in my head—if I had an exam question on something that was spoken in lecture but not written in the textbook I would normally get that question wrong. That was years ago, but switching back to more recent issues (like in year 2022), when I try to watch videos online on YouTube or Reddit I typically give up (or need to take a break) after a few minutes - simply watching an entire episode of a TV show is a feat for me. My concentration is sometimes longer than that, though, like on 8/16/2022 I managed to watch a 20 minute YouTube video with just one little pause, but it still surprised me how difficult that was for me given how funny and engaging the video was. On 9/20/2022 I watched an 11 minute episode of the children's cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants (each half hour TV block consists of two eleven minute episodes) and that was hard for me focusing wise—I lost concentration around 9 minutes in due to a pseudoseizure that resembled a simple partial seizure (focal non-impaired awareness seizure - see later on in this essay for an explanation of what that is—it’s not the whole body shaking that people typically think of when they think of a seizure—it feels to me more like a light switch going off in my brain and then weird sensations, experiences, or stuff in my brain happens). On 11/16/2022 I made it through an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants without experiencing one of those pseudoseizures until after it ended, so my pseudoseizures are pretty random and vary depending on the day. The pseudoseizures are very distracting and happen to me constantly, on most days, but again they're pretty random—there is no visible trigger or known cause. Anyway, I keep little notes that tell me how many minutes into a TV show I watched on my laptop because I often can't focus long enough to watch a whole episode in one sitting. Also sometimes I have to watch YouTube videos at slow speed, like 75% speed or 85% speed, to catch all the spoken words. I don’t know why, but I definitely noticed cognitive issues that developed with my psychiatric ones, and they haven't improved and tend to stay about the same or get worse with time (like over the long term). I’m adding this last sentence in February 2023 and the duration with which I’m able to focus on a movie or TV show is longer than it was in mid 2022, possibly due to depression going away (I hit 40 minutes of watch time with one pseudoseizure interruption), but my eyes keep involuntarily moving (in a similar pattern/rhythm as the pseudoseizures) and my muscles keep involuntarily contracting, which is distracting, and also the cognitive stuff (other than very short focus duration) which I mentioned before hasn’t improved and appears permanent. Now that I think about it, it appears that I actually have multiple different very specific cognitive issues where if you just looked at overall general intelligence I don't think that would be significantly below average (when I was a kid it was very above average) but I find very specific cognitive things that other people take for granted to be very hard or impossible. This is an update on 9/21/2024, but what I wrote before ("the duration with which I’m able to focus on a movie or TV show is longer than it was in mid 2022, possibly due to depression going away (I hit 40 minutes of watch time with one pseudoseizure interruption), but my eyes keep involuntarily moving (in a similar pattern/rhythm as the pseudoseizures) and my muscles keep involuntarily contracting, which is distracting, and also the cognitive stuff (other than very short focus duration) which I mentioned before hasn’t improved and appears permanent") is still true. Like my watch time is definetely longer than it was in mid 2022, but other stuff isn't improved. For example, I still have no sense of direction and can't navigate around or recall and find my way around a body of computer code that I didn't write entirely myself from scratch. I still have occasional little simple partial pseudoseizures where if someone is talking when they happen I miss those words that they said (the simple partial pseudoseizures don't last a long time but I'll miss a few words and have to ask them to repeat). But yeah, some issues are still there regardless of my mood. +Anyway, the first reason I'm not working is cognitive issues. I made a work attempt in October to November 2019 and I lasted less than 30 days because I cognitively could not do my job. You have to learn things when you start a new job and I couldn’t learn. Either that or I'll make a little progress and then later I will revert to my previous ways and the progress will be unlearned (this is what previously happened when instructors tried to train me how to be a bus driver, see paragraph on why I can't drive) - training me to do a job is an issue. This next example happened at a work attempt before the latest one (I'm not sure exactly when the cognitive issues first started as they happened very gradually, like it definetely wasn't a sudden change like a head injury), but I remember one time I was told instructions that I was to follow when I got to my desk, and by the time I got to my desk I forgot the instructions. I actually asked the guy at work if I could use my cell phone to record his instructions because I knew that I have trouble remembering things that are spoken to me and it's illegal to record a conversation without the other person's consent in some US states, but he refused to give consent for me to record. I need procedures and instructions to be in written form because I am much more likely than other people to forget them when they're just spoken. I mean if someone says something short, immediate, and direct like "You pick up that box now" I can do it (with them possibly needing to repeat the simple instruction once or at most twice if I'm not paying attention) but real work related procedures usually have multiple steps and there's often a time gap between when I get told the procedure and when I have to execute it, so when it comes to real world work procedures I have problems. I've tried to write down things that were spoken to me before but I can't read my own handwriting when I write fast and when I write legibly I write very slowly (for this reason I gave up trying to write down notes when I was in school and I just learned the information by reading and sometimes underlining or highlighting the textbooks). Continuing on the related subject of memory related issues, on 11/18/2022, while on vacation in Washington D.C., I went to my hotel's front desk to ask for late check-in and they asked me my room number, and even though I had been in that room for a week and taken a photo of the room number with my phone, I still told the front-desk guy the wrong room number, so I have specific little memory issues. For example, on 2/15/2023 I walked from the kitchen counter to the cupboard to get a packet of oatmeal, and when I got back to the counter, there was already a bowl with a packet of raw oatmeal in it, so apparently I already got myself a bowl of oatmeal to microwave for breakfast even though I had no recollection of having done that. Sometimes I send myself emails containing things I need to do or remember in the future, and I noticed that I emailed myself the same reminder (only worded slightly differently) on May 6, 2023 at both 9:22 AM and 9:45 AM and I had no knowledge or recollection that I had done this twice, so I forget stuff in a way that is more normal for a person in retirement than for a 29 year old. Sometimes I walk between two places that I have walked between maybe a hundred times and I don't recognize my surroundings and need to check Google Maps to make sure I followed the correct path—there's a very specific kind of memory which is used for navigation (and also some other things) that I lack. Like I think other people, when they drive around or are working with a web of computer code, they have some sort of mental map in their head which I lack. Anyway, sometimes I cannot absorb information or have issues focusing. I used to be able to read hundreds of pages in a single sitting (for example I remember as a kid I read a thick "Harry Potter" book in under 24 hours), but all the recent times I tried to read a novel I gave up after a few pages. Not only am I not able to focus for more than a few pages, but I keep forgetting the characters and names and having to go back and re-read because I'm lost while trying to read a book. I used to read through lots of books for fun, but years ago I gave up on that entirely. On 10/11/2022 I watched a YouTube video about the guy who invented artificial ammonium based fertilizer and the poisonous chlorine gas used in World War 1, and when they mentioned his name again I was like "Who is that?" and had to check the video description because I kept forgetting his name - I watched the video twice and as of 10/12/2022 (the next day) I still don't remember his name as my memory for names is very bad (for example on 11/12/2022 I tried to read the Wikipedia page for the TV show *Parks and Recreation* because I was considering watching it for the first time and I couldn't read the page because I couldn't keep in my head who each of the characters in the show are). To give you an idea of just how unreliable my memory for names is, my closest family members other than my parents are my cousins Karina and Kristina and I mixed up their names from time to time for about 10 years—I still sometimes mix up their nicknames ("Kika" and "Kara"). I tend to remember the first sound of a word or name and mix up words or names that start with the same sound. For example, I have repeatedly mixed up the names of the newspapers "The Wall Street Journal" and "The Washington Post" as well as the names of my second cousins "Amanda" and "Aryana". I have the apps “Pandora internet radio” and “Panera Bread” on my phone and I sometimes search for or pull up one when I was looking for the other because they both start with the same sound. Changing subjects to my concentration issue, when I listen to an audiobook or podcast, even if it's the best audiobook or podcast I've ever listened to and I actually have motivation (which is rare), I keep having to rewind and relisten to parts because I keep spacing out. At a previous work attempt I remember at meetings other employees would talk and I could never follow and understand what they were saying (I mean when they said "Hello" I understood that but when they would talk about technical stuff I couldn't understand and follow even though I have a relevant education in the technical stuff). On 2/27/2023 I attended a city committee meeting because I had a comment that I wanted to say and I noticed I had the same issue keeping focus and following what people were saying that I described in the previous sentence even though what was being said at the city meeting was not technical. When I was around 26 or 27 I got my psychiatrist Dr. Pushka to prescribe me Adderall (an ADHD medication) to try to help improve my focus in hopes that that would allow me to work, and I noticed my attention, in particular my visual attention, jumped around all over the place less, but my other cognitive issues like lacking a certain form of memory were not improved and so I could not do the computer programming job I used to do, and then after a month of Adderall I ended up needing a psychiatric hospitalization which might have been caused by the Adderall (Adderall can cause manic or psychotic episodes in the bipolar or schizophrenic), so I don't take Adderall anymore (and also my current psych doctor APRN Matamoros is under Memorial Outpatient Behavioral Health which doesn't prescribe controlled substances like Adderall). Dr. Pushka and I knew ahead of time that Adderall can trigger mania or psychosis in some people with bipolar disorder, but I risked it because I really wanted to work, and honestly I'm not even 100% sure if the hospitalization was caused by the Adderall because I took it for weeks before the hospitalization occurred, and Adderall doesn't take that long to work, so maybe the timing was a coincidence; I would have to take Adderall again for a month and have another hospitalization to know for sure that it wasn't a coincidence (but I have no plans to do that). When I was in kindergarten I was diagnosed with ADHD but I didn't receive any ADHD drugs (until I received the Adderall I mentioned in the previous couple sentences) because my parents were against the psychiatric medication of children. Anway, when I was a student in school I relied heavily on the textbooks because what was spoken in lecture did not stick in my head—if I had an exam question on something that was spoken in lecture but not written in the textbook I would normally get that question wrong. That was years ago, but switching back to more recent issues (like in year 2022), when I try to watch videos online on YouTube or Reddit I typically give up (or need to take a break) after a few minutes - simply watching an entire episode of a TV show is a feat for me. My concentration is sometimes longer than that, though, like on 8/16/2022 I managed to watch a 20 minute YouTube video with just one little pause, but it still surprised me how difficult that was for me given how funny and engaging the video was. On 9/20/2022 I watched an 11 minute episode of the children's cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants (each half hour TV block consists of two eleven minute episodes) and that was hard for me focusing wise—I lost concentration around 9 minutes in due to a pseudoseizure that resembled a simple partial seizure (focal non-impaired awareness seizure - see later on in this essay for an explanation of what that is—it’s not the whole body shaking that people typically think of when they think of a seizure—it feels to me more like a light switch going off in my brain and then weird sensations, experiences, or stuff in my brain happens). On 11/16/2022 I made it through an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants without experiencing one of those pseudoseizures until after it ended, so my pseudoseizures are pretty random and vary depending on the day. The pseudoseizures are very distracting and happen to me constantly, on most days, but again they're pretty random—there is no visible trigger or known cause. Anyway, I keep little notes that tell me how many minutes into a TV show I watched on my laptop because I often can't focus long enough to watch a whole episode in one sitting. Also sometimes I have to watch YouTube videos at slow speed, like 75% speed or 85% speed, to catch all the spoken words. I don’t know why, but I definitely noticed cognitive issues that developed with my psychiatric ones, and they haven't improved and tend to stay about the same or get worse with time (like over the long term). -Typically this next paragraph (which was written before the end of the previous paragraph) would talk about the second reason I'm not working, but instead I'm going to go on a tangent where I talk about the ramifications of having cognitive issues more. I know you have to be severely retarded for your IQ to be low enough to qualify for disability based on low IQ. I do not believe I am severely retarded. I used to have excellent cognitive abilities in specific areas, actually. The first time I took the SAT (college entrance exam), I scored a perfect 800 out of 800 on the math section and a 720 out of 800 on the reading section, for a combined SAT score of 1520 out of 1600. I studied long and hard for that exam, but it's an impressive score nonetheless. Like if you Google “average SAT score Harvard”, it says that the typical SAT score for a Harvard accepted student is 720-780 on the reading and 740-800 on the math. So basically my SAT score was at Harvard level the first time I took it (and I raised my reading score to 740 the second time I took it). Like out of every 100 people who took the SAT, only about 1 or 2 scored higher than me. My cognitive abilities are less than what they were, but I don’t believe I’m retarded. That being said, my cognitive issues are a severe hindrance. The third reason I’m not working (I talk about it more three paragraphs later) is that I can’t safely drive anymore, but I used to go on highway drives that were hours long (I think I could still drive on a highway without hitting anything as long as I don't have to change lanes in traffic too much, but despite that I can't drive in cities). Now I can only safely drive in the gated neighborhood of my mother’s house where I live, where there are no traffic lights, almost no traffic, a 20 mile per hour speed limit, and wide streets. Like my basic abilities are still there, they’re just impaired in specific ways or in specific situations. Having impaired cognitive functioning is a severe limitation because it reduces you to things that cognitively (almost) anyone, even a high school dropout, special needs student, person with a learning disability, elderly person who couldn’t afford to retire, or someone who just got out of prison can do. And these people who lack talent, cognitive ability, or skill are all competing for the same set of shitty, low-paying jobs, resulting in high unemployment rates for these people where they would be lucky to land any job, even one that does not pay enough to live independently on. A year after I graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, I had multiple competing jobs offers and ultimately accepted an offer from Amazon for $150,000 a year on full-time W2 (not including great health, dental, and vision insurance, and a little bit of vesting stock) in year 2016 for a junior or apprentice level position in an area where my rent in an ideal location was $2,350 a month. It is also of note that $150,000 a year was for an entry level position in big tech—within two years of being hired you are expected to actually know how to do the job independently, at which point you are promoted from "junior developer" to "senior developer" and your total compensation roughly doubles (mostly because the amount of vesting stock increases), or they fire you because you can't learn how to do the job (which was my problem). Before it became apparent that I sucked at the job itself, employers were competing with one another to attract me to their place of work because I had done so well on the interview coding tests (and also because I managed to distort the truth successfully on the non-technical portion of the interview, but most people distort the truth when they're trying to get a job). Anyway, cognitively the coding tests are very different from the day-to-day job; the coding tests are more like a type of standardized exam or a series of brain-intensive puzzles to test how smart you are because smart people tend to learn fast and do well at the job. And I was really smart (at least in the specific areas they tested). I don’t have those cognitive abilities anymore. I have no talents or special abilities (and in my teenage and adult life I had tried for years at everything from singing to piano to acting to pre-medicine to leadership and been bad or very bad at everything I tried). I have no leadership skills or special connections—I'm not even really friends with anyone (at least not in the sense that I am their friend and also they are my friend). I do not have a personality that is desirable to employers or skills that are desirable to employers (I mean I still have a degree but I can't do the job that the degree is supposed to prepare me for). Before I was awarded SSDI but after I was no longer able to do the high paying computer coding work that I used to do (and I honestly tried my best—like I said my last work attempt lasted less than a month) I tried to get a job that did not require cognitive abilities. I made a resume where I put down that I used to work for big tech companies but am no longer able to do that work and applied to everywhere I could. I got an interview at an ice cream parlor. They asked about my work history and I said I developed a disability and cognitively couldn’t do the high paying work anymore. The manager interviewing me expressed concern that I might forget how to mix a smoothie or something. I did not get the job, but I saw someone else who they hired and noticed how personable, smiling, good-looking, and prosocial they were. I didn’t have a chance. I can be friendly with another person initially, but it's superficial and I can't keep it up long-term. A second place interviewed me to be a food runner (a person who delivers food from the kitchen to the table), and the hiring manager asked me about my educational background (my resume had the answer but apparently he didn't read it). I truthfully answered that I have a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, and he was like "bachelor's in computer science?" and didn't hire me. I think he was probably expecting me to have no education beyond high school. A third place I tried to apply to was a local shop, and they said they wanted someone who spoke both Spanish and English (because South Florida has a lot of Hispanic people), but I only spoke English, and I didn't even take Spanish classes in school (in middle school and high school I took French, and I only remember a handful of French words anyway). Speaking both Spanish and English is a common request of employers in my area and I doubt I could learn Spanish—when I took French as a student it was one of my worst if not my worst class (I was always good at subjects that required logic like algebra and bad at subjects that required rote memorization, and learning foreign language terms and irregular verb conjunctions was entirely rote memorization without clear logic). Ultimately after I couldn't do professional computer coding work anymore but before I was awarded disability, I sent out more job applications than I ever had, got hardly any interviews, and none of those interviews resulted in me getting an offer, even though the offer would have been for $10 an hour whereas I used to work for $86 an hour on W2 (and didn't need to know Spanish). And nowadays (I’m currently typing in October 2022 but this started years earlier) I sometimes experience muscle rigidity and involuntary muscle contractions (not necessarily at the same time—I don’t know if they’re from the antipsychotic medication I'm on or if it’s another weird unexplained neurological symptom—I talk about the weird neurological stuff more in a later paragraph of this essay) and about half the time I can’t walk or even bike far enough to get to those local places I applied to anymore and I can’t drive there myself either so even if a local employer hired me and even if I didn’t have Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder (I talk about that more two paragraphs later) I would still have problems. I bought an aluminum kick scooter and found that on some days when I have difficulty walking I am able to use the scooter, but on other days I can't walk or scooter more than a couple hundred feet, so it varies from day to day. Some days I walk while sort of hunched over, using the kick scooter as a sort of cane on wheels. I have tried to get (or at least considered) every job I could possibly think of and for one reason or another I couldn’t do or get any of them. Heck, I even replied to an advertisement for the armed forces and they didn't want me. On 11/29/2022 I got a text from the Marines after I replied to their internet ad, explained my situation to them, and they said they can't employ anyone with a schizophrenia (or in my case schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type) diagnosis, even for non-combat roles. Even bipolar disorder (which I was diagnosed with before being given a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder or bipolar schizophrenia) isn't allowed without a special waiver which the military hasn't been giving out. They said even for non-combat roles you need to pass basic training including firearm training and thought I wasn't qualified to be trusted with a firearm (which makes sense), and also I'm not in the physical shape necessary to be able to pass bootcamp (on some days I can't walk more than a few hundred steps in total). Speaking of other jobs I tried to get, in late December 2022 I applied to be a sperm donor and they didn't want me, presumably because they didn't want anyone with potentially genetically inheritable mental illness. I saw on social media a post about a remote part-time job that pays an average of over $100,000 a year with a maximum of 90 days training and no degree required, but that turned out to be a scam. Over the years I tried or applied to, or at the very least seriously considered, every way of making money that I could possibly think of. +This paragraph was written at a later point in time than the previous; I’m adding this sentence in February 2023 and the duration with which I’m able to focus on a movie or TV show is longer than it was in mid 2022, possibly due to depression going away (I hit 40 minutes of watch time with one pseudoseizure interruption), but my eyes keep involuntarily moving (in a similar pattern/rhythm as the pseudoseizures) and my muscles keep involuntarily contracting, which is distracting, and also the cognitive stuff (other than very short focus duration) which I mentioned before hasn’t improved and appears permanent. Now that I think about it, it appears that I actually have multiple different very specific cognitive issues where if you just looked at overall general intelligence I don't think that would be significantly below average (when I was a kid it was very above average) but I find very specific cognitive things that other people take for granted to be very hard or impossible. This is an update on 9/21/2024, but what I wrote before ("the duration with which I’m able to focus on a movie or TV show is longer than it was in mid 2022, possibly due to depression going away (I hit 40 minutes of watch time with one pseudoseizure interruption), but my eyes keep involuntarily moving (in a similar pattern/rhythm as the pseudoseizures) and my muscles keep involuntarily contracting, which is distracting, and also the cognitive stuff (other than very short focus duration) which I mentioned before hasn’t improved and appears permanent") is still true. Like my watch time is definetely longer than it was in mid 2022, but other stuff isn't improved. For example, I still have no sense of direction and can't navigate around or recall and find my way around a body of computer code that I didn't write entirely myself from scratch. I still have occasional little simple partial pseudoseizures where if someone is talking when they happen I miss those words that they said (the simple partial pseudoseizures don't last a long time but I'll miss a few words and have to ask them to repeat). Also I recently tried to get through a light book but gave up after a couple of pages on each attempt each day, and after a few weeks gave up entirely and don't know if I'll ever be able to get through a book from the front cover to the back cover again like I used to. But yeah, some cognitive issues are still there regardless of my mood. I need a functioning brain to switch to a new job and my brain is not functioning optimally regardless of my mood. + +Typically this next paragraph (which was mostly written before the previous one) would talk about the second reason I'm not working, but instead I'm going to go on a tangent where I talk about the ramifications of having cognitive issues more. I know you have to be severely retarded for your IQ to be low enough to qualify for disability based on low IQ. I do not believe I am severely retarded. I used to have excellent cognitive abilities in specific areas, actually. The first time I took the SAT (college entrance exam), I scored a perfect 800 out of 800 on the math section and a 720 out of 800 on the reading section, for a combined SAT score of 1520 out of 1600. I studied long and hard for that exam, but it's an impressive score nonetheless. Like if you Google “average SAT score Harvard”, it says that the typical SAT score for a Harvard accepted student is 720-780 on the reading and 740-800 on the math. So basically my SAT score was at Harvard level the first time I took it (and I raised my reading score to 740 the second time I took it). Like out of every 100 people who took the SAT, only about 1 or 2 scored higher than me. My cognitive abilities are less than what they were, but I don’t believe I’m retarded. That being said, my cognitive issues are a severe hindrance. The third reason I’m not working (I talk about it more three paragraphs later) is that I can’t safely drive anymore, but I used to go on highway drives that were hours long (I think I could still drive on a highway without hitting anything as long as I don't have to change lanes in traffic too much, but despite that I can't drive in cities). Now I can only safely drive in the gated neighborhood of my mother’s house where I live, where there are no traffic lights, almost no traffic, a 20 mile per hour speed limit, and wide streets. Like my basic abilities are still there, they’re just impaired in specific ways or in specific situations. Having impaired cognitive functioning is a severe limitation because it reduces you to things that cognitively (almost) anyone, even a high school dropout, special needs student, person with a learning disability, elderly person who couldn’t afford to retire, or someone who just got out of prison can do. And these people who lack talent, cognitive ability, or skill are all competing for the same set of shitty, low-paying jobs, resulting in high unemployment rates for these people where they would be lucky to land any job, even one that does not pay enough to live independently on. A year after I graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, I had multiple competing jobs offers and ultimately accepted an offer from Amazon for $150,000 a year on full-time W2 (not including great health, dental, and vision insurance, and a little bit of vesting stock) in year 2016 for a junior or apprentice level position in an area where my rent in an ideal location was $2,350 a month. It is also of note that $150,000 a year was for an entry level position in big tech—within two years of being hired you are expected to actually know how to do the job independently, at which point you are promoted from "junior developer" to "senior developer" and your total compensation roughly doubles (mostly because the amount of vesting stock increases), or they fire you because you can't learn how to do the job (which was my problem). Before it became apparent that I sucked at the job itself, employers were competing with one another to attract me to their place of work because I had done so well on the interview coding tests (and also because I managed to distort the truth successfully on the non-technical portion of the interview, but most people distort the truth when they're trying to get a job). Anyway, cognitively the coding tests are very different from the day-to-day job; the coding tests are more like a type of standardized exam or a series of brain-intensive puzzles to test how smart you are because smart people tend to learn fast and do well at the job. And I was really smart (at least in the specific areas they tested). I don’t have those cognitive abilities anymore. I have no talents or special abilities (and in my teenage and adult life I had tried for years at everything from singing to piano to acting to pre-medicine to leadership and been bad or very bad at everything I tried). I have no leadership skills or special connections—I'm not even really friends with anyone (at least not in the sense that I am their friend and also they are my friend). I do not have a personality that is desirable to employers or skills that are desirable to employers (I mean I still have a degree but I can't do the job that the degree is supposed to prepare me for). Before I was awarded SSDI but after I was no longer able to do the high paying computer coding work that I used to do (and I honestly tried my best—like I said my last work attempt lasted less than a month) I tried to get a job that did not require cognitive abilities. I made a resume where I put down that I used to work for big tech companies but am no longer able to do that work and applied to everywhere I could. I got an interview at an ice cream parlor. They asked about my work history and I said I developed a disability and cognitively couldn’t do the high paying work anymore. The manager interviewing me expressed concern that I might forget how to mix a smoothie or something. I did not get the job, but I saw someone else who they hired and noticed how personable, smiling, good-looking, and prosocial they were. I didn’t have a chance. I can be friendly with another person initially, but it's superficial and I can't keep it up long-term. A second place interviewed me to be a food runner (a person who delivers food from the kitchen to the table), and the hiring manager asked me about my educational background (my resume had the answer but apparently he didn't read it). I truthfully answered that I have a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, and he was like "bachelor's in computer science?" and didn't hire me. I think he was probably expecting me to have no education beyond high school. A third place I tried to apply to was a local shop, and they said they wanted someone who spoke both Spanish and English (because South Florida has a lot of Hispanic people), but I only spoke English, and I didn't even take Spanish classes in school (in middle school and high school I took French, and I only remember a handful of French words anyway). Speaking both Spanish and English is a common request of employers in my area and I doubt I could learn Spanish—when I took French as a student it was one of my worst if not my worst class (I was always good at subjects that required logic like algebra and bad at subjects that required rote memorization, and learning foreign language terms and irregular verb conjunctions was entirely rote memorization without clear logic). Ultimately after I couldn't do professional computer coding work anymore but before I was awarded disability, I sent out more job applications than I ever had, got hardly any interviews, and none of those interviews resulted in me getting an offer, even though the offer would have been for $10 an hour whereas I used to work for $86 an hour on W2 (and didn't need to know Spanish). And nowadays (I’m currently typing in October 2022 but this started years earlier) I sometimes experience muscle rigidity and involuntary muscle contractions (not necessarily at the same time—I don’t know if they’re from the antipsychotic medication I'm on or if it’s another weird unexplained neurological symptom—I talk about the weird neurological stuff more in a later paragraph of this essay) and about half the time I can’t walk or even bike far enough to get to those local places I applied to anymore and I can’t drive there myself either so even if a local employer hired me and even if I didn’t have Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder (I talk about that more two paragraphs later) I would still have problems. I bought an aluminum kick scooter and found that on some days when I have difficulty walking I am able to use the scooter, but on other days I can't walk or scooter more than a couple hundred feet, so it varies from day to day. Some days I walk while sort of hunched over, using the kick scooter as a sort of cane on wheels. I have tried to get (or at least considered) every job I could possibly think of and for one reason or another I couldn’t do or get any of them. Heck, I even replied to an advertisement for the armed forces and they didn't want me. On 11/29/2022 I got a text from the Marines after I replied to their internet ad, explained my situation to them, and they said they can't employ anyone with a schizophrenia (or in my case schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type) diagnosis, even for non-combat roles. Even bipolar disorder (which I was diagnosed with before being given a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder or bipolar schizophrenia) isn't allowed without a special waiver which the military hasn't been giving out. They said even for non-combat roles you need to pass basic training including firearm training and thought I wasn't qualified to be trusted with a firearm (which makes sense), and also I'm not in the physical shape necessary to be able to pass bootcamp (on some days I can't walk more than a few hundred steps in total). Speaking of other jobs I tried to get, in late December 2022 I applied to be a sperm donor and they didn't want me, presumably because they didn't want anyone with potentially genetically inheritable mental illness. I saw on social media a post about a remote part-time job that pays an average of over $100,000 a year with a maximum of 90 days training and no degree required, but that turned out to be a scam. Over the years I tried or applied to, or at the very least seriously considered, every way of making money that I could possibly think of. There is another aspect of cognitive issues that I would like to talk about before I go on to the second reason I'm not working. Cognitive issues can be very non-obvious and hard to detect or predict. For example, I saw a guy on a TV show who had an issue with his brain where his memory lasted 30 seconds. He developed this issue late in life. But even though he forgot everything new, he was still able to read and play piano sheet music just by looking at it. I took private classical piano lessons for 6 years and I was never able to just look at two-handed piano music on paper and play it (unless I had the whole song memorized before and could play it without the sheet music). Sheet music has horizontal lines where the position of the note on the line determines which note to play. For example, for the left hand, if a note is on the second horizontal line from the bottom, it's a "B". That being said, if I saw that note on the piano sheet music, I wouldn't know it's a "B" just by looking at it—I have an acronym that I say out loud whenever I look at a left-handed note, "Growling Big Dogs Fight Animals", where the first letter of each word ("G B D F A") corresponds to the left-handed note on that line. So the second word of the acronym is "Big", which starts with a "B", so a sheet music note on the second line from the bottom for the left hand is a "B". I would go through the music, repeating the acronym over and over, and writing down for each left-handed note which note it is on the paper before playing it (in practice I didn't have to do this for every single note because some notes are right next to each other and in that case I knew which note it was without writing it down). For some reason I was able to learn the right handed notes and know what they were just by looking at them, without needing an acronym, but for the left handed notes no matter how much piano I played or for how many years, I was never able to learn (if I had to guess why I think that maybe it has something to do with the fact that I learned the right handed notes at an earlier time, but I really don't know). By using the acronym and writing down the notes, I was able to play lots of advanced pieces of classical music by the great composers like Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. People just assumed that if I could play all these advanced pieces of classical music, that I could also read sheet music, but at least for the left hand I could not. And one might assume that because I was able to memorize the correspondence between the lines on the sheet music and the notes for the right hand (for the right hand the notes on the lines are "E, G, B, D, F" instead of "G, B, D, F, A") that I could do the same for the left hand, but I could not. No IQ test or other neurocognitive test would have predicted this. For various tasks I developed specific workarounds. For example, while reading, I may constantly lose focus and lose my place, but if I underlined each word as I read it (or at least followed along with my finger) and I lost focus, I could resume reading from the last underlined word (or from where my finger is). Sometimes I move my bookmark down a line for each line of text that I read (again, I haven't been able to read an entire book from the front cover to the back in over four years). Or I may forget the names and identities of characters, but if every time a new character was introduced I put a box around it and a star on the side of the page, and I saw that character's name again, I could go back to the star on the previous page, reread the introduction that I put a box around for that character, and be reminded of who they are (I think some novels have a section that explains who the characters are, which would be immensely helpful to me). Some of these workarounds only work if the text is on paper because if the text is on a computer screen, I can't mark it up, which can result in me having trouble. Workarounds are great, but sometimes those workarounds can be made unavailable to me, which can cause unexpected problems. For example, the college entrance exam (the SAT) and the graduate school entrance exam (the GRE) have pretty much identical questions for the math and the reading sections, the main difference is the SAT is (or at least was) on paper and the GRE is on a computer. When I studied for the GRE (which was after a couple years of working—around the time I was losing my ability to do my job), I did practice tests that were on paper. When I got to the actual test, it was on a computer. This significantly worsened my score. Like if you just saw how I performed on the paper practice tests, you would predict a similar score on the actual computer test, and your prediction would have been wrong. This is the issue with neurocognitive testing, where they try to predict how you would do in the real world based on tests that are different from the real world. And sometimes those differences are small, like putting text on an electronic screen instead of on paper, but they can produce unexpectedly large effects. Or sometimes certain brain issues of mine are significantly worse on one day than on another, and the test just so happens to be on a good day (for example on some days my pseudoseizures which resemble simple partial seizures are significantly more intense or frequent than on other days). When I took the tech company coding tests, specific cognitive issues popped up, where slight differences in the test between one company and another (for example which coding tools, text editors, programming languages, etc. were allowed) made a massive difference in my score (partly because I had developed specific workarounds using specific tools, text editors, programming languages, etc.). I did fantastic at Amazon's interview, but the interview tasks were not the same as the actual job, and there were things they didn't test at the interview that I had serious problems with at the actual job, and nobody predicted those problems. Ultimately my cognitive issues got to a point where I could not work around them anymore (and to be honest I even had problems that I concealed from management before then in order to hold onto my job for as long as possible). From what I've seen, it is in an employer's best interest not to make special accommodations for specific brain issues, especially in the interview stage, because people who need special accommodations for one brain issue (like a specific tool or text editor) tend to end up needing special accommodations for other brain-related things or be unable to do other things using their brain that employers weren't expecting them to be unable to do. Employers want people who can do the job regardless of what gets thrown at them and who can serve as perfect replacements for the person who did the job before them. And yeah, there are special laws in place for people with disabilities, but they are mainly for physical disabilities, like needing a wheelchair. Brain disabilities are less obvious and harder to predict and make accommodations for. Sometimes people with brain related disabilities need unique accommodations that take time, money, and effort to provide and other people are unwilling (or just don’t care enough) to provide those accommodations. People tend to assume that other people's brains work like their brains. For example I heard of someone who could do calculus but couldn't do two digit arithmetic in their head or tell time by looking at a clock with hands for the minutes and hours. Like if they had to get the slope, or derivative as it's called in calculus, of the function "y = x\^7" (y = x to the 7th power) they could take the derivative and get "slope = 7x\^6" (slope = 7 times x to the 6th power) by multiplying x by the exponent, 7, and then reducing the exponent by one (changing the 7 to a 6), but they needed to use their fingers to count out the numbers. Personally, I would have never guessed that a person who is unable to do "23 - 15" in their head would be able to do calculus, but it's possible. Like when it comes to brain disabilities, things aren't obvious or predictable the way physical disabilities can be. I didn't have to take any neurocognitive tests when I originally applied for disability and I personally am afraid of having to take one to prove my disability because neurocognitive tests can't predict real world performance the way a real job can test real world performance because the test and the real world are not the same. I have tried multiple real world jobs before and been unable to do them, and I don't believe that looking at an IQ test score or other neurocognitive test score would have resulted in expecting that. Ultimately the best test for ability to do a job is to actually be put on the job and to see, at the actual job, how you do, and when that happened to me I did worse than everybody else (in a group of about 20, including a few people who were hired after me) despite what any test like the coding test predicted. I’ve done multiple jobs before and I was bad at all of them despite what the SAT test or any other test would have predicted. Other people got hired as an apprentice or junior, learned how to do the job independently, and then got promoted (with an accompanying pay bump at the same employer), but I never received any promotion at any job ever.