Effects of Education and Work on My Mental Health

As I’ve stated many times on this blog, I have a bachelor’s and master’s degree, one in biological anthropology, and one in applied anthropology. I graduated with my master’s degree in 2024 from Oregon State University, in 2022 from University of Oregon, and in 2016 from South Eugene High School. My education, as my close friends can tell you, was not a priority of mine for a very long time, but through taking a few years off of school, vehemently stating I was never going back, my mind was changed, and I suddenly saw the immense value of education. This led to me going back to finish my bachelor’s degree, and eventually getting my master’s degree. In addition to my education, I’ve had many different jobs, and two long-term careers in between.

After graduating from high school in 2016, I started college the subsequent fall, attending until fall term of my junior year before dropping out. Coincidentally, the fall I dropped out was the same fall I started my transition. Though I didn’t realize this at the time, it is now glaringly obvious that the two events are linked. At this point in time, I thought that I had a hatred of school and academia. It turns out that I do not actually feel this way, I just felt like working hard, and making a living. I was sick of being broke and hungry all the time, and wanted to answer to no one but myself. No professors, no group projects, no homework, and no grades. I just wanted to make money. I had taken my very first landscaping job that previous summer, and to this day, I consider that summer to be the best summer I’ve ever had. This landscaping job was one that I would return to almost every summer for the next seven years. At this job, I mowed lawns, raked leaves, weeded, laid mulch, pruned trees and bushes, drove a dumptruck, used chainsaws and weedwackers, and occasionally helped with small scale construction projects with the university, usually laying concrete sidewalks around the dorms. While doing all this, I was allowed to listen to music, podcasts, and audiobooks.

But something else happened during these many summers. I learned not only valuable landscaping skills I can fall back on as a career, but I learned how to work. I had four other jobs prior to this one, but work always felt frenzied and disorganized, and I never got to see the results of my hard work, of which I also learned that this is something I need to be successful in a job or career. This landscaping job was perfect because not only was I able to create my own work schedule for the day, but it was structured (I LOVE structure), I enjoyed the physical aspect of the job, I loved being outside all day, and most of all, I had tangible results of my work. 

These tangible results of my hard work did wonders for my mental health. I’m a bit of a perfectionist, so having results of my work that improved the aesthetic environment of the apartment complex, results that were attributed to me and my hard work, effort, and perseverance, really boosted my self-confidence. That, and the fact that I had an amazing boss and coworkers, is why I returned summer after summer. 

After dropping out of college, I took a landscaping job that I went to for literally one day because I injured my back. I was out of commission, as far as landscaping goes. I needed a new gig. I ended up applying to a memory care nursing home as a caregiver. When I started the job on swing shift a couple weeks later, I was single-handedly responsible for the daily care of 15 severely demented older adults. This included changing adult briefs and toileting, feeding, dressing, showering, personal care, entertainment, and ambulation. I loved it. I fell in love with the residents, the routine, and the gratification from helping others. Within three months, I was promoted to med passer, who is responsible for preparing and administering medications, and supervising the caregiver in your house. Three months after that, I was promoted to shift supervisor at 20 years old. For a while, this job gave me great satisfaction and fulfillment. But quickly, the overall stress of working in healthcare made this career unsustainable for me. In addition to that, I received my diagnosis of psychosis about two months after I quit, and had been dealing with the prodromal symptoms in the months leading up to my resignation.

Good and bad things as far as mental health go came from my career in healthcare. The good is that working with people with dementia is immensely gratifying and fulfilling. I learned how to love and care for those in need, and the kindness and genuineness required to do so will be with me forever. I also have conquered my fear of death, having seen so much of it. However, a lot of bad has come from this career, too. I started hearing voices shortly after a particularly gory, gruesome and traumatizing death on Halloween night of 2019. I’m sure without this night, I still would have eventually begun to hear voices, but the two events just seem a bit too coincidental to ignore. 

This particular event has taken me years to come to terms with. I still harbor a lot of guilt and anxiety over this death. Sometimes, I hear the bloodcurdling scream of the caregiver made when she found the man that had died. Other times, it’s the man’s wife and daughter’s crying when they found out that their father and husband had died in the manner and suddenness that he did. On bad nights, I can hear the crunch of the bones in his nose when I was trying to make it look normal for his family, after the head nurse and I lifted him off of the floor. I occasionally will hallucinate puddles of blood. On bad days I hallucinate his dead eyes wide open in terror and pain, or the lack of dignity of the man who died with his pants at his ankles in a pool of blood and urine.

I had one more job before going back to school to finish my bachelor’s degree. It was at Lane Forest Products. I was hired to work in yard debris recycling. It fucking sucked. Everyone there was racist and overall stupid and incompetent. My first supervisor told me that he liked being deployed in the military because “all you have to do is fly into another country and kill niggers.” The boss above him made me stay at work after I crushed my finger and ripped the nail off of my dominant hand when I was filling a bag with woodchips. This was the same boss that made us work during a wildfire in such close proximity to the worksite that we couldn’t see to the other side of the recycling yard. One of my coworkers was arrested for repeatedly raping a 14 year old girl (he called her his “girlfriend”). The only two things that kept me sane at that job were energy drinks and chewing tobacco. That job wrecked my mental health almost as much as healthcare did. Driving frontloaders and forklifts was cool though. 

But, what that job did do was make me see the value in getting an education. Working with those toxic masculinity, murdering, Trump-supporting, idiots gave me a wake up call. I needed to go back to school. So I did. I quit my job and gave that place the middle finger on my last day. I refuse to be a worker or a customer there to this day. I returned to the University of Oregon with a new resolve. Come hell or high water, I was going to get my fucking degree. It was tough (especially getting my second language requirement), but I did it! I mean, I was a C student, but hell, I even had gotten into grad school!

Moving to Corvallis for grad school was a fresh start. I was away from Eugene, the place where I had made so many memories, good and bad. But, as of recently, many of my memories had been bad- as outlined earlier. I needed to leave in order to heal. And grad school did that for me. I had many supportive friends in grad school, whom I love so much (except for one- you know who you are). My cohort and I did grad school together, as a unit, and that was more healing than anything else. 

This time around, I did school right. I did the homework. I did the readings. I did the projects. I networked. I taught. I worked. I did it all. Grad school was a period of healing for me, and I was able to return to Eugene afterward with confidence. I am no longer afraid of the place where so much has happened- more than what I am writing here. I’m back. And I’m happy about it.