As I have made you aware in the past, I have an ongoing legal dispute with my workplace over the way they handled responding to my disability. They refused to offer sufficient accommodation, so, I sued for lost wages and damages incurred. A law firm who represents labor issues took my case and built an extensive history on me, my work environment, and the events that led up to my psychotic breakdown. The event itself took place October 12, 2017… the last day I worked for Mood Media. I was planning on working for them until July of 2018, which was when my family had originally planned to move to northern California, so my claim reflected appropriate compensation for the fact that I should have been allowed to earn wages during that period.

The legal back and forth went on for some time, but I must say that my law firm did a great job keeping me informed, and advocating for me where it was logically possible to do so. They really explained things to me clearly and guided me through the various interactions, offers and eventual settlement. Today I found out we had a final offer, and we were going to take it. I am glad that the process is finally nearing a full and reasonable conclusion. I’ll be glad to get something of financial worth out of all of this, my poor old truck is at 183,000 miles and I fear its days are numbered. This money should help put a down payment on a new car when the time comes. Something is better than the nothing at all I would have ended up with if I had done nothing and lett the corporate steamroller flatten me. I refused, I resisted, I was not respected until the law got behind me and said I needed to be listened to. I am grateful to them for that.

So I say to all of you, if you are honestly, truly a victim of workplace discrimination based on a disability, there is hope. I got fair representation, good treatment and I do believe you can too if you have a case. My story is just one of many, and of those, few are truly told. People fall through the cracks and are ruined by the machine of society. I refuse to let that happen to myself, and anyone else if I can help it. This is a big part of why I decided to get into Mental Health advocacy and awareness as a career. I don’t want people who suffer like I do (or, have) to go on feeling misunderstood and unacknowledged. I can do a lot to guide people to finding their strength through the example of success.

I’m going to take a W for justice on this one. The Mentally Ill were redeemed, represented and appropriately compensated in this proceeding. I am thankful to have learned what I have from going through it, now coming out the other side. Resolution drawing near… future is wide open.