Experiences With Vocational Rehabilitation Over My Lifetime

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I had seizures as a child, and took drugs for about 10 years to control them. My K-12 schools knew all about my medical history.

The High School nurse probably thought that I had a case of Epilepsy, and referred me to Vocational Rehabilitation (VR).
In the 12th grade, my VR counselor had me fill out some paperwork that he said would enable me to get money for college.

Nothing ever came of that meeting. I was left puzzled about why I never heard from VR again.

Later, I saw another VR counselor who referred me to some post-secondary schools as an alternative to college. A waste of my time, and his.

I eventually decided to go to college. One of my college friends got his college tuition 100% paid for by VR, and I was JEALOUS that he got some financial help from VR, while I got nothing. We both seemed to have similar traits, and I think that this was the reason for our being friends.

When I first went to college, I saw a neurologist, and he told me that I NEVER had had Epilepsy, and never had been diagnosed as having that condition.

That is WHY I never got any financial help from VR. I didn't have a "Documented Medical Diagnosis" of anything. Why didn't they tell me that?

So then, what was wrong with me? I was weird, and bullied at my K-12 schools, all the time. Never got any help of any sort, though.

In college, I was teased a lot, but managed to laugh it off. Everyone commented about how much I had to study. Everyday. Everywhere.

I ended up finishing college (2 Bachelor's degrees), and graduate school (Master's), on my own dime.

While I had done very well academically, I struggled with everything: Jobs, Relationships, Churches, etc. I just never seemed to get established in my life.

I had about 29 IT jobs, and ended up being FIRED from most of them.

After the turn of the century, or Y2K, IT jobs that used my mainframe computer skills became scarce. And with my poor work history, those IT jobs became impossible to find.

I decided to re-train for a Trucking Driving job, and FAILED at that training. I wasn't sure what was happening to me. I had always done well academically, but just couldn't handle all the Multi-Tasking that was involved with driving a Truck. Not sure why.

My mother had me see a psychologist, who diagnosed me as having Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This explained the reasons behind many of my problems. My childhood seizures were probably due to my ASD condition. Problems with: Multi-Tasking, Social Skills, Facial Blindness, etc. were other common problems associated with ASD.

I saw another VR counselor, and he explained to me that "Driving" jobs were not a good "Fit" for me, because of my ASD condition. OK, and so . . .

A "Vocational Assessment Test" showed that I would be "Best" at clerical work, but I just wasn't interested. Boring, and not interesting work at all.

Anyway, I reluctantly agreed to some further education, and learned Microsoft Office: WORD, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Outlook. I did like the training, and looked forward to finding a job that would enable me to "Give Up" my driving job.

However, I never did find a job that used my new clerical skills. My job placement counselor was nice, but not very helpful. I eventually had to tell him that I just had to find another driving job, and end my "Fruitless" search for clerical work.

I just hated how VR seemed to have the attitude that I had an "Unlimited" amount of time to search for a job that met the goals that were written in my VR case plan. I absolutely did NOT. I eventually had to "Quit" seeing my job placement counselor in order to find a job that paid some money just so that I could "Live". My VR counselor called me about "Why" I was no longer seeing my assigned job placement counselor. My answer: I couldn't afford to waste any more time on my "Fruitless" search for clerical work.

I ended up doing another driving job for about 6 months before I was laid off, probably FIRED. I don't know.

I tried going through VR again. This time around, my VR counselor told me that because I already had a college education, and graduate school training, I was only eligible for some short-term training, and would be required to find a job within 90 days. I tried re-training to be a receptionist, but never managed to find a job using my new education. The 90 days ended with me still being unemployed. I continued my frustrating job search for a full year without finding anything.

This was just after the "Great Recession" had ended, or 2010. I have my doubts about whether an economic recovery ever really happened.

In hindsight, I was probably "Over Qualified" for many of the jobs that I applied for while working with VR. Plus, my poor work history didn't help.

Eventually, I ended up applying for, and getting approved for, SSDI.

The psychologist who diagnosed me with ASD also helped me get long-term disability benefits from my insurance company.

Today, I'm looking at starting my own business. However, I'll do that WITHOUT any help from VR. Too many unrealistic requirements if I were to get any help from them. Just not worth it.

My overall impression of VR is that they are "Good" at helping younger workers, especially youth who are just graduating from high school, and looking for work immediately afterwards, or planning to attend some post-secondary education, including college. VR can help with tuition.

After that, VR seems to be pretty much of a "Joke", or at least that was my experience with them.

Once you're past a certain age, and/or, have a poor work history, that all counts against you.

I really can't say if my bad experiences with VR were the result of: VR, my ASD condition, my work history, or some combination of these things.

Maybe there are some "Good" VR counselors, who do know how to help people with ASD. My VR counselors didn't seem to have a clue, though.

If VR didn't know how to help me, I sure wish that they had been more "Upfront", and told me that. VR was a waste of my time.