Before I became a Certified Peer Support, I felt lost because no employer would take me because of my medications. The only thing I could find was a warehouse job. There were no desk jobs. I even got offered a $ 100,000-a-year job but once I did the physical and they found out about my medications they declined to hire me.
I then found out about Certified Peer Support because I was assigned a Certified Peer Support Specialist. I never knew that they existed but once she worked with me, I felt better than I was before. I could function on my medication, and I could do things like interact with people and distance myself from unhealthy relationships.
Once I took the Certified Peer Specialist training, I opened up and told my story which consisted of things I had never told anyone before. It felt so good to finally share with someone who would shed a tear with me and hug me and tell me it was okay. I then knew I made the right choice to become a Certified Peer Specialist.
Today, I love what I do, and thank Peerstar for allowing me to do it. I love helping people in the community. I have worked with individuals who were homeless, alone and their families treated them as outcasts, never thinking they would ever be anything other than who they were. I realized that I can make a difference in every peer that I work with. I make a difference because I hear them and understand their pain because I’ve been there.
Understanding their pain and being there myself gives me that much more motivation to help someone else and it fills my heart and soul with such joy because it’s like paying it forward. I was once where they are and I wanted to help someone else find a way out as I did.
I don’t think any of us will ever be “normal” but at least we can try and have the most normal life that we can have. We can love. We can live. We can work and pay it forward once again and live our lives as best we can. No matter what anyone else says, I matter. We all matter.
I thank God for the blessings that have been given and those yet to come.
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