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Finding Self-Respect Whether Employed or Not

Shirley J. Davis
9 min readNov 9, 2019
Photo by Headway on Unsplash

Humans acquire their self-worth from many sources. Beginning in childhood, our parents should be the first to show us both verbally and non-verbally that we are worthwhile and valuable.

However, people living with the after-effects of childhood trauma and in the present with severe mental health disabilities did not have the reassurances. This lack of caring leaves lasting scars that sometimes makes it impossible to attain a career or hold a job.

In this article, we are going to examine some of the realities and challenges involved with working, and how it is okay if one cannot.

What Society Expects is Harmful

Society has some very harmful views of people who they do not consider to be fulfilling the roles they believe they should.

Stay-at-home dads, single mothers, gay couples, and anyone else who move beyond what society considers “normal” receive a constant barrage of gossip, dirty looks, and negative comments.

An example may be as follows:

A man grows up in a dysfunctional home and the resulting mental health issues he formed are devastating and not easy to overcome.

Because of his inability to work, the man faces hurdles of acceptance wherever he goes. Friends…

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Shirley J. Davis
Shirley J. Davis

Written by Shirley J. Davis

I am an author/speaker/grant writer in the U.S. My passion is authoring information about mental health disorders, especially dissociative identity disorder..

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