I'm on Wall Street & I'm Schizophrenic... Ask Me Anything
Hello all, I'm a long time reader of wall street oasis but have always kept myself from getting involved in posting or making an account for one reason or another. This is an amazing resource for people and before I got out of college I used to really love reading all the stories and comments and when things got really bad sometimes it was my own little way of feeling social without really being social at all! So I felt like it's about time I contributed my story, especially because it's much different than what you usually see on this site I think, and maybe there are other people out there who need a story like this to relate to that otherwise would feel very alone.
Let me start with my background. I came from a pretty privileged background, going to private school all the way through high school when my parents sent me to a boarding school. I always felt like nobody could relate to me and eventually I figured out why...not only was there something wrong with me socially, but half the time I was talking to myself. Early in high school I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and was committed to a hospital for almost 12 months before being allowed to go back to school for outpatient therapy. I was always a smart kid and fortunately was able to attend a "semi target" as I know you all love to call them. I had some serious problems adjusting to college as you might imagine and I won't go too far into details but there were plenty of times that I thought I might not make it, let alone find a way to graduate and get a job. Luckily I found an outlet to keep me busy and keep hallucinations (mostly audible) and delusions in the background of my mind. That outlet was investing, actually it was the whole process of finding the best companies to invest in...I didn't really care about actually doing the investing part. When I stayed busy, I found that I could keep my mind from trying to distract me with my illness, and after escaping college I was lucky enough to get a job at a small asset manager. From that job I learned a lot from my co-workers, but my big break came in finding a very very undervalued and attractive business that I would say made my career up to this point. I pitched it to my own PM and he thought I was crazy (he didn't realize how right...and wrong...he was), so I called a few analysts at some other funds that I had met in the past and one of them took my idea to his PM who requested to sit down and talk about it. From there I ended up getting a job offer and am now working at a pretty well regarded hedge fund.
I don't want to get too long winded and tell my entire story up front, since I wanted this to be an 'ask me anything' rather than a big story, so I will stop here. I still hear voices in my head and see things that aren't there, my social and dating life has only recently begun to pick up (finally!), and my coworkers don't know about my condition...but I wanted to write this just to give anyone else out there who might be suffering from the same kind of illness or a similar one like depression, anxiety, bipolar, or anything like that, some glimmer of hope that Wall Street isn't some shark infested place where you have to be a super confident ultra articulate type A personality to be successful. I am very good at my job and if people think I am a little harder to become friendly with or if I don't want to meet your wife because the voices in my head recommend that I punch her in the face, that doesn't stop me from functioning well and having a desirable job.
With that I can answer any questions about anything! I'm very open about my condition so any and all questions I will do my best to answer.
so harvard is now a semi-target? i call troll until certified...
Sorry the "semi target" thing was meant to be a joke...like I said I guess I'm not good at those! And no I have not read Street Freak but it sounds like maybe I should. I have spoken to plenty of people in finance jobs that have similar problems but you don't see a lot of bipolar or schiz or anything like that. A lot of completely normal people with depression or anxiety or even aspergers though. Especially on the quant side, though I'm not a quant. Traders too.
ah, sorry i didn't get your cleverness. more people would take the post seriously if you were certified though (not certifiably insane :D)
Have you read Street Freak? (author tells story of undiagnosed bipolar disorder/OCD)
good luck with your mental issues. lord knows I have plenty and it's annoying as shit. glad to see you've done well for yourself
Very glad to have someone post an AMA like this. My question is, on a day to day basis, how do you best handle interactions with your co-workers? My guess is that, by this point, they've caught on to some of your idiosyncrasies and realize that you're "different"... how does it work with them? Do they just look past it? Have you ever felt pushed around for it? Is frustration or anger at others ever an issue for you on the job. Again, thanks for posting this.
I never feel angry at anyone for thinking less of me because I'm "weird" or something. I work for a fund that has probably a much smaller amount of employee interaction than most, and way less than an investment bank or anything like that, so if you are somewhat introverted or just don't want to talk to people like I do, you can make that happen. Generally my co workers see me as pretty agreeable and easy to get along with but just quiet and probably somewhat quirky for the occasional outburst or strange act when I think I'm hearing something I'm not, or getting visibly uncomfortable about something that shouldn't be all too troubling. I've actually overheard someone giving a tour of the office and when walking past my office told the new hire that they 'wouldnt see much' of me because 'he's a family man or something' hahaha. I have no idea what that meant, but I think people just say whatever and leave me be if I want to be. But they are great people to work with and if I ever feel social or anything they are easy to hang out with outside of work too and don't shut me out for being generally quiet in the office. So I would suppose they look past it. They definitely don't push me around for it. I think being the super quiet guy and the intellectual guy actually works in my favor because when I actually do speak, everybody listens, and generally my ideas are heavily researched and not as frequent as others though in my opinion of a higher quality. You just kind of get used to working with someone like me I figure, the same way I get used to working with someone like me!
Extremely interesting post. Similar questions to the comments above. Is your disordered visually obvious? As in, do you look or act different when you are "talking" to yourself?
As they say it's not the cards you're dealt that determine your future but in fact how you choose play them. Your story is very inspiring. Someone very close to me has recently been diagnosed with epilepsy , while obviously very different, your post really made me feel better.
can we hear more about that trade of yours? :D
What is an auditory hallucination like? Is it frightening or painful when it happens?
Can you give specific examples of situations where your condition has impacted your work and how you coped? Are you afraid your condition will deteriorate as you age?
It's extremely uncomfortable when you have them in public but normally not a very big deal once you get used to them. The best way I describe it to my family or friends is that it's like hearing someone whisper loudly in the other room. You know you heard something and you have a good idea of what you heard but you're not entirely sure and that almost adds to the discomfort you get from hearing it because it's hard to separate the real from the imaginary. This has worked both ways for me in the past at work, for example I've had a situation where I was in the middle of giving my thesis on one of our most recent and largest investments to a room full of our investors, and halfway through the slide deck I kept hearing someone outside the door asking to get let in. I ignored it at first hoping it was either a hallucination or someone else would just open the door, but the voice kept getting louder so I interrupted my pitch to go get the door. You can imagine how embarrassing and strange it is to open a door and see nobody there, and I really had no good excuse for why I did it. Once you learn to laugh at yourself though it's not that big of a deal. I said something to the effect of 'looks like I'm going crazy, thought I heard voices outside' and everyone kind of laughed and brushed it off. I haven't had it really impact me severely yet but I am worried that it could at some point though I believe I'm getting better at coping with it not worse. My doctors have told me that aging could actually help my condition since I have been pretty good about keeping up with the treatments and everything they put me on, but it's very possible that if it starts to evolve into something more like disorganized schiz that I could have a much harder time working than I do right now. I'm worried that one day my employer will find out about it but I'm really not sure if they are allowed to do anything about it to be honest, or at least until it visibly affects my work performance. Then again, my insurance is through work so if they were really that curious I'm sure they could find out what I've been getting coverage for!
Great post, and I hear where you're coming from being Bi-Polar myself. I think at this point my manager knows when I need to refill my meds lol.
You wouldn't happen to be the same person that wrote the article for the Harvard Crimson about being schizophrenic, would you?
You are fascinating
interested to hear what your investment idea was, how you came about finding it and how you pitched it to get your job?
You played well with the cards you've been dealt my friend
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