Muhammad is one of the estimated 2 million American adults who suffer from schizophrenia. The mental illness can cause delusions, hallucinations, and social withdrawal, and can make it difficult for people to be coherent and to appropriately sort, interpret, and respond to incoming sensations. In 2006, Fuller Torrey, an American psychiatrist and schizophrenia researcher, argued that, “when the social history of our era is written, the plight of persons with schizophrenia will be recorded as having been a national scandal.” Surveys suggest that the majority of Americans with schizophrenia want to be employed, but aren’t: Currently around 85 percent are unemployed, while research shows that as many as 70 percent would prefer to work.

“The truth is that the majority of people with schizophrenia are willing and able to thrive in the workplace if they find a job that fits their interests, works with their strengths and talents, and offers them some accommodations,” says Sita Diehl, the director of state policy and advocacy for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Currently, only 10 to 15 percent of American adults with schizophrenia are in the workforce, a number that includes many part-time jobs. Yet Diehl says that NAMI’s research suggests that the majority of Americans with schizophrenia believe not only that they are capable of working, but that a job would improve their lives. These numbers suggest that, perhaps unsurprisingly, it is profoundly difficult for people with schizophrenia to find jobs.

For Muhammad, a job could be soothing: Being around others hushed the voices he heard, and having a purpose kept his anxiety at bay. But some of his symptoms could get triggered when he was on duty and isolated from others, and finding a job that fit his specific needs turned out to be difficult. After Muhammad was diagnosed, a social worker at the Veteran Administration's Community Care Center set him up with an apartment and found him a compensated work-therapy job in the mailroom of the VA, where he sorted mail a few hours a day.

“He told me I had to give him a phone call whenever things got rough and promised me that he’d come over straight away,” said Muhammad. A daily routine, along with the dedication of this unexpected supporter and the access he now had to medication and treatment through his job, helped Muhammad recover. After a few months though, the VA moved him to a full-time job assembling small metal parts in one of its manufacturing operations—a job that paid $10 an hour, but didn’t suit him.

Eventually, the VA asked him to work as a security guard outside. Unlike his previous security-guard position at the hospital, however, this position called for monitoring terrain on his own. Though Muhammad started the new job in great spirits, it took less than seven weeks before he was back in the hospital. “I was outside all by myself,” he explained, “so I started to see all these shadows walking towards me. It made me sick again.”