Can someone with many mental disorders be accepted into the JET programme?

13 comments

1. I can’t comment on whether they would be accepted as it is purely speculative, and depends on how the person presents themself, but as to whether it is a good idea for them… what I would say is don’t under estimate how difficult it can be to move countries into a potentially rural area, away from a normal routine and support network.

   Most of the people I befriended at orientation were ringing me crying over the first few months and having bouts of depression. The foreigners I know, both jet and non jet, who have been here longer than a year all seem pretty… negative. Like completely disillusioned and seeing negative sides of living here.

   I’ve also noticed that a lot of people on JET seem to have some kind of mental health problem. But whether it is related to the sort of people that apply for JET in the first place, or the impact that moving here has on those people, I couldn’t say.

   I don’t feel negatively about living here at all, and I’m enjoying it immensely. But any mental health, diagnosed or not, requires maintenence and knowing what to do and how to look after yourself. This can be tricky for younger people who move here and have less life experience.

   If you just sit inside an apartment all winter, eating bad food, not making friends, and pinning your ups and downs based on what’s happened on school that week, then yeah, you won’t have a good time.

   If you get out and about, create a routine, establish a supportive social network here and at home, actually eat well and shower and exercise, then yeah, that’s the basics isn’t it for everyone.

   Obviously for other disorders they’ll be other ways to try and maintain mental health but it can be quite an individual thing.

2. Japan has a major stigma against mental health conditions.
   Even something common and easily addressed in other countries, such as depression, is highly frowned upon here.
   However, at the end of the day, all they can do is apply and see if they get accepted.
   Not trying would be making the decision for them.

   Edit: Also, dreams are great. However, they are not worth the risk of having someone hurt or off themselves by introducing them to what can be a very stressful and difficult thing.
   I have worked in a career that strives to mitigate just that and I have seen personally what can happen when similar situations don’t work out.

3. Half of jets are mental disasters and I don’t know how they got hired in the first place. There is a reason most of them go home at the beginning.

   I would advise anyone with a disagnosed illness to reconsider because it’s not easy to pick up and move across the world and then have your mental illness treated like the common cold. You will get chewed up and spit out.

4. While it is possible for people with mental health issues to get onto JET is highly not advised as it extreme hard on their mental health.

   There are a couple reason for them to be rejected.

   * The medication you’re taking is unavailable in Japan and you can’t or won’t use an alternative.
   * They are unable to provide a position in a location where you can get access to treatment.
   * You are unable to get your doctor to sign off on your health form/statement.

5. I’m still an aspiring JET, but I can tell you about my time living in Quebec as part of a Canadian cultural exchange program (as in, teens from English speaking provinces go to Quebec, Quebec teens go to English speaking provinces). It was just 6 weeks. It was INTENSE.

   We were all required to speak French before we went. Not perfectly, but passably. I was sent to a small town where almost no one spoke English, including the family hosting me. The difficulty of only sort of understanding everything, of having your brain work so hard to translate everything 24/7 – it’s EXHAUSTING.

   You get there, and it fully sets in about a week in that you are far, far away from your family, friends, home, everything you’ve ever known, even your language. It’s going to be a long time before you see any of them again. Watching TV in English or meeting up with other English speakers who exchanged with you, it helps, but maybe they’re not all nice.

   So – even with great mental health going in, these programs are TOUGH. You feel more isolated than you ever have before. Everything is so different, unfamiliar. You feel lost on whole new levels. It’s exhausting every day. I did adjust in Quebec after a few weeks, but part of that was becoming more fluent with the language.

6. Ask your doctor after showing them and get their opinion. There is a Japan-US database of meds and a doctor can see if it can be prescribed here or if a substitute is available.

   With that list of illnesses, I would stay close to home as Japan on a good day will trigger all of them.

7. I have three examples:

   One of my very good friends who is still currently in Japan as a CIR has depression and takes meds for it. The city tried to switch her with someone else once they saw she had a history of depression, but they couldn’t. In the end I believe they’re happy with her because she does well at her job and doesn’t show any symptoms. She manages her depression well and causes no issues, so I think they’ve forgotten about it.

   A year or two before I went on JET there was a huge story about an ALT who had a bipolar breakdown bc he stopped taking his meds (his usual meds werent available in Japan and the ones they gave him had bad side effects iirc), and he ended up in a psychiatric hospital. Unfortunately Japan is terribly behind on psychiatric care, and they had him strapped down to a gurney for weeks. His brother flew to Japan and begged to have him released from it, especially once his episode was over and he was obviously not a danger to himself or others anymore. But the hospital refused, and then the ALT had a blood clot from being unable to move, had a heart attack, and died. He was in his twenties.
   The hospital did an autopsy and of course found no fault of their own, so the death was ruled an accident. Idk if the family was able to sue or try to take them to court anymore after that.

   Another story: while I was on JET a girl from the prefecture next to mine stopped taking her meds and began to have some serious mental decline. So much so she was freaking out her schools with her mannerisms. She stalked her ex boyfriend (another ALT) and made extremely weird and unsettling Facebook videos. She eventually got arrested for lying outside her ex’s apartment in a too-short dress without any underwear on. Apparently the way she was lying you could see her privates. The arrest and stalking got her booted from the program and she ended up in Europe, I think in Germany, and there she continued to decline until she ended up in a psychiatric hospital there. Her family tried to beg her to come home before all of this but I think they kindof gave up at some point and knew she had to hit rock bottom and be forced to take her meds in order to stabilize again. Idk if she’s back home bc she fell off the Facebook grid when she went into the hospital in Germany, and I haven’t looked her up in a long while.

   Anyways, if you have serious mental issues you have to make sure you take your meds, and be aware of the risks if you have a breakdown and end up in a psychiatric hospital or arrested.

8. Someone with that list absolutely would not get in.

9. [removed]

10. Honestly, probably not.

11. Hey I once knew someone with about 3 or 4 of those disorders ( CPTSD, Anxiety, Panic, Dissociative) plus Bipolar.

    Moving to a foreign country where everything is strange and different. On top of not knowing the language? Even relatively healthy people will get stressed. I can’t imagine how that would be for someone who’s struggling with mental health. Well, I guess I can kinda imagine. I wouldnt recommend it.

12. I’d highly recommend anyone with all of these disorders not do JET or move to Japan. A big reason is that mental health care in Japan is far behind many developed countries and I wouldn’t feel comfortable being able to get proper care if needed.

13. That’s a really short list for folks in the JET programme. Can they concoct a few more?