First, I did my civil service as a mental health instructor with schizophrenics at Niemikotisäätiö Foundation. I taught basic life skills (cooking, cleaning, hygiene) to our customers in the institution for a period of 18 months in 1994 and 1995. Later, I got same type of work at the Harjutori rehabilitation centre, and then I transferred to Snellman College for one year. After this college, I spent six months at Helmi association through a work try-out programme. I instructed an art group, helped in communications tasks and supported our members.
Next, I worked at family park Kiikku in Kontula as a children’s instructor and supervisor.
In 2000, I started as the personal assistant for a girl with CP who was taking evening courses to complete upper secondary school. I wrote her notes and took her from one classroom to another. This was an evening job and I quit after I got a job at the nursing home for people with brain damages, with the Asumispalvelusäätiö.
My tasks there depended on each customer. It was much the same as with the institutionalised schizophrenics, but with more variation and a more extensive array of tasks. I dressed and undressed people and washed them. I cooked and cleaned. I taught them how to clean. I read books aloud. I played chess. I took the customers out for a walk and so on.
Then I took some odd jobs. For a while I was a teaching aid at Marjatta School (Steiner School), cleaned the outpatient clinic at Herttoniemi Hospital and Koskela Hospital.
I also took care of a baby.
Between these jobs, I assisted a blind girl in upper secondary school for a couple of months, and during this time the infamous teacher of religion asked this stupid question that I answered in the beginning of the book.
Then I got my most challenging job so far. I started as the assistant of a schizophrenic who had had a stroke. In practice, I ran the place. I did all the employer tasks and was the supervisor because I had to do everything that the client could not manage – it was my task! I hired a second assistant and a substitute for the summer and taught them the ropes of the job. Naturally, I also took care of all the paperwork as a part of my job.
Unfortunately, I had to quit since the job became too stressing without any help and supervisor. The problem is that the patient suffered from unawareness of symptoms and delusions and rejected the reality. I was left pretty much alone in these situations when the customer assumed authority and told me to do the impossible.
I did hire someone to take on my duties.
One month later, I was assisting a boy with Asperger in Year 1 at school.
This was a Year 1 and 2 special needs class in Espoo. There were 8 students, the teacher and me in the class. It did not take long before I became the assistant for the whole class and not just the one student. This meant that the boy was not singled out and others got help when they needed it.
My biggest success in this job was to get the school to change their old practice. They used to take the boy to a room in the back to calm down when he had a fit of rage.
I was told to do the same thing. I did as instructed a few times. But I realised that this practice did not work. This was maybe a good way with ordinary students, but the boy with Asperger’s thought of it as a punishment and just fought back even harder.
He did calm down eventually, but he was left with the feeling that he had been treated unfairly. I changed this. We still left the classroom and went out to the hall, but I tried to explain to him why we went there.
He started to calm down much faster and, eventually, we did not even have to leave the classroom.
After this, I have worked as an assistant for a man and a woman with MS and two people with brain damage in their homes. I did a short spell with home care in Helsinki and cleaned the Meilahti Hospital.
In 2008, I got into Laajasalo College to study to become a teaching assistant. I had finally managed to save enough money from my low-income jobs to get through this one-year study programme.
I graduated in the spring of 2009 and returned to work in Year 1. This time, my client was a boy with type 1 diabetes. I would take his blood sugar levels and see what he ate. For the rest of the time, I helped with other students who did not have a decision for assistance, even though they needed it.
In 2013, after temping for a while, I took a job as the assistant for a blind man.
I assisted him for a year, but because he lived in Vuosaari and the commute took me 1 hour and 20 minutes one way, for a four-hour workday, I changed jobs.
I got a job assisting a blind young man in upper secondary school starting 05 February 2014. This was my most recent longer employment relationship. He took his last exam on 22 October 2015. In the summer of 2016, I had some temp jobs with the housing foundation, ASPA.
In the autumn of 2016, I started studying practical nursing at Omnia, and I graduated in the spring of 2018.
In 2019, I assisted young adults with mental disabilities in a nursing home to help with independent living. Someone did not like me there, and lied anonymously to the supervisor that I was guilty of sexual harassment.
After being given an unfounded written warning for this, I ”voted with my feet” and changed jobs. I ended up in the Home Care unit in Tapiola in Espoo, and this was, perhaps, the best job I have had. I say ”perhaps” because I also loved working at Linnavuori rehabilitation home, and I have enjoyed working in the nine schools I’ve been to.
I have had different types of jobs in which I have helped people to get around in wheelchairs (including 5-km outings using wheelchairs) and with other support. I have helped them with their physiotherapy exercises. I have washed people, also their private parts and, catheterised a male client. I have taken care of all household chores, including cleaning, cooking, washing, grocery shopping and bank errands.
I have helped people with brain damage and schizophrenia with cleaning and cooking. At school, I have written down notes for a paralysed client and I have helped children to count and read in a personalised manner. I have dressed and undressed people of all ages and helped them eat and drink in different types of situations (including restaurant visits). I have administered medication into dispensers according to prescriptions and have supervised their appropriate use.
I have participated in leisure time activities with my customers, for example, spent time outdoors, played games and just generally spent time together. I have pretty much done everything that you can imagine belonging to the life of different people of different ages.
I am living with my partner in Espoo at the moment. We have a dog and a cat. In my free time, I enjoy outdoor activities, outings, travel and cooking.
I play the guitar sometimes, and I always play the piano when I come across one. I have written songs, fiction, poetry and philosophical texts. I have studied psychology through people, and I’ve read Alice Miller and the basics of psychology in a number of books.
I used to play a lot of sports when I was younger. I like to play chess and backgammon or its updated version, eskgammon, developed by my cousin.
Some people go to the school of life.
I went to the university of life.
This book here is my dissertation from there, in a discipline that you have not yet had. It goes by the name of a biology of religion or theobiology, you can have your pick.
Unfortunately, since I have devised this field of study myself, I cannot award myself a Doctor’s degree. On the other hand, I don’t need a degree, you can fuck your degrees.
They don’t give you much, just the bare minimum, right?
Teobiologia 
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