To think some people just aren't suited or able to hold down a full time job?

[differentstrokes16]

I'm one of those people, sadly. Unemployable in terms of not able to last in a full time job. I have an autoimmune disorder, chronic fatigue and mental health issues. I work for myself now, take rest when I need to. Lack of adequate rest makes me feel like absolute shit and triggers my anxiety problems, and when prolonged I develop depression. I can't manage the expected hours of a full time job and take care of cooking and basic laundry. I don't even have kids to look after. This all makes me feel unbelievably pathetic.

So I work for myself, but am always skint and running out of savings. I'm at a bit of a loss to know what to do. There must be others in similar situations, who aren't able to work full time? What do they do? What's a good solution?

You're being very aggressive, OP. I've reported your personal attacks.

I agree you need to get your diabetes under control. Are you not on a fast acting insulin like Novarapid that you can use when your blood sugars get that high? I guess you must be on something but with other conditions might make it more difficult. What do you do when you have ketones? High blood sugar does make you feel like shit but its something that can be managed and then you wont feel so tired sluggish or have the blurred vision etc.....
Having an understanding workplace would help - my sister who is 50 this year has had stills disease since she was 13 and usually has 1 or 2 operations a year which means time off obviously. She has worked there for 30 years and I guess they must be happy to work around it! But I know a lot of employers would have got rid by now.

My personal attacks on who exactly?

Where I vehemently dispell the notion that just because another poster can do something, I can't? Are you being serious?

I've read my posts back, thanks. I'm direct and blunt and frustrated and don't demurely roll over and agree with the smug idiots who think I should just suck it up.

Poster above, telling me to get in control of my diabetes - I see a top consultant, have a great team, we do our best. Google gastroparesis - it should explain why it's not so simple as you're making out. Again, just because your sister can do it, not everyone can.

NO, I repeat NO, it is NOT something that can be managed. God, broad statements like this piss me off. If you had spent so much of your life dedicated to trying to manage it and control it too, you'd be pissed off too, I guarantee it.

YANBU to say that some people are incompatable with full time working, or even working at all. Be it due to health or personality.

However, YABU to expect the same standard of living working part time (without an additional source of income) as someone working full time in the same role. Realistically, unless you have the sort of skills to command a very high hourly wage or some other source of income like a trust fund/inheritance, you are going to be a lot poorer working part time.

Check you are getting all the benefits you are entitled to.

Perpendicular - I HAVE SAID MY EXPERIENCES DON'T INVALIDATE YOURS.

Yes, shouting. Because you and several others seem to have missed that in my earlier posts.

Honest to fucking god, bloody brilliant if you can do it, I have real admiration for you. However - I still cannot do it myself. Why are you so threatened by my not being able to work full time? That it's not just a matter of trying hard enough?

Really, really interesting.

I think the words "not suited" are throwing people off. You are ill and therefore, not unable to either. It's more that you are too ill to work full-time.

I have multiple, chronic health problems. I was lucky that I got a job that means I can work from home, the office isn't too far away and the clients are mostly local. I start work at 9, so on bad days, I roll out if bed at 8.30 to take meds, eat and throw on clothes. My work are amazing at adjustments too. If I'm not up to going on client visits, they let me catch up on admin. I certainly couldn't be able to work the number of hours I do (32) if I didn't have this job. However, my job zaps all my energy. Household stuff is done by DP or outsourced using my DLA money. My work gives me fulfilment and happiness which is important to me, so I push myself very hard to keep going. I know I'm lucky though and wouldn't judge someone else who struggled.

Yanbu

I too have 3 autoimmune conditions, severe migraines & fatigue, crippling insomnia and ptsd/anxiety from loosing 2 DDS late in pregnancy and other traumas.

I have been a sahm for a long time but recently gone back to pt with some ft. It's hard and I wonder if I can carry on indefinately. Hopefully 3 days a week would be good long term. Almost all parents I know now work 3 or 4 days a week or flexible/from home.

I agree we should look to Sweden etc and think about 6 hour days and more time off for family issues and illness. We are human not robots.

There are other ways to contribute than full time work.

Can you speak up a bit OP, I can't hear you?

Not threatened at all, I couldn't care less how you live your life - your business. You are incredibly aggressive though.

AIBU garners a variety of opinions. You can't pick and choose, or stifle debate.

I don't want to stifle debate.

I merely am correcting the fallacious assumption, as made by several posters, that just because they can do something - ergo, so can I.

It doesn't work like that.

I will not let incorrect assumptions go unchallenged.

That is not stifling debate.

It's just all a bit odd. I say "I can't do x" and people say "oh but I can, so you can too! Try harder!" so I say "Actually no I still can't..." and then I get screamed at for invalidating their experience Hence, musing on whether that comes from a place of those posters feeling threatened in some bizarre roundabout way.

Thank you to all the people who are not trying to ram down my throat that I could do it if I just tried harder, citing their own experiences as "proof" that this is true.

Again, I hope all of us working desperately hard despite health stuff, figure out the best ways possible of earning. Without making things worse.

I can't work full time even though I'd love to because childcare options are not there. Other people manage but they are in different circumstances. It's irritating yes.
There are lots if issues that make full time difficult for people. You are not on your own.

Agree about the aggression. All the shouting and swearing is totally OTT and unnecessary. However valid your point may be, you need to find better ways to communicate it if you want people to listen and understand, OP. You can't just keep yelling back I'M FUCKING RIGHT. Well, you can but it won't get you anywhere.

Erm, I do work I am self employed.

Ophelia - no, my post still stands. You sister can do it. I honestly am pleased she can as a fellow diabetic.

However I can't and no employer could be understanding enough because they could not afford the amount of sick leave I would need.

That's not a bitchy statement at all. It's just the truth. How am I being a bitch?

I gave up full time jobs when I had kids. They interfere with my yoga habit

What is so good about "full time jobs" anyway ?
I'd rather work 22 hours at a higher rate of pay and be able to go shopping during school hours
than be affected by presenteeism and have to shop online

I will never retire - I have no pension or employees rights
I just decide which weeks and months I work hard so that I can pay my bills

I used tax credits to get my business started but was pleased to say goodbye to it - even though at times my earnings have dropped back within their remit
I'm happier eating less for a few weeks than dealing with those bar stewards

Work is as work does - the most severely disabled person I know would LOVE to get back to work but the job that matches him is yet to be invented. If I invent it (I'm working on it) I'll hire him like a shot as he's bright and motivated, just broken.

Living in the UK with the Welfare State makes us soft and less resilient (that was brought home to me on holiday in Africa this year chatting to our guides who put aside 25% of their wages to pay their parents' medical bills)

I started off reading this thread feeling a great deal compassion and sympathy with you, OP. However, the tone of your posts has made that impossible to maintain. I wish you could get your points across without being so uncivil.

I am not shouting "I'm fucking right" at all.

Since when is swearing prohibited on mumsnet?

I have explained my points in clear and simple language, yep with a fair amount of fucks in there too. If you can't handle the language, you don't have to read it.

Sorry.

I'm getting upset at being unheard. At the amount of people trying to force down my throat that because they can do something, I must be able to.

I must have made that point about a dozen times and still it is ignored.

So my ways of repeating it become more frustrated, more strident.

Anyway, being distracted by people who simply don't get it, and never will, is my mistake. Plenty of people DO get it, as evidenced by the range of replies, so thank you.

I don't think the OP has been aggressive. I would have been a bit firm too with people who so wilfully disregarded what I was saying.

It sounds as if the OP has a very VERY complex medical condition that means life is extremely hard in some ways.

The people who think that because their sister manages with diabetes or that because THEY work full time with an autoimmune condition the OP should be able to as well are deeply, deeply annoying.

AIBU is a rubbish place to post about anything though, it just asks for vile answers.

Walter it isn't any of my business. I suggested that aibu was not the best place for op's question, because she isn't really asking a question (as she has acknowledged) she is making a statement/venting.

Do you think AIBU was a good place for this thread? Bearing in mind the nature of many of the posts?

I haven't seen anyone be overly critical of you at all. I just see people asking questions about your situation and sharing their experience and advice.

We can all swear fuck, twat etc etc but it isn't necessary and doesn't prove your point.

I think you've taken things a bit literally. I get asked how, if my migraines are so bad/frequent, I can 'carry on'. My answer is 'because I have to'. That's the short answer.

The long answer is that I'm lucky that I don't physically vomit with my migraines, and I have a concoction of medicines I can take. If I take a frovotriptan, three aspirin dissolved in coke and prochlorperazine dissolved under my gum, the headache will resolve enough that I can function. It will still be a piercing headache, I'll still be hypersensitive to noise and smell, I'll still feel sick, I'll still muddle my words and lose chunks of vocabulary, I'll still not be able to place a person, or forget their name, but I'll function. I'll still be slightly mal coordinated and clumsy, but I can do it.

Can I function with a migraine? Yes, and I often do. Should I function with a migraine? It's better for everyone if I don't.

different
I've just skim read the whole thread.
You need to get a life.
Why on earth did you start a thread in AIBU with the words full time job in the title
if not to set off a pissed goady Sunday afternoon session?

If you had actually wanted to achieve GOOD for those who cannot work full time - for whatever reason - you could have called your thread
the serendipity of part time working
and explained to people that its cool that you've made it work for you

get out of your own navel and be positive - you'll make more money that way

The other thing you might need to get used to, op, is that people will not read the whole thread. They will answer based on your opening post alone. Tis the nature of Mumsnet, I'm afraid!

Differentstrokes - have you tried the freestyle libre to help manage your diabetes? You may get it funded in your area. We're self-funding it for DS but it makes control a lot better and no wonder you are feeling worse than you should if your blood sugars are regularly that high.

*Ophelia - no, my post still stands. You sister can do it. I honestly am pleased she can as a fellow diabetic.

However I can't and no employer could be understanding enough because they could not afford the amount of sick leave I would need.*

She's not diabetic- I am. And I said she has Stills disease- google it! Most joints in her body have been replaced -some 2 or 3 times, her neck and ankles have been fused and her hands are crippled yet she has managed to work a 30 hour a week (apart from operations)for 30 years and her employer has coped with it so you are wrong when you say no employer will.
I didn't point this out in first post and you still read it that way. You are the only barrier to you working and I have run out of what sympathy I had for your plight because all that comes across is a poor me attitude. Loads of people put up with all kinds of shit and just get on with it-" bully for them you will say. But I cant"
Fine - you cant so what's the issue? You have found a work around - so why the need to post? Just carry on as you are.