People who work have anxiety too

[Fedupandgrump]

Anyone else on the verge of a breakdown with work, kids, mortgage and cost of living?

I’ve read a lot of threads recently about people with mental health conditions worried about being forced into employment when they feel as though they would not be able to cope. Whilst I sympathise, it’s come at a time where I am completely overwhelmed, burnt out and wonder how the fuck I’m going to get through the week. I treat myself to a half hour sob in Sainsburys car park every couple of days and I wake up every morning with dread, fear and anxiety about what the day will hold. However, I go and work because I. Have. No. Choice. I have two kids and a mad dog that relies on me and my husband to keep our shit together and a roof over our heads. Every day I can feel my heart racing and I feel permanently like I’m in fight or flight mode and I wonder if this is going to lead to a premature heart attack in my 30’s.

I sometimes feel like people who don’t work due to poor mental health thinks those of us who do work, are suffering less than them. I know IAMBU but I can’t help the way I feel at the minute.

I wake up every morning with dread, fear and anxiety about what the day will hold. However, I go and work because I. Have. No. Choice. I have two kids and a mad dog that relies on me and my husband to keep our shit together and a roof over our heads.

The difference between you and those with anxiety that cannot work is that they have been where you are and then got worse. You don’t choose to stop working, it is a situation forced on you. The existence of family, children depending on you only delays the breakdown and mental crisis a bit.

This is why sick notes for weeks off for people like you are vital and needed to stop the progression to a complete mental break down before it happens.

The current estimate is that £19 billion worth of benefits goes unclaimed every year. I think we’re okay to cope with an increased number of recipients for a while yet.

The lack of empathy towards disabled people is very telling about who are persons is. Especially if it goes as far as accusing a disabled person faking the disability.

I would seriously question every person who posted here how do they manage to parent their children while they struggle so much with their own lack of empathy and emotions? Do you meet your child's emotional needs or do you think your children should automatically be happy and have no right to express any negative emotions only because you provide housing and food for them? Are you that kind of parent who has no patience to actually hear what their children go through? Always dismiss their feelings and tell them they should grow up because you have real problems to deal with and they don't?

Being emotionally abused as a child is one of the main problems why adults struggle with their own feelings and mental health in adulthood. Lack of education for parents on how to actually meet their child's emotional needs is one the reasons why there's so many adults with mental health issues. Especially now, after Covid. Imagine having those kind of parents and being locked in a house with them 24hr a day for months! Obviously, as a result young people started to struggle more with their mental health now.

People were just locked away in assylums then. Out of sight out of mind.

a relative of mine worked in one of the last ones to shut. Many of the long term residents where men who had “shell shock” from their roles in the wars. Or PTSD as it is now better known.

Well I suppose that’s kind of the point. I can’t have that kind of breakdown

It's not a choice

Yep. There seems to be a lack of understanding about PIP.🙄

The asylums ended in the 1980s. A good 30 years between them and the enormous spike in people claiming benefits for MH reasons

Surely they mean Dupuytren's contracture or Palmar Fibrosis?

This thread is so lacking in compassion and empathy for those receiving financial support due to their severe mental ill health which prevents them from being able to work.

The issue isn't people getting signed off sick, it's a system whereby so many people are made to feel this anxious by everyday life. COL and austerity has made people's lives worse, to the point where people are unable to work, or "just" crying in carparks because they can't cope. It's wrong on so many levels, and the metaphorical chickens are coming home.

Yes, I thought so too. And that is the same poster who said (in 2 threads now) that I should open a coffee van, and also insists there are people on full rate of PIP for having writer's cramp. And that someone with anorexia should get less money as they don't have food costs.

It was meant to read more that I can’t have a breakdown without losing my home and my business rather than thinking it’s a conscious choice whether to have one or not. I really do not feel superior to anyone and I’m sorry about your friend. I’m frightened of this happening to me too.

Atm you feel like you're choosing not to completely breakdown, at some point it won't be a choice. I worked through a severe MI up until a week before I spent many months in a psychiatric hospital. If I hadn't had been forced to stop by Dr's I don't know where I'd be. If I'd taken time off sooner maybe I wouldn't have ended up in hospital at all. I thought I needed permission to stop rather than listening to myself.

I didn’t say anything about anorexia.

Is that anxiety or stress though? I went through a period of anxiety and I would have panic attacks so severe I'd need an ambulance. I couldn't leave the house without holding onto my mother's hand and rolling along the wall whilst shaking and crying. I couldn't even be driven without hyperventilating, let alone drive and once I passed out (luckily I was at the doctor at the time - I know someone else who had a panic attack and fainted onto a trainline, thank god they were just bruised). It was horrific and though it was a few years ago, I'll never forget that feeling of absolute terror. Every so often it rears its awful head again, in the last couple of years I've been taken twice by ambulance to a&e as I've had serious issues with my breathing; it's shit, but I know that it's nothing like as bad as it can get. I would echo the others saying get help for the stress though, you really really don't want it to get to the level that you would be eligible for benefits.

🤮🤮🤮

Hiding this thread now, as it nastiness and contempt is just revolting. Thankfully the equally revolting green paper on PIP will never be anything but that.

Well it isn't Rishi's fault the country's on it's knees. Stands to reason that the severely mentally unwell are to blame - it's the only thing that makes sense.

It was meant to read more that I can’t have a breakdown without losing my home and my business rather than thinking it’s a conscious choice whether to have one or not.

But surely you must realise that that's everyone's reality? There are only a tiny number of people who could keep their homes, jobs and livelihoods afloat if they had a breakdown.

Exactly this! My anxiety had reached an awful point where it was causing severe physical issues. I was in and out hospital for over 7 years with blood pressure issues, dizziness, heart rate which was 140 at resting which needed medication to control and heart issues where I felt that my heart was stopping. I had loads of mri scans and brain scans and heart tests for years and years and felt I couldn't go on and was suicidal BUT....I still got up despite thus and despite not being able to breath or mood being low and went to work everyday. Why? Cause I had to work and earn money! If I can do it under anxiety...so can the rest of the world. The sad part is I know so many people claiming pip and benefits who have nothing wrong with them. It's just too easy to play the system.

The workhouse was where you ended up if you could not work due to old age or poor mental health (including self medicating mentally ill addicts). If you got really bad, you were sent on to the mental asylum which was a place of rape and torture for women.

It wasn’t some golden age where everyone had a stiff upper lip and carried on. It was a dark age where those who couldn’t were literally locked up out of sight and forgotten by the respectable, & deserving working classes.

I think it is being focused on though because this thread is about anxiety and depression and this is what the government seem to have chosen to focus on in regards to alternatives to actually paying PIP money to claimants.

Yes, someone on a PIP thread yesterday said that her daughter couldn't work in an office because she got anxious and very depressed.

Well, I hate working in an office and got anxious and very depressed for 30 years before I was able to WFH.

Sometimes you just have to do things you feel you can't do.

I've only skimmed the thread, so apologies if I have missed anything.

OP is clearly suffering and I feel for her. However, I do think there is a danger that this is becoming (or is) another "let's complain about people on PIP" thread. And I'd also argue that people who are unable to work due to mental illness are, on average, far less functional than people who can hold down a job.

For reference, I am currently not claiming PIP, although I have been advised that I could because my mental health is so poor. I think part of why I am not claiming is a.) I cannot bear admin and b.) I am ashamed to be where I am.

Okay, soapbox rant incoming.

Up until fairly recently, I was a very high-functioning mess. I worked, studied, socialised, had caring responsibilities etc. despite having diagnosed anxiety and depression. I have had panic disorder since my teens that is largely treatment-resistant. I probably qualified as bulimic. Just a huge, huge mess. I received some CBT and bounced between antidepressants, but basically never got better.

One day I just... snapped. I was at work one day and ended up hiding in the stationery cupboard. I really thought I was going to die. Developed paranoia about various things, including the belief that I was allergic to everything I ate, was being poisoned, or was going to drop dead. Cue nervous breakdown. Became an agoraphobic wreck, which I still am. I'm only 25. This really isn't a lifestyle choice. It's absolute hell. Every trip outside the house triggers a full-blown panic attack. I know my mental state is harming people around me, including my mother, who badly needs my support. I really miss having reliable income, seeing friends etc. But I can't go anywhere. For a while, I would try to go to job interviews etc. and would get dressed, get my bag and just end up... sitting, unable to move. I did manage to do temp work for a few weeks, which involved having to sneak into the toilets to cry and hyperventilate and throw up because I was so terrified.

I think what I am trying to express is that all it takes is for one really bad day to send you from "miserable but functional" to completely non-functional. For that reason, I really can't blame people for needing time off work due to mental illness. It's not a choice. I would never, ever choose this for myself.

The sad part is I know so many people claiming pip and benefits who have nothing wrong with them. It's just too easy to play the system

.

Ok, so perhaps we should all go on PIP. Who is going to pay for it?

Kindly,this attitude is part of the problem. Nobody should live like this. It's horrible and we shouldn't encourage this race to the bottom. It's a mentality I find still very présent in England, which is also why people allow living standards to fall quite low.
Life doesn't need to be that hard, the economic system isn't fit for purpose and too many people are suffering. I have the luxury of being in good health and being able to live elsewhere with better safety nets, health and education systems but most people don't.