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'm so sorry, I just wanted to say I promise it can get better - sometimes for no discernible reason! (I would recommend cutting out sugar though if you've not tried that; for me, that was more effective than any medication - including valium). Good luck x

Of course it would have been nicer, but it wasnt' technically possible until around 15 years ago.

Sometimes, you have to do things that you feek that can't do.

Something often ignored in these threads is where are the jobs?

Even if businesses became more open to keeping on and hiring sick and disabled people and there was better and more timely and better NHS help, there's not even enough jobs for everyone on job seekers benefits.

916,000 vacancies in the UK, but over 1 million job seekers (that's before including people on benefits due to being unable to work).

A friend of mine uses her PIP to have private therapy sessions.

And I predict the next comment would be about there being vouchers for therapy instead of money. My friend took a long time to find the right therapist for her (which is vital). The one she sees (over Zoom) is in America.

That actually just proves my point. Because they have too much!

Exactly this.

Perhaps look how mental heath services have been decimated during the last 12 years? People have to reach crisis point before they get help and when your at crisis point it’s a hell of a lot harder to get back onto an even keel.

the very government who want to penalise people for having poor mental health are the same ones who are doing nothing to ensure proper support and treatment are in place.

I have experienced this. No you can’t just “will it away” you have to be prepared to work bloody hard at it, maybe spend hours studying related fields.

My bookshelves are full of Jungian books, books on somatic therapy, workings of the vagus nerve. Books about the physiological and neurological effects of ptsd. Hours spent each week in yoga, reading about ancient spiritual practices, meditation. Thousands of pounds spent on breathing therapies, past life regression, hypnosis etc.

You do have a choice with mental illness. Succumb to it, or fight - and it will be the fight of your live, the fight will become your life. People think it can all be taken away with pills, with 6 sessions of CBT. But in reality you have to strip yourself down to the bare bones and rebuild.

I've worked in schools covered in anxiety-ridden eczema, I've worked in schools and hid in my car and cried at lunch times.
I've worked in schools when my dad died and cried in the cupboard, then carried on. I feel great anxiety about things then carry on. I have to work.

I doubt OP would get PIP based on the information so far. If she got worse, she might eventually qualify. PIP is based on daily living, it doesn’t care about suicide attempts.

PIP doesn’t encourage people to “get worse”. No one is going to choose £125/week over getting better. That is totally preposterous.

The cash is often used for long term CBT therapy which is not offered by the NHS. Or even for gym memberships, art therapy, group therapy/support groups, walking clubs - which can help mental illness.

Really? Because I remember people's parents working from home around 30 years ago!

My point was that your life would have been easier if you could have wfh. Yet we have a government preaching against wfh even though loads of disabled people were able to get work during covid because of the volume of remote work available

Perhaps of the government actually did a drive to encourage businesses to allow disabled people to work from home if necessarily instead of being scathing about it, maybe people like you wouldn't need to force yourself to do the things you feel you can't do

Yet here we are with loads of people blaming the disabled people instead of the disability hostile work environments and government..

This!

1 million job seekers and less than a million vacancies. A lot of those vacancies will be zero hours, or part time. Many people will need to work multiple to live.
And 1 million job seekers... that doesn't count people about to leave uni that will want a job, people who already have a job but want to get a new one, people who are not employed but also not on benefits... and now there is talk of bumping the sick and disabled off of benefits into the pool of unemployed.
There simply are not enough jobs to go round.

Well that is what everyone should be doing but most don't because if they get better then they will lose their benefit and have to work.

YANBU.

In the last 15 years, I've been through :

• the birth of my child,
• ex becoming systematically abusive within three days of the birth,
• being made redundant first morning back after maternity leave,
• having to fight a tribunal case
• separating from ex, and moving/finding us somewhere to live
• Finding another job only to be furloughed during covid
• being made redundant after furlough
• fighting to get into another job
• being diagnosed with bc
• surgery/chemo/radio
• losing my hair & dealing with the fear
• rebuilding

Believe me, my stress levels were off the scale repeatedly, I've wanted to give up so many times, to pull the duvet over my head and never see another day. But I have obligations, responsibilities and I refuse to let my child down, no matter what.

I try not to think about it but I do resent the people who just give up and claim, or who have created their issues using drugs that anyone with any common sense would know to avoid.

Anxiety/depression/poor mental health are the new buzzwords for a sick note. Can't be proved or disproved, and GP's hand out medications like smarties that only work for short periods of time and then patients are hooked on.

And the real winners? Pharmaceutical companies who make billions annually.

My father had undiagnosed and therefore untreated PTSD due to being a Japanese POW in WW2. His actions and behaviours around us children were often bizarre and sometimes terrifying and have left us with our own mental health problems. So it wasn't the "good old days" where people just got on with it, there were many families where unrecognised trauma was passed down the generations.

Yes, my apologies. I can see how my post isn’t worded in the right way.

And often, months off work on the disability benefit of ESA now UC+ disability component is just what is needed so you can do this fight FT. Others can do the fight PT, and PIP provides the cash to pursue whatever assistance works for them whether that is spiritual like for you or mild exercise or long term therapies not offered by the NHS.

Well, if people use the cash for all those things, then getting vouchers instead won't make any difference to them at all.

And where are the disability friendly employers

I am applying for jobs at the moment. I have a physical disability

All of the jobs I have applied for are for companies who say they are inclusive. Two specifically promote themselves as disability friendly companies

All of them have told me that if I can't commit to coming into the office if they need it, even if I have a flare up that means I can't travel, then they can't employe me

It's to do the same job I do now for my current employer fully remote. Its completely possible to do it full remote

But despite being inclusive and disability friendly they are unable to accommodate my disability

Yep.

Often cry on the way to work. My mental health is in a bin tbh.

It might be what kills me, but what choice is there.

That is ableist propaganda that cannot be proven.

Aren’t you lovely, ever considered therapy for agression?

My friend has bipolar 1, and she will have it until she dies.
She has therapy to dump her worries and get some reflection, so her life is as stress and trigger free as possible. Because when she is stressed, she gets very unwell.
To her, therapy is like taking a painkiller. It keeps her functioning but she will always need it.

Yes, it might have been possible in some sectors 30 years ago, but not mine as there was too much paperwork which was kept in the office.

But I agree that we should be encouraging WFH, as long as you can monitor productivity .