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.

beta blockers, citalopram, sertraline, can all be used for anxiety. And yes the nhs does find talk therapy, at least in herts it does, I have had 3 courses.

I would prefer to live in a country, like Germany, where YOU would have been able to recover with state support.

Why do you want things to be worse, rather than better?

Do you hate yourself and others so much that you want a poor standard of living?

I personally want a modern nation with proper sickness support for both the employed and self-employed.

Exactly this when your suffering from severe mental illness, you literally can't function. There is no I dragged myself to work. You literally can't.

Personally, as an employer, I would much rather anyone employed by me has a break rather than a breakdown.
I very much doubt people are getting signed off widespread at the drop of a hat anymore than asylum seekers are being given free cars.

I have appalling mental health. I’ve been threatened with being sectioned after stupidly telling my therapist how I felt, yet I’ve missed a few hours of work over 4 years because I’m on a treadmill of keeping alive and going to work is part of that routine. I breakdown when I come home.

I don’t blame people for not being able to work with mental health problems as everyone manages differently.

There is. I had some. You can self refer to it if I remember rightly.

If you had a breakdown you wouldn't have a choice because you wouldn't physically be able to do it anymore, even if it did mean you ended up homeless.

What are you going on about??

your post makes no sense.

M why would I want something to be worse.

M sadly I don’t live in a country where they support the workers who need financial help to heal and self employed don’t get sick pay so end of.
it’s not me wanting to make things worse,it’s there being no other option.

the same as the op who wrote this post

Thank you @WiseKhakiGoose - you said it better than I could.

I've never been signed off because if you CAN make it in, even with a car park cry, you don't need to be. The people who are signed off are too ill to function.

But please do get some support OP. Life can be better than this. I've had some horrific times just like you. Looking back I didn't realise how ill I was at the time.

Completely agree. I have anxiety and have never been off sick from it but have let things get on top of me in the past. Luckily I work for an understanding company.

But they don’t cure anxiety and have side effects. No talk therapy in our area even for high priority cases. I had to do a pals complaint to get the therapy my son needed and wasn’t getting. My dd has attempted suicide several times and still hasn’t got what she needs. It’s incredibly common everywhere.

My son was lucky he had me. He was too ill to fight for himself. His anxiety and ptsd was crippling. I am also fighting for my very ill daughter and work full time because I can. They can’t. I don’t begrudge them or smugly think I’m superior.

Do you want a better system or do you want it to be shitter for other people to make you feel a tiny bit better off than those at the bottom?

I think we need a better system. What Sunak is proposing is awful. British people deserve better than that.

I get you, OP. I have a severe anxiety disorder that I've been living with for 40+ years. I go to work every day. I'm often, OFTEN so anxious before a simple work meeting that I'll have a panic attack and/or diarrhoea. And that's on strong medication and with three rounds of counselling and four rounds of CBT under my belt. It's part of who I am and I live with it and do the best I can so that I can live a full life and support my family and make my way in the world. Whilst I do believe that there are people with much more severe mental health issues than me who are unable to work, and have every sympathy and every desire to support them, I also believe there are a lot of people who need a bit less pandering and financial support and who should be encouraged to return to work, for their own health and for the sake of fairness.

One problem I think, is that depression/anxiety, well, there doesn't seem to be any cure or affective treatment.

There are different levels of mental health.

Just because you feel a certain way, doesn't mean that others can cope how you do. Some people don't have the mental resilience to.

Also some people have other conditions alongside anxiety.

My sister worked from being young. Even worked 2 jobs at once. Until she ended up being diagnosed with a severe bipolar episode and she didn't work for 7 years. Those years were hell. Her depression (part of the bipolar) was so bad, she wouldn't get washed for weeks. She was asleep through the day, up all night.
Took years to get her medication right.
She's now working again and has been for a few years now. Would you begrudge her not working a few years if you had bipolar and worked?

I just think it's easy to judge and obviously some people do fudge the system and that's wrong. However, not everyone is the same. It's tough for us all at moment but the sheer lack of empathy on here sometimes astounds me.

I sincerely hope you get better and don't end up in a position where you can't work.

What Sunak is proposing is so stupid that it is clearly desgined to appeal to very stupid people. That he thinks it will appeal to may of us is telling.
If we are giving vouchers to the deserving, then it is daft as giving them vouchers does not allow them to spend most efficiently. If they are undeserving, then why give them the vouchers?
And why spend a fortune on all of this administration?
And if if they can help by supplying treatment, then why not just do this anyway?

I think we all agree we all deserve better than the dregs we seem to be offered right now but that’s not what this post by the original poster is about.

she’s having a bad time and feels shitty that she’s having to drag herself through every day and still go to work and run the house and look after the kids.

M I totally empathise because I’ve been there.
its shit and horrendous when your in the middle of a hard mental time and still having to put in the hours at work due to not being able to afford not to.

what do you propose those of us that have to work through it should do?

some people have mortgages and child care bills higher than their wage so have no option to keep working

But you’ve had 3 rounds of counselling and 4 rounds of cbt. Others are getting nothing. Some will be far more needy than you too.Frankly saying people less fortunate than you who haven’t had half what you have had are pandered to is pretty shit. Maybe if they had what they need they could work too.

Is there no possibility that taking some time off to heal might help you?

The fact you choose to keep pushing on doesn't make it right for others, for some that would result in things wrosening to the point of suicide.

I think there is treatment, it's just what works is different for everyone. Some people "just" need medication, some "just" need therapy, others need both. Then there are those who need multiple types of medication and long-term therapy, or those who need hospital stays etc.

It's just a really difficult condition to treat because there's not just one "cure". And you have no idea how someone will react to (eg) medication until they've tried it and it's potentially made them worse.

Those on benefits are highly likely to be much worse off than you financially, much less likely to own their home, much less likely to recover.

You are just punching down.

What I propose is that instead of punching down, you join those of us who want a fairer system and put pressure on the government to start backing British people.

Well, all times are unprecedented in that the exact same circumstances have never happened in the exact same way previously. I agree though that national/international crises aren't that unusual.

But the level of worklessness in the UK currently isn't that unusual either - it's around what it was ten years ago and less than it was at several points in the 80s and 90s.

What is unusual is how the UK looks compared to similar countries right now in terms of workforce participation - it's lower than other similar countries. Not loads, but noticeable. But then, other comparable countries have lower state pension ages and better healthcare systems - that would probably account for at least a few million economically inactive citizens. Given that many more millions of us are currently on NHS waiting lists it's amazing that most of us are making it into work at all. We should be congratulating ourselves!

The percentage of people signed off work in the Uk nearly three times higher than the percentage population in comparable countries such as Spain,France and Italy - why are people in the Uk sicker than other European countries?

@dothehokeycokey but some people are trying to explain that there are people so Ill that they can’t make those choices to work or not- they just are not capable. I would have loved it if my mum was well enough to work. The multiple sections indicate she wasn’t. I’m sure she didn’t want to leave her children behind and have a shitty time in a mental hospital. Mental health is like physical health in that there isn’t a universal experience. Some people are clearly more sick than others.