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.

Very few people never ever work. Many bounce along in and out of employment. Many people without health problems also do this. The two year "fire at will" set-up we have here in the UK makes easy for employers to get rid of people who are any kind of a problem and also to heap pressures on employees thus exacerbating low level problems .

At the moment there are more people who are experiencing all kinds of difficulties because the country is in a state of economic and social decline and the health system is fucked. "Shit life syndrome" can genuinely be disabling if the various pinch points are sufficiently severe and numerous.

I think one of the key questions we have to ask is what is wrong with our work environments? So many toxic badly run organisations that are making employees anxious and stressed

Surely most people with anxiety are in work. The only reason there have been lots of threads recently about people not in work who fear being forced into employment is the new policy drive on that very issue from Rishi Sunak (if indeed there have been lots of threads of this sort - I haven't noticed this)

Looks like his initiative is working - in the sense that it is stirring up threads in which one group of underserved people (ie mentally ill people who are in employment) are expressing discontent with another group of underserved people (ie mentally ill people who are not in employment), instead of focusing anger on those responsible for the under-provision of help.

People don't just "give in" to mental illnesses you know?

Just like people don't "give in" to MS or arthritis or blindness. And an actual breakdown is not a gradual thing, it's a snap in your brain. Your mind literally snaps and you're no longer who you were.

Most people with mental illnesses do everything they can to remain in reality by trying to live normal lives. They want to go to work without the voices, the panic, the paranoia. They want to leave the house with out these things.

Let's not do this.
It's not a competition.
This is exactly what the Tories want - for us to turn on each other rather than to suggest that they could stop their luxury lifestyles and contracts for their friends, funded by the tax-payer, and start making the cuts there instead.

Take time off work and recover then. Ask your GP about options. Everyone experiences anxiety yes, not everyone is crippled by it. I've been so ill in the past I've not left the house for months and I've been off for around 2 full years in my history altogether. Then I've had helpful treatment that enabled me to return. I've worked for 41 years. Unless you have been really ill with 'anxiety' It doesn't seem like you actually do sympathise. I hope you get the help you need.

Also, I just don't believe that work helps improve peoples mental health, I think very often it makes it worse. I can totally see that the right job would make things better. But zero hours in a warehouse, having to engage all the time with the benefit system and despite working long hard hours never having a spare penny. I struggle to see how that helps anyone.

I have a high level of stress going on right now. I just about cope. I sometimes need to lock myself away and cry.

It is different though from the anxiety my teenager with ASD and ADHD experiences.

It's hard to explain, if you haven't directly experienced it, but when DD is overwhelmed she literally does not function. She wouldn't eat, wouldn't do basic hygiene, lies on her bed for days on end to hide from the world, can't sleep ie sometimes 48 hours + awake because of the thoughts whirling through her mind, she even looses the ability to communicate and answer basic questions.

I assume this thread has a PIP bashing theme. DD receives DLA and will soon need to do a PIP application.

I'm not sure she will ever manage to work more than a very basic job with not too long hours. I don't see her ever being able to live independently. She will always need a lot of support, medication and medical treatments. I hope she qualifies for PIP.

She is neuro diverse and her anxiety is not the same as mine or the average neurotypical person. Most people wouldn't go to bed and literally lie there until they die if they were left alone.

PIP is an in work benefit (as DLA used to be). I applaud the OP for going to work, which is absolutely the right thing to do, but if she does also qualify for PIP then it may ease some of the financial pressure.

I am unable to work due to MH reasons.
I assure you that I do not think you are suffering less than me... but your body and mind are giving you warning signs for you to slow down. If you don't, then you wont have a choice about work or not. You could end up in hospital.

Think of it this way... if you had injured your leg, and had to rest it... you would. You would not keep running on it etc, especially if there was a real risk that you would cause further injury that could need serious intervention.
Your mind is no different.

Oh, yawn. I must’ve heard ‘what the tories want’ 3 times today. It’s getting boring now

I was a single mother to 5. I worked two jobs to keep us above water, I eventually had a mental breakdown and had to be sectioned. I lost both jobs and ended up relying on the state. (I still do) I've been diagnosed with severe depression, anxiety, ptsd and eubpd. I didn't ask for this I'm 39. Lots of people suffer with depression and anxiety and manage to work, but not everyone's that lucky I'm afraid.

You don’t seem to understand. Probably 20-30% of people working FT feel like this. When was the last time you were in a proper workplace? If everyone feeling such stress sacked off work, who would pay for anything?

Why do you think that though?

Perhaps the reason so many have said this is that it is true. If you want variety, read a novel. Accounts of reality are bound to be relatively samey.

This. 100%. This is exactly what they want and it’s awful. It’s not us and us against each other here.

I have bipolar and work, every so often in a year maybe a few days a year I will need to take off but that’s it, I’ve made sure I work part time , 4 days a week, I’m a secondary school teacher to help manage the stress, personally I think not working makes it worse as you have time to ruminate and have no structure to keep you on a steady Keil. I understand if your having a mental break down or a more serious condition like schizophrenia could mean it’s best not to work but I feel other conditions can be improved with work aslong as you know your limits, pick a job that can not tip you over the edge and if possible be flexible somewhat if you need some time to decompress.

I didn't say OP give should give up her job. How she feels is not healthy and it is not normal.

Normalising such extreme stress is not a good thing.

Oh @Fedupandgrump you've fallen into the trap of punching down to make yourself feel better.

This is what Sunak's unpleasant approach is all about - encouraging people who have it pretty shit to attack those who have it even shitter. You've fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

This government doesn't care about you @Fedupandgrump , they're just distracting you by getting you to attack your fellow citizens.

Is hearing you're own prejudices inconvenient for you?

The fucking melts on this site at times 🙄

But, at one point something happened to them, and they couldn't work anymore!

@WiseKhakiGoose Of course they can work! There is nothing physically wrong with them!

Plenty of jobs don't require much interaction with people,or even mental capacity (factory work, stuffing envelopes etc)

Enabling people to stay at home and avoid anything that makes them 'anxious' isn't a cure or a solution

No, I’m bored of the same old silly mantas and stock responses which mean naff all and are designed to shut down inconvenient discussion

Yes. Very much this. I have bipolar disorder and for most of my adult life have worked. For periods I have not been able to and it's utter bollocks to suggest I would have been able to if I had no other choice.

I'm also not convinced that most employers would want someone with the most severe form of depression. I knew one person (signed off) who got sent home from work after his employer found him sitting motionless in his chair, an hour after he got into work, staring at a blank screen. He hadn't managed to get his hands into gear to push the 'on' button. I had a couple of clients at my work knocking on the door of a toilet cubicle truing to coax me out as I rocked back and forth and sobbed and hyperventilated and pulled chunks of hair out of my scalp. I couldn't "pull myself together" any more than a man with a broken leg could get up and walk. It was like I was drowning in my own brain chemistry, and it wasnt a super good professional look for the office. Someone else I knew in hospital just lost the will for self care when depressed and employers tend to not want staff who haven't managed to brush their hair for a week and may not be entirely verbal.

I don't see how that sort of collapse can be solved by a bit of willpower and "can do" attitude.

Thanks to everyone who’s taken the time to respond. Unfortunately, my DH and I own a small company together and are responsible for a handful of employees so being signed off is something we simply wouldn’t be able to do. Reading some of the responses helps to put things into perspective though, some of you are suffering far more than I am and I’m sorry for sounding completely self-absorbed. I just feel a bit like I’m drowning and it’s hard to think logically at the minute.

Removed as not helpful