To report to their manager

[Judgy1]

I have a number of mental and physical health issues that affect one another, I am disabled by them and I have insomnia due to these. I am also autistic. I have chosen not to take medication because I don’t want additional side effects to the many ones that I already experience and I don’t want to do damage to any organs or other parts of my body from being on them long term. I need to decompress for at least a few days after speaking to someone.
I get mental health support from professionals twice a week and I try to prioritise working on that and using my energy for the basics, and a hobby for a short time if I can manage on top of that but barely. I’m in the UK but I didn’t get a formal education which I consider to have been child neglect that went undetected as it was under “unschooling” which is somehow legal, so I am currently working with a tutor funded by the council to gain qualifications. Our meetings are currently about once every 2-3 weeks because I can’t manage to do it more often on top two hourly meetings a week with my mental health support workers. I am also working with someone that will help me gain life skills and employability skills, but due to everything else I have taken on, these meetings are about once every 3 weeks to a month because that is what I can manage. Everyone I work with is aware of my health issues and how they impact me and that sometimes I need to reschedule. My last meeting with my employability skills worker was over a week ago, our next one is in two weeks and I have had two reminders asking me if I have done the work and to send it to her. After the second reminder I explained to her that I am currently burned out and prioritising working myself out of it so that I don’t lose all ability to function and her 3rd email in response to it reads “Our next meeting is booked for (date), please can you aim to have this completed by then so we can move things forwards?”. I am thinking about speaking to their manager but I am not sure if I am being unreasonable

I am thinking about it as my mental health worker did mention the point that if I take medication it might get rid of symptoms I experience and then help my sleep and other mental health issues

If you’d started the work instead of starting this thread, you’d have probably made a serious dent in it.

YABU don't report someone for doing their job. And please try the medication, it might significantly alter your life, even if it's just getting decent sleep! Sleep deprivation is terrible.

It can make a world of difference. You are worried about side effects and long term health effects of medication, but it sounds like you haven't considered the long term health effects of chronic stress and burnout on the body and the mind. Medication might only be necessary in the shorter term anyway. It can give you the mental space for therapy to work, it can give you breathing space from the mental turmoil so you can rest and heal. Some antidepressants can have the useful side effect of helping you sleep too.

YABU. This person is doing their job, juggling a caseload of people with poor/no employability skills. They have to ensure you are doing/going to do whatever it is you’ve committed to so they can help inch you forward towards something approaching a normal life. They will have a mix of people who genuinely struggle for assorted reasons and lazy buggers full of excuses who avoid participating. So, if you’ve made excuses to defer tasks previously they will naturally issue reminders to prompt you. It’s part of their job and certainly shouldn’t be reported.

You say you have two separate hours per week with a tutor and approximately two additional meetings per month with other services and this level of interaction requires a couple of days decompression each time? TBH you sound as if you aren’t at the stage where an employability adviser can help you - if this level of interaction is too much there are very few jobs that may be manageable.

The recommendations to take whatever meds you are being prescribed are right - you’ve got no quality of life at present and it’s not going to get better on it’s own - living a closed, tiny life indefinitely will exacerbate and magnify your anxieties to the point you are completely unable to function.

Why do you think side effects of meds are so much worse than your current level of mental strain?