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Berries · Jan 18, 2010, 03:14 PM

I have been so depressed, but I have been doing a lot of right things. The main thing missing is that my anti-depressant isn’t at therapeutic dosage.
After I exercise in the early morning, I do chores (cleaning) and then I am back in bed. In the afternoons I sleep about 4 hours and about 8 hours at night, mostly with nightmares and wake ups.
I’ve been living this way for months.
I know that is not a productive way to live. I know I contribute nothing to society. Partly due to my bipolar and partly due to my OCD. But I am trying to work on both. I go to T twice a week. I go to A support group for mood disorders twice a week and one for OCD twice a month. I have finally found an OCD therapist who takes Medicare. I start seeing her on January 26.
I was in group last Thursday and during the break, some guy asked me where I worked. I said, “I am on disability.” He said, “So you don’t work?” I simply said, “No”. He said, “You mean you don’t work, AT ALL?” I was too depressed and weary to defend myself, so again I just said, “no”. Then he asked for the fourth time, “You mean you don’t have a job?” “No, I am on disability”.
The truth is that as soon as the OCD gets to a manageable point, I intend on getting a volunteer job. The truth is, I’ve tried paid work in the past and have had bad experiences, because of my illnesses. I’ve had to quit. I’ve been fired. Because of my bipolar my job performance varies. I am an incredible and productive employee when manic although inappropriate socially with co-workers, and substandard when depressed. Both get me into trouble. And the OCD is a big problem too. I wear gloves all the time and lie about why. I say I have skin allergies, but I still feel like they know the real reason and so I am uncomfortable around them. There’s more to the OCD, but I won’t bore you with it.
Anyway, it really hurt my feelings and made me feel so bad about myself when this man said this to me. I wish I could have said all of the above to him. But I have a feeling he still would not understand.
I feel guilty about being on disability. And when people judge it harshly and call people—on the dole, lazy, cheaters…it really triggers me. My dad does it too.
It makes me wonder if there are others in the group who feel and think like he does?
It makes me wonder if there are people who work on PC that feel this way.