I am on a Disability Support Pension (Australia) due to my illnesses and I sometimes fall into thinking - I shouldn't be on it - I'd rather be working - which I do wish I was working. But the truth is I have serious life-threatening illnesses and I can't work, haven't for three years. I tried with a huge lead-up and great support from a network of mental health clinicians and an employment support agency and I had a meltdown within a few days and had to resign.

Now I've started to do a part-time course at Uni. I don't even know whether I'll be able to do the course yet - it's a day-by-day proposition. But now I feel guilty because my head tells me, if you can study, you should be able to work and you are bleeding off the system. Which again, is bull, because I'm doing the part time Off Campus mode and I can do all the work at my own pace when I am well enough, the only time imperative being the Due Dates for assignments. If it was a consistent committment I would have to keep I wouldn't be able to do it - that has been shown by my efforts again and again to try to do things.

My therapist says I am a perfectionist and I never really understood what that meant until recently when the penny dropped. It's about me having unrealistic expectations of myself and others, which of course causes me pain all the time and limits my movement forward in my recovery. Oh well - sometimes it takes time for the penny to drop!!?? lol