I've always had frequent, intense anxiety and depression at jobs, either feeling incompetent or bored. Either the job felt beyond me or beneath me. My ego was in the way. It was hard to get engaged with the work. Eight hours would seem like sixteen, and I'd fret, thinking about how I could continue showing up week after week, month after month. I was in a helping profession on and off for 15 years, and had conflict with authority figures, called in sick too much and was terminated more than a few times, though my work with clients was never criticized. I had impossibly high standards for myself, and as a result, felt inadequate and anxious most of the time. When my mood was stable, I could feel some pleasure and competence at work. This was maybe 30% of the time. The rest of the time I felt trapped.

Always competing for my attention during the work day was the near constant obsession that I should be living my passion, as an entrepreneur artist/designer in textiles, handcraft, and home decor. However, terrible self-esteem, disorganization, insufficient drive and energy, and the same impossible perfectionism made that goal extremely difficult. In my ADD style, I followed every creative whim, in too many media, rather than honing a skill, and developing a product. Art/craft is a tough road for even functional people.

I went on disability 6 or 7 years ago because of the depression, ADD, and anxiety. I'm single, there's no other financial support. I want to get out of this poverty and scarcity lifestyle that I've created. I'm now in my mid-fifties, and that makes me feel that it's too late to re-enter the job market and earn a professional salary. A job has to pay enough to afford health insurance since I'd lose medicare/medicaid.

I've spent the 6 or 7 years spinning in circles with all these issues, unable to figure out how to manage my stress, perfectionism, ego, boredom, and difficulty with memory, learning new skills and procedures when I find them tedious. If you've read this far, you deserve some sort of award. I am signed up with a voc rehab agency, but they expect me to know what I want from them. That's a problem. Any thoughts, ideas are greatly appreciated.