[Miss Laura]

I am doing really good I feel stable-ish. My med regime is slowly getting back on track I am no longer feeling I am "normal" and don't need the meds.

Problem: Since last week when I got my disability through.... I have changed from DLA- Disability Living Allowance to PIP Personal Independent Plan (UK)... I am getting more money as they have deemed me as too ill at the moment. I only get it for 4 years then I need to re-apply. Anyway's since then I have been a little down regarding work. I so want to work. I wish I had never been sacked in 2011. I rethink about the past all the time and I put on a show that I am fine but I am not fine. I am stressing out that people will think I am a fraud. I think I am a fraud. I DO care what people think of me and I don't know why. My folks were like woohoo that's great news re the money and we even celebrated with a drink cause I was sure I wasn't going to get it let alone the highest rate you can get.

I keep thinking about the past and how good I had it and how I wish to go back to that era of my life. I keep thinking I will never get a job or a career and I will never amount to anything. I miss everything about my old life I have been told I am still in denial re diagnosis and how ill I actually was. I have never been hospitalised so in my books I am mentally well and I can cope in and with life. I just don't know where to go from here. I am stuck! I am in a rut! I wish someone would just tell me what to do in my life.

[Lily.]

You can still claim PIP and work I think. Do you attend college or anything like that?

[Miss Laura]

Yeah you can still claim PIP and work but I am worried they will think I lied at the interview if I start to work straight away.... That leads me onto my next dilemma I don't know what job I want to do. I had a career then BOOM it was gone out of my life cause of this illness. I did attend college and did a course called Aspire but college isn't for me. I hated every minute of it as it wasn't challenging enough. I was so bored. I have volunteered for some time now but am finding I don't want to do it as a career working in my role as a full time job.

I really am in a conundrum

[JanusunaJ]

I'm sorry that you find yourself in such a rut. I too am in a very similar situation in regards to my past, present, and future. Indeed, it's a difficult task trying to reorient yourself.

I recently revisited the TV show, Rick and Morty. Some people believe that a central tenet of the series stems from the philosopher, Albert Camus. I haven't yet looked much into his philosophy, but the video clips that I have seen seem to convey an idea that could help me find some peace. Maybe you too. Here's a clip that you could take a look at to see if his idea could help you:

[Unrigged64072835]

I miss my old job, but there's no way I can do it now. I'm so used to being the breadwinner, and being productive, that having MI is a huge blow. I was even dreaming about working and being happy to be productive again.

I'm looking for opportunities that I can work while taking care of myself emotionally. I think I'll end up writing and check out jobs where I can work at home. I need something that I don't have to quit when I have bad mental health days.

[Sunflower123]

I look back at my career with regret as well. You will at some point need to accept that you got PIP because you are in fact suffering MI. You may at sometime be able to handle a part-time position or volunteer work but please don't be too hard on yourself by comparing the pre and post you. I trained and went to school for many years to build my career and it's gone. Some days I feel like you do. Take care of you.

[Icare dixit]

Your PIP award may be reviewed once or more in those four years. If you know the time between reviews you know how much time you have to see whether you can work without it having financial consequences. PIP isn't really about whether you can work. More about whether you can function independently, which you should also be able to do when you're at work.

For us, the most important factor is being able to monitor our mental state. If you can't do that yourself, which is per se the case when psychotic/manic, you're unreliable. Depression makes matters worse. When you're unreliable, you're probably not just less of an asset to an employer, but a liability. You cost more than you're worth. They could've hired someone else who would live up to expectations. Pretending to be more reliable than you are really makes you a fraud. Accepting that others might function better than you do doesn't.

BPD makes me even more of a liability.

But to be honest I feel like a fraud myself sometimes. But I volunteer at a mental health charity and I try to create a succesful company. I've done more important things the last couple of years than I'd ever done before while working as a software developer for a big company whose services nobody really needs and doing things others could do better than me anyway.

So maybe being self-employed could be a solution for you as well. And maybe you could find a more suitable place for you to volunteer (helping others with mental health problems would make you very much an asset, for example). You should exploit your strengths and accept your weaknesses (even when you yourself wouldn't say they are weaknesses).

All this PIP nonsense about how it's not about the condition you have but about how it affects you, implicitly making you somehow responsible, reminds me of Monty Python's

.

We are the only group that sometimes really believes that any problems won't affect us and we're more than able to do anything, when we're not. You should be thankful that people do realise that and do consider our particular condition and not just how (we think) it affects us.

[Miss Laura]

Thanks guys I am still undecided about what I want to do.... Life is so hard at the moment my stress levels are just high and I don't know why

[raspberrytorte]

I miss my job sometimes too. I have been lately a lot. I don't miss the people I worked with or who I worked for because they were jerks, and I don't miss the work load, I just miss working in general. I liked what I did. I wish things would have worked out. I was there for eleven years. It just got to be too much, and I couldn't do it anymore, not with my MI flaring up all the time.

I take care of my daughter 24/7 now though, so that's more fulfilling than when I was working. And I'm a lot happier.

Anyway, so I can relate.