Do you work or not ?:

Sometimes I feel like im the only one out there who cant work .I cant get my head togetter long enough. Things I use to be able to do like read ,spell ,math or simple find may way home are very hard to do at sometimes I worked full since ive been 15 and at 35 was making a great living in sales the the bottom fall out and what use to be my strenth my bipolar which aloud me to work 7 days aweek and come home and take care of my kids well my wife work became evil and for the past 7 years life has been a nightmare! Where once I use to wont to live forever now the thought of death brings me peace .What a change! Im on SSD and dont know if ill ever get off I still havent put togetter one good month .I use to love work it was fun and exciting now the thought of just going outside someday scares the **** me ,I cant even drive anymore on bad days i forget to stop at stop signs and red lights or manic days I drive like im in a race it got so bad I had to stop.

I wont to go back to work but im not the same person or to say it better i dont have the same skills I use to .So now im a stay at home dad which i love but there are somedays I dont feel well and it takes everything I have just to get though the day .I feel so bad that im cheating my kids .
Its amazing what I use to take for granted get up going to work comming home the feeling of having a good day look forward to my son baseball a week end party or holiday dinner now all things I rarely do.

I'm currently employed, but was unemployed for 18 months due to mental health and addiction issues. I really needed that time off to get my life back together.

Don't give up on yourself. Things may seem really bleak right now, but they can turn around with work and the right medication. Christmas Dec. 06 I was newly unemployed from showing up drunk on the job, suicidal, and in the hospital going through a really bad alcohol withdrawl. Treatment centre, and an inpatient stay as well as lots of outpatient therapy have allowed me to get to the point where I'm back working, and feeling relatively good about myself, and I've been sober for 9 months now. So it is possible for things to improve.

Hang in there.

--splitimage

I stopped to have children nineteen years ago and never went back, I am now on disablity and unable to work at all due to mental health issues (I hate that statement but hey what do I say) I would love to work I think I would find it a great help ! However only on certain days and not many employers would put up with me ringing in and saying 'sorry its a bad day I am not coming in' .

I've been on disability before and it didn't take long for me to feel out of the loop. Everything is so fast now with very little on the job training it's sort of learn as you go which can be very stressful. Might I suggest that you try a volunteer position which would give you a chance to test the waters again, slowly? Or take a class for fun at the local college? Once you are around the environment of learning and working with people again, I bet your confidence and self-esteem will blossom. I've been there and done that. Hope is just a step away.

A stay at home Dad, is, in my opinion, the most beautiful, job in the world........... Yes I work but long to have, children, wish i had, children, then I wouldn't work, just, would care for them...............Tell me more about your kids, kids are, so precious!!!!!!! Tell me all about them, and the time, you have with them...perhaps, then, I could live vicariously through you, and pretend, if for just a moment, I had kids, as you so luckily, do.............

I don't work either. I had a severe back injury in January 2005. I am on disability also. I hate not being able to work! I was a truck driver. I miss it so much too! I feel totally useless now. I can't even do my housework due to the pain level going so high. My poor hubby has to do it all. I really hope he knows how much I appreciate him! I don't go out much at all. right now I don't have a power chair or anything like that and my mobility is just not there so kind of pointless to try to go do things.

I work, but I have had to take extended time off due to my mental illness. I am fortunate to have an employer that has been understanding and worked with me to enable me to keep my job through some really difficult times. I am not sure what the future holds for me, but I hope I am somehow able to keep working. I am not sure how things are going to turn out for me.

I am in pretty much the same boat as DePressMe. Not sure what my future holds, either.

you are not alone..i am also bipolar and have had trouble keeping a job all my life...i either get fired or quit because of stress and paranoia...i don't work anymore and haven't for two years...i'm in the process of getting disability..i have joined local support groups irl and in PC..it has helped me alot..hugs.

I have never been able to stick with a job. After the first few weeks I start calling out sick and eventually quit when I have enough of an excuse to give to others as to why I left. I'm sure they see through it but it's just tough getting up and going somewhere every day. I work but locally and it's really not much of a job but it pays the bills and I'm comfortable there. I have always felt like a failure for not knowing what I want to do with my career life. I have no desires there other than to make money which I need to live.

I was an aerospace firmware engineer for 15 years after getting my BS degree in Computer Science & Accounting Information Systems. Back in 1993, the project I was working on was ending. I had gone to UCLA to take some courses because the project I had been working on was old technology.....but when it came time to move to another project.....there wasn't a place for me. I ended up in a position that I thought might work, but it felt like a glorified secretarial position & after doing technical for so many years, I just couldn't stand the position. I wasn't good at it that much, but forced myself to excel in what I was doing. To the point that at the end, we were required to put together a presentation for a national seminar. I put it together, only knowing the buzz words & it was accepted (what a laugh). I had been in the position since the spring of that year & by Thanksgiving, I couldn't stand to go to work (on top of everything else, it was almost 1 1/2 hours of driving to get there from my house). I was holding on until the Christmas break, praying that I would get a new source of energy & hang in there. Christmas break came & I broke down so bad, I was finding any excuse & sick day after sick day to not go back the next year.

I stalled around with the sick days & then wham, the Northridge earthquake hit & the freeway collapsed & everything between me & work was knocked out. Another excuse to not go to work for a couple of weeks while they cleared out the mess. When a route was finally open, it took 6 hours to get to work & 6 hours to get home. Of course, in the position I was in, they wouldn't let me work from home (it just wouldn't work as I had to interface with people). My neighbor also worked where I did. We had been friends long before he moved there. We ride shared. I remember getting into work, going into my office, closing the door & sitting there crying. I couldn't function & couldn't force myself anymore. When I wasn't driving, I would sit in the car out of it, with tears streaming down my face.

It took a couple of weeks of that before I just couldn't force myself to go anymore. The insurance from work made me get a pdoc & psychologist which was the only way I could make sure the medical leave was appropriate. They bounced me around all over the place. For the first year, it was mostly anxiety that was horrible. I would go off at the least little thing. Then as I realized there was no way of going back to any career with any other company as I was "outdated" at that time with no on the job experience with the new technology, depression set in & the suicide attempts. It was downhill from there. With the Dr's & hospitalizations, & everything, it wasn't difficult to get onto disability.....within the first review period, it turned into permanent disability.

Even though I feel better & life has changed for the better now that I am separated from my husband & moved to Kentucky & have Christianity as my guide for my life & not myself, I still find that the least amount of stress can trigger extreme anxiety responses & with the traumas that showed up in my life after loosing my career, triggers from those can set me off also.

Even though I feel like a new person, I realize that disability is the only main income that I will ever have from now on. It's enough to get me by since it was based on my engineering income. My new life here has really helped me feel a peace that I had really never felt before even while having the career that meant everything to me. Having a career (any career) had been my goal since I was a child, so loosing that dream was traumatic in itself.

I know I could never go back to the stress of working & having to be somewhere right at a specific time everyday for the same thing. I have become a free spirit as far as that goes. So I know I am where I am for the rest of my life & have adapted my thinking to it being ok with me.

Debbie

I stopped working last year due to state budget cuts. I worked for many years as a social worker with the elderly. After loosing my job my mental state went down the drain. At this point I don't leave my house much. Need to be back on my medication but can't afford insurance $800 a month and I'm still waiting for my disability to be finallized. I was pre-approved right before labor day just waiting on my paperwork so I can get medicaid. I'm on the waiting list for the mental health clinic so I can see this doc. But he only comes one day every other month to our county and they are booked up to see him. So I pretty much just hang out in my house.

I haven't worked professionally since July 2004. However, I do have 2 children and a husband who I take care of and love to pieces. So, even though my disability income is small, the rewards and love I receive from my kids are better than any job!

I used to work with the public & had to think on my feet & have good memory skills (shot now & no math ability at all). So I had to give up that portion of my job, but I did not state the reason why. In other words, I LIED. Also, I could not predict my mood (rapid-cycler bipolar) so it was difficult, to say the least, when I could feel the tears coming & I would be in public & THERE WAS NO REASON TO BE CRYING so again I would have to LIE & make up stories like my brother was in a motorcycle accident, etc. It just got to be too much & with a sense of morality (don't want to be lying all the time) plus a bad memory (can't remember the lies I've told) it was very stressful.

So now the part of the job I do is in an office all alone on my time schedule. I can go in at 6:00 a.m. or on Sunday afternoon. It's just at the beginning of the month I work like a fiend for 3 days (& have to do only about 7 hours of it at the office & can break that up into 2 different days & the rest of it at home) putting out the bills so it works well for me. Then I'm off the rest of the month so I'm very part-time. I'm kind of like a phantom employee, but I get a raise every Sept. so I guess I'm doing OK. I don't go to the Christmas parties, but I've been there 18 years & when one of the employee's grandson committed suicide I talked to her & gave her some helpful literature (my mother committed suicide & I've had my share of attempts).--Suzy

(((trip))) It surely does change one's perspective about work, doesn't it? Sometimes when I hear someone complaining about having to work, I tell them, "I wish I could still work." It helps them realize that being able to work is a good thing. TC!

Wow

I must say I am sorry for those of you who can`t work due to dissability or mental issues. That must suck. I hope you all find something to do that will make you happy.

I am going to have a job intervew soon..it`s for a cosmetic company the graphic...section? I am not sure about the English word for it...but i hope you understand.

I never really HAD to work and always wanted to . I used to view myself as a ****ing spoilt worthless little girl who was supported by her parents.
But it was good for me as a student. It`s hard to study and to work at the same time. I am not expeienced in my field and it is VERY IMPORTANT for me to get it and to HAVE SOME MONEY OF MY OWN

wish me luck.....

I daydream of working sometimes. I wish it would be reality but I don't think my mind will allow it right now.

I worked five years as a paramedic and seventeen as a critical care RN and loved my job and was good at it. But the day my boyfriend came to the hospital and threatened to kill me there I realized I had no safe place and my brain scrambled and I have not worked for ten years now. I want to teach again but I am having trouble concentrating and studying. I don't know if I can work again or not. But I am relatively young (50) and I hope I can improve and be productive again. For now I have guilt because I am so messed up.

I used to work but no longer do. I went back to school a few years ago and finished last year thinking I would go directly from school to the workforce but boy howdy was I wrong. I am on Social Security. I also get Medicaid and Housing. I am also unable to pay my own bills or so say the disability people so I have a payee. Sometimes that is nice and sometimes that is a pain in the behind. I don't like it when I get a newbie at the bank that doesn't know her head from her elbow and she tries to tell me she can't cash my check and I have to inform her the rules of a checking account like mine. That gets irritating.

But right now I'd rather not work and work on getting healthy both physically and mentally than have to work and work on getting healthy as I know I couldn't do both.

Jbug

Not being able to work...has been a very difficult adjustment for me... it just "hit" me this week... that wow.. I won't be going back to work.. and it has been about 6 years...of not working... I am on SSDI....

I can't believe that "my reality" just hit me this week...that it has taken this long to really... "settle in"...

So... I am thankful.. really thankful.. that I do not have to work... because I cannot... my memory... the thought of dealing with people.. the "forced" creativity of my previous job.. makes.. me just panic at the thought of having to do that...when my body and mind are in such pain..

So.. I guess.. I am going to work on adjusting.... finally to never working again... not sure what that will look like...

I've gone back to school part time, and next semester I'll be working full time. I've been doing a little work at home, for my mom's business, but it's not enough - I think I'm going to have to work for someone else. I have a lot of anxiety around work, so I'm looking into volunteering with the local zoo, to help me ease into it.

I can relate about not being able to work - I get pretty bad anxiety when I'm at work. I think it's due to feeling like the real me will be rejected. One of the things I want to practice at the volunteer job is being the real me.

but I often feel like it is a matter of time before I will just crash and burn

I work full time but it takes a lot of effort and there are times I think i should be at home under a blanket. I have in the past had to take long term sick (5 months) and i managed to go back. Its hard, i wish i was "normal" so to speak. People dont understand or appreciate mental health issues and i ahve a lot of them.

Part of what I do is write speeches and I opfen laugh at the thought of one of my aletrs writing a speech for a VIP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I need to be very careful not to lose the plot at work.