Guilt and Work

How do you help the people that are closest to you understand that the reason why you aren't working isn't because you are lazy, but because you emotional and mentally cannot handle it? It's hard when you are well educated and look normal to convince people that you are not okay. There has never been any proof that I am capable of maintaining employment. I dissociate, become paranoid, and always create a crisis. Work is one of the most triggering experiences for me.
I just feel so guilty right now because we are having such terrible financial trouble and all of the burden is falling on my husband.
My therapist mentioned applying for disability, and I think that I should try it. My first month seeing my therapist, when she didn't yet have a full grasp as to how bad I was, she told me that she didn't think it work out for me to try to get a job. That's when we thought that I was dealing with SAD and PTSD: BPD, OCD, Dissociative Disorder, Depression, and Anorexia have all been diagnosed since then.
The more I think about it the more I know that I cannot work right now. How do I convey that to my husband? By the way, my husband is amazingly wonderful and supportive. I just feel tremendous guilt, which ends up leading me to the decision that it would be better if I were dead.

Hi Mooshoo
Are you in the UK? You qualify for DLA, and you may get a higher care component, and maybe a lower mobility component, really depends on how you fill in the form, but every little helps, if you are in a dire financial situation. On the other hand, you can go self-employed, if you find something that you can do which makes a little money. I don't like working, I can't sustain it, and I have to be realistic about it, but I've changed my career and am thinking about going self-employed.

Moomin, I am not in the UK. I am supposed to see my therapist today, and hopefully she can help navigate applying for disability. Interestingly enough when I was looking at the qualifying mental conditions for receiving disability, I found that BPD wasn't listed in the US, however, PTSD, Depression and OCD were listed. I would think that having dissociative disorder should help to.
Self-employment would definitely be the way for me to go, but right now I can't maintain that and had to stop. I loathe working with people, hate authority, and I cannot stand being told what to do, so I'm not an ideal employ.

mooshoo wrote:Moomin, I am not in the UK. I am supposed to see my therapist today, and hopefully she can help navigate applying for disability. Interestingly enough when I was looking at the qualifying mental conditions for receiving disability, I found that BPD wasn't listed in the US, however, PTSD, Depression and OCD were listed. I would think that having dissociative disorder should help to.

Yeah it's worth asking what the criteria is. Nothing saps your sense of self-worth more than feeling like a burden to the household. Even if it's just a little bit of disability money, it will still help you and your family, so good luck.

mooshoo wrote:Self-employment would definitely be the way for me to go, but right now I can't maintain that and had to stop. I loathe working with people, hate authority, and I cannot stand being told what to do, so I'm not an ideal employ.

Ha join the club. Essentially I hate work on other people's terms, so working for someone else makes me MAD Plus I'm too lazy

I have been really harsh with myself about my work ethic, or lack thereof. However, as I go deeper within myself I see that my fear and hatred of authority, and not wanting to be told what to do goes much deeper than simply being rebellious or lazy. There are so many layers to it, it's so complex that I haven't been able to put all of the pieces together yet, but it's getting there.

I am terrified of anyone having control over me, including a boss. Every time that I begin a job I feel as though I have lost myself. So I realize that a lot of this has to do with control, or loss of control, leading me to loss of identity (which was rather tenuous to begin with), and ultimately engulfment. Not completely sure what engulfment if, but it sounds right. Scared I will be swallowed up, erased, non-existent.

On the surface it may look like laziness and carelessness, however, there is something much deeper at work here, which produces the response that I have got to run and escape the situation. I am a runner, forever running away. Don't want to be trapped; don't want to be held down; don't want to commit.

i just got a job for the first time in months... i went for two weeks consecutively and now this week im playing hooky... i dont know why i do this. i feel like i dont know how to function in society any more. and im only 20! does it get better or worse!?

It can get worse, but it can also get better. It seems to be getting worse and worse for me, including my occupational abilities. I didn't get my first job until last year, I've only had two so far and they were both horrible experiences for me, and I realized that I can't work with customers or co-workers with my current issues, so I'm screwed until I start improving. I have applied for disability, I doubt I will get it on my first application, but it's been pending for months. It usually takes almost a year for a decision to be made, so there is a lot of waiting around in between. I don't feel guilty for not working, but I am putting a considerable financial burden on my family.

I'm not sure that work has gotten easier for me with age. I've just become more aware of what triggers me and what environments I should not put myself in. However, all though I have grown and matured with time, my old wounds have never healed. Hopefully you will just continue to learn about yourself and learn what situations you will be more likely to succeed in.

I have had trouble keeping a job since I was a teenager. I'm in my mid 30s now and I feel unemployable. My resume looks like a truck drove through it.

I think a lot about going to an island somewhere, or the desert, or a remote farm or ranch, and living really cheap on what money I have left. Of course, it will run out at some point and I'll have to do something.

mooshoo wrote:How do you help the people that are closest to you understand that the reason why you aren't working isn't because you are lazy, but because you emotional and mentally cannot handle it?

You don't. It will never happen. Quit trying. You'll just upset and exhaust yourself while achieving no result. Even if people once went through similar things themselves, they forget and look upon people who are just as they were the same as someone who hasn't gone through it would.

It's hard when you are well educated and look normal to convince people that you are not okay.

Yep.

I was having to live in state low-income housing for a few years when I was on disability the first time. I lived in a horrid and dangerous place until finally I got set up with an apartment in a more decent complex which took a fair bit of wrangling. This one was more decent as it was unofficially, off-the-books the complex where they gave retirees a place so they didn't have to live with undesirables. It was obvious more money was put into it. I was the only non-retiring age person living there for a while.

It was apparent that the residents attitude was, of course, "He's a strong, healthy young man. What's he doing here?" They didn't say it to me, they didn't have to as they didn't make it a secret either. To further agitate matters -- it was making me feel even more like an invalid than I already did, living with people waiting to die at the ripe old age of 24-25. It all felt a bit funny also, so I mostly put it out of my head and got on.

At least I wasn't around people brazenly discussing the most recent rival gang member they'd slewed. It wasn't that I was scared or not tough enough to handle it, as my life was not a naive one -- but being particularly unwell, it was doing my head in. I did not belong around all that either, I didn't fit.

Anyway, one Christmas they passed around little gift-boxes from the Salvation Army to everyone's door step at the complex. They mostly just had little toiletries in them -- just a box of a small assortment of little gifts obviously meant as a token to show 'you're cared about.'

The apartments in the complex were in blocks of four, I opened my door to find my other three neighbors boxes neatly and thoughtfully placed on their doorstep, and found mine to be smashed, stomped on and strewn around just a bit -- it was even rubbed in the dirt a bit for good measure. And no, I was never rude to anyone. At all. I'm well-mannered without even thinking about it and I am always a considerate neighbour.

Well, along with gaining a new revelation about mankind and society, something changed in me forever on that fateful Christmas day. A small token gesture that would grow to become amongst the most defining moments in my life.

-- Thu Sep 22, 2011 7:13 am --

I feel guilt for nothing...

Not regarding this issue...