Can anyone here hold down a job?

I've been struggling for years to determine whether or not I could hold down a job or full time job and I still struggle with knowing my limits and what is best after all of these years.

Years ago we always had full-time jobs..it's what kept us alive, because it was something to do and it gave us an opportunity to meet people and have social interactions.
I had a pretty bad relationship issue and some health stuff pop up around 10 years ago, and it really affected "our" functioning...I then get a better job for awhile but it was h*ll... basically the alters each had a specific role within the system and I could never change that...ie one would always just be there to work, one be there to watch tv, one be there to brush their teeth or drive etc...and when your only opportunity to live in life is to sit at a desk every day and have absolutely no other existence...well, that is h*ll. Maybe some of you would understand that. At a certain point I could not get any of the alters to switch naturally, and I could not find a way to force them to move or shift. So after work got over, we would sometimes sit in the car (freezing I might add bc there was no heat) for 3 or MORE hours a day! We also became unable to shower, cook, do clothes washing etc, due to switching issues as well as ocd/germophobia....we also did not sleep more than 4 hours...and it was interrupted sleep all night, because out alters would switch and so literally I can recount every moment of every night, and what we were thinking while we should have been asleep. That lasted for YEARS.

Eventually I was fired once i switched into a job that had more freedom (so that I could walk around at work and maybe get my alters to switch), but we were fired almost immediately. For the last 6 or so years we have been working almost full-time, but at really minimum pay and no benefits. I have been fired from every one of those part time jobs. Since covid for the last two years I have been able to get unemployment (long story), but that is ending and I am jobless once again. The goal is to get another part time job, and I have been applying for disability for two years now I think. Everyday I see my friends succeeding and living a good life with lots of money and opportunity, and I wonder if I could have that somehow, if I could just work full time again. I've been able to find some sleeping pills and just managed to clean a little, although we don't currently have any cleanliness routines down.

I have squandered my entire life - not because I wanted to - but because I could not get out...I literally could not move my ######6 body and make it shower, or make it move to do anything. It always had to be an external force.

We were also diagnosed with MS - at least had all of the symptoms but no lesions (oddly)...figured out the my symptoms were a result of my sugar intake, and for the last two years have been trying to change the diet. Also recently found a supplement that has given the body energy (was diagnosed with chronic fatigue in 2005 or so). So thankfully that aspect is changing. I recently have been able to clean bc we have more energy (for the first time in at least 10 years) and have recently been doing some laundry somehow. I still struggle with these tasks due to being unable to move the system around. We tried to get a caseworker the last two years, but our apartment was so messy that we did not qualify..and no matter what we did I could never receive any assistance whatsoever....(even when you tell people why you need help they seriously could not care less)...

I feel miserable now that I am not working, however...it's only just recently that I began to feel this way, probably do to the isolation of the last two years. I have no money in the bank, no social life, no retirement, no friends, no money for anything, and I just feel like a loser. People around me think I am a loser. My "family" (abusers...) tell everyone how big of a loser I am. There is so much more to this story that I could add, but for the moment I guess I'll let it be.

What has everyone else's experiences been? Anyone deal with these issues, or go back and forth with whether or not they can manage work, etc? I'm really interested to know.

I have had a lot of issues with employment. i don't think i can talk about it now without it being a bit upsetting to parts, but yeah. it's been what feels like slower and harder to function then what i think most people encounter and just like i get 'freezing,' symptoms sometimes when i try to force parts to cooperate, or switching at odd times. anyways that's all i can say about it now, as this is an upsetting issue for me. but i am really sorry you have gone through this. i hope that you can get support through what you are going through. i do wonder how other systems seem to get through it, it has been so demanding on me and slow for me. and i was just living by my pure instinct to not end up homeless for the earlier part of my life, cause that was a big fear of mine. (something my mother used to say would happen to me due to my sheer incompetence but it's really been a lifelong issue with total freezing that i can't get my body to do what i tell it to and i felt no one would believe me.) so i just did the best i could with that..

I know personally at least one system that has a solid, full-time job. Which gives me some hope as well, we're just a home-maker/caretaker/student at the moment and the idea of never being able to support ourselves income-wise is frightening sometimes. The body having numerous physical problems doesn't help either. ^^;

Only being able to work from home and having my own schedule has worked for me. Anything else would be too stressful to handle. I work part time and also am on disability. In the past, the dissociation was too severe daily combined with other mental health issues, so it was impossible to work which is why I went on disability. It took several years to get things managed/stabilized before I could do this job.

I cant work;' all I did for years and years was ride a mountain bike in my altered world as if no other world existed.
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Im now at a point of taking chances with out knowing. Ive been blind in dissociation for so long working a recovery process; Im able to say I dont know how to manage any kind of life and I havent had one; I mean; Ive never reached out and started any form of a life. I understand the pathways of my desires exist; Ill take chances walking down them a few feet at a time ; return where its safe and evaluate and try it again.

I used to work when I was younger and did manage going to university and completing a degree (with some extra support as a disabled student) but since the breakdown in the thirties, we have not managed full time work.

Briefly managed alpha and beta testing of assistive tech for Apple when their iphone/iPad first came out working front home voluntarily so we could set our work hours and did some voluntary online research for a charity when we could manage it but in my 50's now and recovering from a blood clot/mild stroke that affected memory and left with other neurological issues.

Getting through each day, finding the energy and remembering to do essential stuff is a challenge these days!

Yuna

our previous host worked, its pretty much all she did. when she wasnt working she did hobbies to keep busy. in a way it was part of the disociation, like using work & other things to keep herself distracted.

she wasn't very happy & it wasnt a very fulfiling existence but she got a lot done. we were also exploited by our family so we've never been very sucesful, like alot of her work was to support the abusers instead of ourself. we've always been self employed but dont really have svings or retirement fund. we have our own home thats the only thing we've been succesful with.

anyways since previous host is gone & we started understaing ourselves better we also lost that workaholicness she had & also lost alot of the skills she had.

we've coasted for a few years while our little business has shrank smaler and smaller. now viola is an author & thats our new job. we work alone at home & she writes & its not a huge income but its slowly growing w hile the other work goes away.

i dont know if we could get a real job, maybe something partime with low responsibility. we've never really had that kind of job beofre tho.

We were in very intense full time school and training in our 20s and very early 30s. Then we got a full time job, but it wasn't a good situation and we were pregnant with our first child, so we went on disability after only a few months.

Since then, we've only worked part time with the "excuse" of wanting to be home to raise our three children, but we really liked being home with them and just kept the part time work because we had gone to school for so long to do it.

We have a part who really likes the work, so we still do it a few hours a week.

From the outside, we look very successful.

QueenAlexandria wrote:I've been struggling for years to determine whether or not I could hold down a job or full time job and I still struggle with knowing my limits and what is best after all of these years.

We can so totally relate! We have never, until now, held down a part-time or full-time job longer than six months. It is only recently that we were able to get a full-time position, which has lasted for a record-breaking 8 months! The reason we have been able to do that is because it has been a virtual job (case management) since 2020 so we were able to be at home and arrange the schedule in ways that allowed for switching, stopping to do grounding exercises, etc. We just this week had to meet with the employer because they are starting to call people back into the office full time. We hate having to disclose our DID, but we didn't really have a choice because we know we would not be able to pull off a full-time, in-the-office job! We had to formally request an accommodation to continue working from home. We're still waiting for the response, but hopefully they will allow it. We really understand the feeling of not accomplishing much in life except just surviving, but at this point that's enough. We all remind each other that getting out of bed, taking care of ourself, and getting at least some of the things done that are important really is an "accomplishment" when we look at where we have come from.

We have 3 part time jobs that equate to full time hours if you add all the hours together. To have a single full time job would result in a single alter getting front stuck and dissatisfaction for the others so we have 3 very different jobs (education/manual labour/healthcare) we could get successful in any one of these if we dedicated ourselves full-time but we value quality of life for everyone over externally perceived success.