I don't want to work

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Well thank you for the replies. It has injected some reality into me. I might someday have no choice but to work, regardless of weather I move or not. Just hope it doesn’t drive me crazy! And I’ll try to get work later in the day if I have to.

This. I don't hate the idea of working at all, in fact I think it's only fair that people who want something need to work for it, but I do hate my current job. I just need to deal with it 'till I get something better since I see it as morally wrong for someone who can work to not to do so and get benefits just because they didn't like their old job. Well, that and the fact that my salary is better than the benefits I would get had I never gotten this job would be.

With all that said, it's fine not to work if one's health condition prevents it. From the sounds of it a job would do no good for your mental health at the moment. Right now you should at least give a try to therapy and do something you enjoy in hopes of getting inspiration for your art.

Felt a bit guilty not saying this before, but—
(1) was already probably saying too much anyway,
and
(2) was concentrating chiefly on how things are for you right now, rather than on any possible future outcomes.

However.

The thought did occur to me that it's quite possible you may, one day, get to a point where you have your head a bit straighter and have learned more about managing your condition (that, in itself, can be a life's work, for some of us...), and so then, yes, of course it may become possible for you to work without it crucifying you. You never know!

So I felt guilty posting as though there were no hope of you ever being able to work without ending up suicidal, but undeniably that's how it is for me, and if that's how it happens to be for you at present, then I was keen (maybe over-keen...) to emphasize there is no shame in it.

It isn't just you! And this thread, started by you, has actually proved that!

So hopefully this represents good & constructive use of the forum (unless, being new, I have somehow misunderstood the purpose...).

All good wishes.

It is wierd that I write this, as I have not recieved a penny yet, but claiming sickness benefits feels odd. On the one hand I feel guilty and feel like I have failed somehow, but on the other hand I feel a HUGE sense of relief. It is like a whole weight has been lifted from me.
I do have two fears that I am trying to avoid to preserve my mental and physical health (As mental effects me in a physical way).
1. That I will be forced to look for work and then forced to work before I am ready to do so which I know how difficult this is... I usually end up in a suicidal mess or certainly an emotional mess after experiencing constant anxiety coupled with strings of partial shutdowns and a few shutdowns...
2. The fear that I will never work again.

Both extremes I want to avoid. Not sure if my concerns are logical and understadable or not. It is more that I know my own self to know when it is ok to tackle more and when it is best not to. My problem is that because I am such a people pleaser, so I don't fight my ground, but give in to what I am told... I can easily find myself in a position where I would have no income again rather then try to challenge the system. It may happen in the future as if the benefits doctor dissagrees with my doctor and the autism people, and decides I am fit to work when I am not feeling ready, I will quit claiming and go back to having no income, which is sad, as for the first time in a long time I am starting to improve. When I have no income and can't work, the burden of the position is heaped on me and I find this extra stress tends to send me in a downward spiral. But this is a better option then trying to work and becoming suicadal and an emotional mess.

So for now I can't dwell on thinking about this. I need to calm down and relax. Enjoy the harbouring time that I am in so I can recover. It is too easy to dwell on the negatives and it is pointless too. Put it this way... I know myself too well where I can spend weeks or even months stressing myself up over things which haven't happened! So maybe that is the thing. Don't worry!

I hope my thoughts make sense to someone. The key is not to force yourself until you feel ready in yourself to do things, as yes. Look forward to doing something. By all means have dreams! Plan ahead! But don't force yourself when you are not ready. I hope this helps.

I've just had a thought. It is like making a lovely tower out of playing cards. Take it slowly and gently and a lovely tower can be made. Try to rush and force yourself ad the little you have already built could also come crashing down as well. So take your time. You know when you are ready to build again... When you have steady hands... (Is a comparisson to when one is mentally right and ready if that makes sense?)

All in all, MountainGoat, it's better that you were able to get benefits----than it would have been if you were unable to get benefits.

Yes.

I think my problem in the past is that I strughled for too long. But as I didn't know what I was dealing with I wasn't able to claim. I mean... Put it this way. I could be a complete emotional mess inside, but how could I explain my feelings if I didn't even know what they were called?

It was you who were able to say the right descriptions to help me figure out what anxiety is. And I think it was JummyM (Or someone else) who was able to give a link to describe the various shutdowns where I remember checking to make sure I wasn't the author... as a certain section described what I have soo accurately...I was "Huh? That's me!" I never expected to find such a detailed and accurate description!

Mr Davro. Please don't stop your humour as you brightened up my day. I had a chuckle when I read what you put. Please no one take offense. Humour is liberating! (OK... Humour may be best steerable at times ... But don't stop).

Sad lonely guy here; in fact my last girlfriend left me after she vomited on me and them blamed me for it because she's emetophobic!

(not really: I'm gay and in a relationship...)

.

So you don’t work. Are you poor then? I think I might be able to do that for a little while in a low income building but then I would want more money.

They are to me, at least!

Having tried both Option 1 and Option 2 in the past, I suggest if those are the only two options (which they are for me), then Option 2 is not only preferable but perfectly honourable.

My attempts to work have invariably cost the State more (emergency ambulances, psychiatrists, Community Mental Health Team involvement, etc.) than just listening to my G.P. & psychotherapist and getting my pocket money and staying quietly at home, not taking any medication & not bothering anybody (apart from Wrong Planet members obviously).

Plus, once you have a flaky employment record and a spectacular car-crash of a mental health record such as mine, the only employment you're going to get is the kind that would demoralize and depress even a normal person. That is not the kind of employment which would boost my self-esteem and make me feel a worthwhile and valued member of society.Yes it does.No.Yes, but weirdly less poor than in those many grim periods when I was only able to work intermittently, in casual part-time jobs, living hand-to-mouth and slowly using up all my savings until I had nothing left. To-day I've had a boiled egg and a tin of beans and one cigarette and a zillion mugs of jasmine tea, but there again, there's two tons of coal in my coalhouse (paid for by me, at Summer prices naturally) and the local council now pays all my rent, so at least I know I'll be warm over Winter and the roof over my head is secure. Lots of working people can't actually say as much as that, these days.

Sometimes some kind person will express horrified sympathy on hearing how severe my condition has been deemed to be, if it happens to come up in conversation. I don't, as a rule, talk about it to everyone in the street, but even though (for mental health reasons plus Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) I haven't taught for about 15 years now, someone sooner or later will still occasionally ask if I'm still teaching, and if not why not? This is the kind of conversation when my situation can come up, and this is when people can express horror and sympathy.

"Oh, don't worry!" I assure them. "I get by. I'm not hungry. I have mains electricity, and hot & cold running water. I've been poorer than this in my time, let me tell you! If my condition weren't severe, I'd score fewer points in the benefit assessment and I'd be on less money, and then I'd be really struggling."

I think they think I'm joking. I'm not.

It depends what welfare support is available where you are; and, in the U.K. at least, it also depends if you can get fiendishly good tactical advice on how to combat the a***hole bureaucrats who are paid to find reasons to deny there's anything seriously wrong with you. How those apparatchiks sleep at night I do not know; they've certainly caused me plenty of sleepless nights, I know that.

So poverty does, to some extent, suck, if I may use that term, but I'd sooner be poor and have space & time than affluent and going exponentially out of my mind (a position I've been in several times). To some extent, in a capitalist society the greatest luxury is not money but time, and I certainly need time to myself, and now I can have as much time to myself as I need, which is a blessed relief.

I admit money worries can be worrying, when the budget is looking tight, but there are hamsters running round frantically in their wheels five days a week who have pretty similar money worries, so at least I'm spared the humiliation of the hamster-wheel.

Reasonable adjustments might be a thing to look at if you ever do choose to/have to work. I had to change my shift pattern because the anxiety of waiting for a 2pm start was unbearable for me, I'd be stressing all morning and feeling suicidal by the mid afternoon. I still find aspects of my job very difficult and I think on the whole the environment is pretty incompatible with autism, but it will do for now and I'm grateful to have a job.

Of course, I don't think you should have to work at all if it puts your mental health at risk.

Hear, hear.

Yes, if only my useless local Mental Health Department had diagnosed my A.S.D. when I originally tried to suggest it, back in 1998, rather than waiting until 2014, then that could have made a significant difference to my experiences in the workplace, although I suspect what with my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome etc. the outcome might still have been the same.

Having an A.S.D. diagnosis and making sure your employer realizes this constitutes a disability could help, depending on the employer of course.STRONGLY AGREE! What a shame the government here in the U.K. does not take such a humane view. Grrrr...

Sarah, how come you aren’t scared of rednecks?

Hugs to you, Sarah! I empathise and wish I had a solution.

Here's a fun song, not to make light of your anxiety but to cheer you up while you are feeling so low.

I am scared of rednecks. My family is sort of redneck and so I’m scared of them. Don’t see what that has to do with being scared to work though.

Presumably the inference is that Rednecks would strongly disapprove of/disbelieve in your current plight, i.e. they would insist that a good hard kick up the backside would fix your problem just fine, and they would also very strongly disapprove of anyone claiming any form of welfare.

We have Rednecks where I live too, except they're called White Van Man. White Van Man does not believe in mental illness, nor in invisible disabilities. White Van Man doesn't like paying tax, and he greatly dislikes seeing his tax money being handed out to the unwell and the disabled. White Van Man would ideally like anyone who isn't rushing off to work at 8 o'clock on a Monday morning to be put up against a wall and shot.

So I have to be pretty damned careful talking about Asperger's or Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or anxiety or depression, let alone about the disability benefits I depend upon, if White Van Man is within earshot, because White Van Man does not believe in any of those conditions, and unless I were totally paralysed and in a wheelchair and drooling down my front he would see no reason for me to receive a penny in disability benefits. And he would probably make his feelings known, loudly and in a fashion likely to distress me.

If I confessed to issues concerning work such as you and I and others have discussed on this thread, White Van Man would scoff and harrumph, and if he thought he could get away with it he would probably lynch me. From what I gather about Rednecks, they would feel very much the same as White Van Man.

So I would guess this could be what Marknis was getting at. No doubt Marknis will correct me if I'm wrong.

p.s. It goes without saying, I trust, that White Van Man is a staunch Conservative voter, a racist, an anti-Semite, an avid soccer fan, and the possessor of a beer gut.