I hate hate hate being on benefits

Kaida

I don't come into this subforum all that often, but it's the most appropriate place to post this so I hope you don't mind me popping in.

I have depression and an anxiety disorder with panic attacks, and IBS, and have been on IB for a couple of years, and DLA for around 5 years.

I want to work, so desperately, just part time, just something to help me have some pride and something to say when people say, "So what do you do?" But I majorly struggle to leave the house reliably - I can be fine for a week or so, pushing through the adrenaline to go out places, and then I'll just switch with no warning to panicking over anything and having to get back to my safe place (home) NOW. Or my IBS will kick in and I'll need to be home for the toilet/treatment, and I can have several days of pain and diarrhoea. The only way I can think of working is from home, but there's nothing available. I come up with plans for becoming a hypnotherapist or medical herbalist with my consultation room at home, but the training requires being away from home.

OH supports us (on £16400 gross a year, we're frugal but any income I could bring in would certainly be useful), and I'm supposed to keep house and deal with practical things he can't manage - DIY, gardening etc. But it all gets on top of me because I'm so tired all the time. I aim for 10 hours a night but even then I don't have enough energy for the normal things in life and I don't know why, because everyone else seems to.

I have a good degree from a good uni, I am intelligent and literate and I want to do something, and this is NOT how I saw my life!

What can I do? How can I get some pride back? How can I respond when people ask what I do for a living? OH and I are getting married next year, and will be trying for a baby, at least then I'll be able to say I'm a SAHM. Now I'm just what? Nothing.

dane-katie

How about book keeping? businesses bring it to you or when your ok you collect it?

saving2cleardebts

Kaida,

i feel for you. I am exactly the same as you, i hate being in the situation i am in being unable todo anothing worth while with my life. I was training to be a barrister when RA took hold of me a year on ive had to leave uni and forget my plans and life. Im 24 and i did not see myself in this position even a year ago. Ive been on DLA since June and you know what i hate it i want to to have my own money my own life back its just so fustrating. Sorry for going on!

Dane-Katie thats a great idea but im terrible with maths!!!

x

System

Not sure what to suggest but wanted to say i know where you're coming from, i graduated from uni last year and now after having another one of my breakdowns and losing my job i'm on benefits. Its not how i pictured life at 23. But if i give up, then i'm letting it win.

crazy_girl

me too, ive got a degree, a post grad and a retail management diploma and i scrape by doing little bits of work when i can manage

something i do is to sell stuff on ebay, i can list/ package stuff in bed if needs be and only have to venture out to the post office every week or so

not how i pictured life at 26

mouseymousey99

Wonder if you did some voluntary work to build up your confidence a bit? (It would also look very good on the CV in the future). I'm in pretty much the same positon, my health has gone downhill of late.
Some of the things I found out about are - fund raising, helping with the paperwork, CAB, Court work (this was v interesting), and the library service for folks who can't get to the library. Somewhere (Eeek where) there is a website that you key all your details in and all these opportunites spill out.
I know you want a baby but this would help you first?? Best wishes..

laurel7172

I can't pretend to know exactly how it is for you, but I've also been a long term sufferer of depression. It never got so bad that I couldn't work-just made it extra, extra hard to hang on to whatever job I had...

What I will say, though, is that it's unlikely a baby will solve your problems. It didn't solve mine, and my need to be the perfect mother actually made things worse. It would really be better if you could get yourself in a better place before you had a family. There are, of course, lots of things that would be nice to do before starting a family, and if we did them all nobody would ever have any children.

It's a very hard thing to start to do, but what keeps me going is choosing to concentrate on what I've achieved, not what I haven't. I started by making myself a list of everything I'd done-and I mean everything. Some days when you're depressed, you deserve a medal for making it out of bed. The Victoria Cross for cleaning your teeth as well. Or picking up a pen to write a stupid list.

Right now, I could be concentrating on the undone ironing, the fact I've messed up lining a curtain and don't have the energy to do it again (I have a physical condition as well that makes me very tired. I had it for years without even suspecting-because it feels exactly like depression), the pile of junk from my son's room cluttering up my study because I feel like I have to clean it before I give it away, the winter bedding sitting outside unplanted...and about a hundred other jobs. And my lovely old cat died a few days ago. But, hell...I lined the darn curtain and it's functional. I cooked a meal from scratch. The dishes are in the dishwasher. I went to work. There's a big ironing pile because I washed it, and dried it. I remembered to put the recycling out. Over the last month I've managed, bit by bit, to cross quite a few small DIY jobs off my scary two page to-do list. Overall, I've done OK. I've been good enough.

I've had years of practice at being good enough, though. Start by awarding yourself that medal for getting out of bed X

Kaida

mouseymousey99 wrote: »

Wonder if you did some voluntary work to build up your confidence a bit? (It would also look very good on the CV in the future).

I do telephone screening for German Shepherd Rescue, but stuff outside the house is a no-no. For a while I volunteered twice a week for the afternoon at a charity shop, but had to quit when I couldn't keep getting there - the bus journey + being away from the house was just too much.

dane-katie wrote: »

How about book keeping? businesses bring it to you or when your ok you collect it?

Nice idea, but like savingtocleardebts, I'm not so good with figures. I'm more a languages/humanities/arts kinda gal.

laurel7172 wrote: »

What I will say, though, is that it's unlikely a baby will solve your problems. It didn't solve mine, and my need to be the perfect mother actually made things worse. It would really be better if you could get yourself in a better place before you had a family. There are, of course, lots of things that would be nice to do before starting a family, and if we did them all nobody would ever have any children.

Before we start to try for a baby, I will have learned how to drive (have my theory test tomorrow!), which puts my family within reach for support and makes me more mobile in general. I guess I am gradually improving overall, I am vastly better than in my third year of uni which was three years ago, but it is two steps forward and one step back so when I'm in a one step back phase I feel like I've not improved at all.

I honestly think although it will of course be stressful, that starting a family will help a little. When I got my dogs, I wondered if I was doing the right thing, bringing into the family two totally helpless beings that would rely on me for everything, require constant supervision, and mean I HAD to go out every day to walk them and so on. It turned out really well, it has given me something to focus on, something to structure my day around. Yes they stress me out sometimes, but overall their influence is positive.

I have grown up around babies and young children; my Mom and Dad have childminded and fostered from my early childhood to the present day, so I am very confident with youngsters and I know what I am getting into. I obviously want to be in a better place than I am now, but I think that should happen if I continue trying.

What depresses me at the moment is mainly not my lack of ability to do things, I have accepted my limitations, but it's the attitude of the benefits people that I am scum trying to defraud them and they should basically cross-examine me like a defendent in a trial, and the fact that our culture sees people on benefits as the lowest of the low. With a hidden disability I am suspected constantly of being on the fiddle. Although SAHM are not accorded much status in our society, at least they are considered higher status than what I am currently.

laurel7172 wrote: »

It's a very hard thing to start to do, but what keeps me going is choosing to concentrate on what I've achieved, not what I haven't. I started by making myself a list of everything I'd done-and I mean everything. Some days when you're depressed, you deserve a medal for making it out of bed. The Victoria Cross for cleaning your teeth as well. Or picking up a pen to write a stupid list.

Right now, I could be concentrating on the undone ironing, the fact I've messed up lining a curtain and don't have the energy to do it again (I have a physical condition as well that makes me very tired. I had it for years without even suspecting-because it feels exactly like depression), the pile of junk from my son's room cluttering up my study because I feel like I have to clean it before I give it away, the winter bedding sitting outside unplanted...and about a hundred other jobs. And my lovely old cat died a few days ago. But, hell...I lined the darn curtain and it's functional. I cooked a meal from scratch. The dishes are in the dishwasher. I went to work. There's a big ironing pile because I washed it, and dried it. I remembered to put the recycling out. Over the last month I've managed, bit by bit, to cross quite a few small DIY jobs off my scary two page to-do list. Overall, I've done OK. I've been good enough.

I've had years of practice at being good enough, though. Start by awarding yourself that medal for getting out of bed X

Well done for your achievements, Laurel. I will try again to focus on the positive. I do sometimes manage to, but yesterday was a bad day.

Thank you all for replying. You have helped.

Prinzessilein

Kaida, hi! I know a little of how you feel. I'm on benefits and in some ways I hate it too!
I had my life planned - I got my degree and various post-grad and professional qualifications...I should have got a good job, fallen in love, got married, and by now should be settled with two children and financially helping out my OAP mum....
What went wrong?
How did I end up like this? - I am Autistic/Aspie and live off benefits. i can't see it ever changing. Work from home is impossible. I can't guarantee how I'll feel on any given day/hour. I am petrified to do any work because the DWP might find out about it and decide I can actually come off benefits and work. The DWP scare me any way - it's the fact that they can ignore me, my GP and my specialist and decide that there is no reason to stop me working....the person who examines me does not have to have any knowledge of my conditions - or even be a doctor!
I live in a bedsit, I can't afford anything else. I get Housing Benefit for it, and have been told I can't move - there is nowhere else for me....if I want to be rehoused I need more 'points' which I have no chance of getting. I can't afford to buy presents for people. Certainly no decent ones.
Some of my own family tell me that they don't believe I should be on benefits. 'You seem fine to me!'...'So, you went shopping with mum today....wish I could go shopping midweek, but some of us have to work for a living to pay for your benefits!'...'Autism is just a label, get over it!'
And some days I have to rely on my wonderful mum. She is in her 80s and shouldn't have to work as my (unpaid!) carer....doing my shopping, making phonecalls for me...accompanying me to the doctor.....
Yes, life on benefits is awful. I hate it, hate it, hate it! In fact, it's not 'living' on benefits...it's just 'existing' and it sucks!

Broken_hearted

Me too,feel so worthless and tired. The system is supposed to help allow carers to work yet all we get is social services doing nothing and making threats if I try to work.

missile

Can I suggest you write down your ideas and fomulate a plan with targets. Having something in writing may help focus your thoughts. Even a bad plan is better than drifting along.