Oh My God, Amex Just Killed Me

Robflh

Hi Steel

There is one Freecycle group in my hometown and one in three of the towns around me. I have joined all four of them.

If anyone else is interested, go to this webpage. It lists all Freecycle groups for each county/area in the UK.

www.top50freebies.co.uk/reuse-recycle-repair-reduce.htm

GettingThingsDone

Rob - the answer is easy.

Earn some money and/or sell your house.

1. Put your house on the market (did you get it valued?)
2. While you wait to sell, do the work that you can afford to do (did the estate agent give you figures for doing or not doing the work?)

What's the problem? Amex aren't actually killing you, they have just made an adjustment to your credit limit. Why not get a job and earn some money? You could earn £3K, do up your house and get a higher selling price?

Can you get some help in getting back into work?

gtd

Fidget

originally posted by Robflh:
As you too suffer from depression/anxiety are you sure any old job will do. The last thing I need is a job that would cause me too much stress, which would lead to more anxiety and thus more depression.

I can quite understand that you just want a job so that you have money and are not worrying about where the next penny is coming from but surly the last thing you wish to do is to replace one form of stress for another form of stress.

If I get a job and am treated badly or my face doesn't fit (which is usually were the job stress comes from I'm sure you know what I mean) I would look for something else.

Job interviews and the trying to sell yourself is something that worries me immensely as it's hard to do when you can't look someone in the eye or constantly lose track of what you are saying in the middle of a sentence. That does not mean I'm afraid to work - just afraid of the people and how I will act around them.

I'm thinking agency introduction would maybe be a good way as there are plenty that take on cleaners, factory and office workers long-term/permanent so you can at least know if it's going to suit you before you sign anything. Have you ever considered this route?

However, aside from that, I would say that there isn't a lot of stress in physical work (if you are fit). From experience; you do it, it's done, you go home, you feel better that you have been occupied, you're tired so it helps you sleep. That helps me feel much less depressed than rattling about this house we can ill afford drinking coffee, thinking too much about what I've spent/eaten, feeling guilty that I haven't done the ironing and feeling helpless that we can't go on holiday or buy birthday presents.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes when we have been treated badly and are down and depressed (I'm not saying this applies to all people with mental health issues) we can easily make excuses and hide away from the things we know would put us out of our comfort zone. Convincing ourselves we can't do it. Once you've given yourself that label it's hard to go back. Then as a result we then deprive ourselves from things that would actually benefit us mentally and physically in the long run.

I've had bad jobs, been bullied, made redundant and laid-off from a wide spectrum of vocations and this has often made me want to sign on the sick, go back on the anti-depressants and give up*. At the same time I have to take responsibility for myself and my family and I don't want to be a cop-out.
Getting work is the only answer for me so I will just have to grit my teeth and hope that someone will take me on.

*I'm certainly not saying that taking antidepressants is giving up, they help a lot of people (I've been on nearly every one going) but sometimes there are other more pro-active ways of dealing with things, and in my case, they often made me feel more like a headcase than usual and less in a mindset to address problems I can do something about.

JMcC

I'm surprised that nobody seems to have mentioned a suspicion that Rob is perhaps winding everyone up ?

Rob is one minute a seriously ill person with many ailments and more to suit particular comments or posts.

Plus the time and thought put into these posts is remarkable. Is this perhaps an attempt to demonstrate how clever Rob is ? I suspect so.

Now Rob has managed to turn this string round and is now happily giving out advice to all and sundry.

This is just a big wind up.............

owensmum75

Baad_!!! wrote: »

It's just dawned on me that I've wasted the past 2 hours of my life reading through this never-ending and ultimately pointless thread .

On the other hand I've read a number of excellent replies / suggestions that would, without doubt, help anyone in the OPs position. Fidget really hit the nail on the head with her posts.

I fail to understand why any of you people are wasting your time contributing to this thread. The OP has not taken on board a single suggestion anyone has made, nor, by the sound of his replies, will he ever do so.

He is well and able enough to renovate his house ( if only he had the money ), drive people around and god knows what else, but yet wont entertain the idea of getting a job in case he has a relapse!! What's wrong with stacking shelves at Asda? They pay around £5.50 and hour and it aint stressful!! But then maybe he's addicted to daytime cable TV and missing it would be too much to bear.

What you are dealing with is a work shy scrounger who wont take a job as it means he'll lose his benefits. He blames his self inflicted financial predicament on his creditors and his health problems and refuses to admit that it is all down to his own actions. Take responsibility and deal with it!!

I am not making light of mental health problems as I, like several other contributers, have first hand experience of the effects and this qualifies me to make these comments. You can self medicate yourself all you like and, yes, it helps in the short term, but ultimately you have to get off your !!!! and do it for yourself. No-one, including the state, the education system or financial institutions owes you anything.

It appears he believes it's his right to defraud the state by being selective in what he tells them. Earns £10k+ but pays no tax. Seems unlikely, but who knows?

As one who pays his taxes and council taxes, I have no time for people like this. It's people like him that give Incapacity Benefit a bad name. Its designed for people who are seriously incapacitated and not able to work. There may have been a period of time where this applied to him but I doubt that period lasted 12 years. He is obviously NOT incapacitated in the true sense of the word. As he admits he is only interested in building up a nest-egg for when he retires and he's doing that at the expense of us tax and council tax payers.

I hope someone twigs who you are and rumbles you to the authorities and they take you to court to recover every penny you owe.

Oh, and there's no point you knocking out one of your mamoth replies as I wont be visiting this thread again!!

Get a job and / or stop whinging

Enough said.

Well said my good man!!! :beer:

myrnahaz

I don't see why Rob can't get a job as a creative writer - his posts are the length of a novel, full of twists and turns and have captivated loads of us.

owensmum75

aw is this thread winding down? It was better than a soap!!

JMcC

I think the reason for the silence is that Rob has been found out.

Perhaps he is away writing for one of the soaps now, he certainly has a vivid enough imagination.

I've been watching for a response from Rob on here, but it's beginning to look like he may be writing under a different name somewhere now.

I'd have put money on Rob coming back with a response to demonstrate his intelligence, perhaps he realises he has been caught !

myrnahaz

I bet he's busy putting all of our excellent advice into action. I wonder if he'll write a sequel?

mrslawrence2003

owensmum75 wrote: »

Well said my good man!!! :beer:

blimey Lynz I wasn't expecting that kind of reply from you. I read yesterday the thread by Tony (I think it was) saying he had decided to end his life because things were so desperate. Then you read this thread where suicide is used as some kind of emotional blackmail and it makes my blood boil, to be frank. I had something of a breakdown through stress from work a year and a half ago. I could have given up there and then, as it was, I struggled to even get out of bed as everything was too difficult, and too much for me to cope with. In that state, I could not even begin to imagine doing up my house. I'm a little confused how, if you can renovate your house and ferry people about, you are unable to do a job, ANY job.