No One Wants Me

[jacx]

Hi,

I guess that I'm extra-sensitive to feeling unwanted after my experiences in foster care.

Thing is, my job was really super important to me. After losing my family, it was all that I had. I was demoted and transferred after getting hospital sick due to damage sustained in my traumatic event - my lungs and small bowel got really messed up in the accident so minor illnesses can quickly turn into a big deal.

If I'd known how useless I'd be, I wouldn't have fought so hard to survive after the accident. I think that the doctors were wrong to save me.

I keep thinking of suicide but I don't think I'd actually do it. I feel so guilty for hanging around after outliving my usefulness.

Sorry for the self-pity. Can anyone think of a job that someone like me could do? Or anything I'd be good for?

 

[Friday]

I need to be useful, too... Not being useful is on my short list of things that kick me directly into suicide-mode. One of the few things that prevents just saying f*ck it, is that I have gone through many periods of f*cking useless, to come out the other side not just useful again, but actually happy with myself & my life... In ways I couldn't even imagine before that. The kind of "If you had told me 6 months ago / 5 years ago / etc. that I'd be doing this??? I'd have laughed in your face.

Byproduct of an overactive brain, and having lived / worked I n dozens of countries... Yeah. I can think of thousands of jobs, in dozens of fields, that allow for regular time off for serious medical conditions. What did you do before? What do you like/love? What 17 bizarre things did you want to do as a kid? What's your education level / if you haven't done school is that something interesting to you? Approximately how old are you? Got kids? Any absolutely NOTs? (Like nothing with kids, or in medicine, or that might even conceivably mean working in a swamp, etc.)

 

[jacx]

Thank you for answering, FridayJones.

I had one child, but she died in the accident, and her father left me while I was in the rehab centre. I was not at fault in the accident - in the end no one was held responsible, but I was explicitly not at fault. I don't know why I had to say that.

I used to be a software developer, but my injuries included a TBI. I've recovered more than was initially thought possible, but I forgot a lot and lost some of my maths and language abilities - it's not obvious but I couldn't go back to computer programming. And I couldn't stay up all night coding anymore. Also lost so much field of vision that I can't drive now.

I'm working now in the not-for-profit sector (and it's a cause that I really believed in, so I felt I was doing good work). I started out developing their website, then moved into management. After being hospitalised last year for a month, I got demoted to secretary for someone in the management position that I used to hold. Also I was moved out of HQ to a regional office.

I recently had a performance review - I won't be considered for promotion again because my health issues make me unreliable and they don't think I can handle the stress.

I don't want to start all over again. I don't want to go back to software development. I think that I should have died long ago.

 

[Deleted member 29920]

I used to feel similar - useless, I still am rather "useless". But I done a lot of reading - existential stuff and reached a new belief - there is no such thing as useless human. You might not know the reason you survived but you are here and that is amazing. You shouldn't feel guilty at all. You deserve to be here and to find some way of being happy and having a positive life in spite of the past trauma. Worth shouldn't come from jobs, you should just be proud of you because you survived and you're you and you're amazing. I think you should try to find something you enjoy doing, what did you enjoy about your old job? What do you want to gain from the next one?

 

[Deleted member 29920]

@FridayJones what jobs allow for regular time off for serious medical conditions?

 

[Ocean5]

@jacx Have you considered small freelance jobs to start? Such as on Odesk? That way you can work more at your own pace.

Develop small plugins for Wordpress or Firefox you can sell? Even professional wp themes.

At least to supplement your income, and help you to feel better.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

I don't want to start all over again. I don't want to go back to software development. I think that I should have died long ago.

@jacx , I completely understand not wanting to start over again. That is fear (for me anyway). I don't want any more change, but at the same time I don't want to go back to my old job (though some days I do). The fact is you didn't die and that is your brain telling you a distortion. Maybe it would help to look back, like @FridayJones suggested and think about other jobs you were interested in and see if any of them would be possible. I also liked @Ocean5 's idea of exploring freelance jobs and then maybe you're not starting all over again, but just starting the same kinds of things in a different way. I get completely overwhelmed by the thought of jobs and working even though there is stuff I want to do, it just seems impossible. Try to think about it in little chunks and work towards figuring out what you might want to do. Best wishes.

 

[Friday]

@Cj77 ... Most... In various formats.

In general;

A - Gig work / contracting/ seasonal/ project based/ freelance etc. The running theme here is that they are all short periods of employment (avg say... 1-3mo, but there are longer/shorter)... So the person fills their calendar as they're able. Like if I'm doing well right now, I might take a 3month position. If I'm not, I may just sit the next month or three out, and sign back on for the next period.

ExA) Theatre (both local runs & traveling shows), Farm, Cruise Ships (all positions you'd find in a small town!), shipping crews (since there's a ships doc on a lot of bigger vessels, this is maybe not so oddly popular for a lot of chronic med conditions), Adjunct Professors (non-tenure track), homeschool co-ops (k-12), substitute teachers (k-12), travel nurses, travel nannies, disaster response, sports seasons, movie production units, freelance journalism, event staff of various flavors (catering/ security/ sound engineers/ law enforcement liaisons/ marketing/ lawyering), camp counselors, Guides, tourist season/ high season/ holiday season, paid internships, etc. Serious et cetera. In pretty much any field you can imagine, there is a minority wedge of short term employment. And some fields (movies for example, or disaster response) short term employment/ going project to project, is the industry norm. The ones where it's a wedge? Most people don't want those positions. They want a full-time gig. So there tends to be a lot more availability. I've worked -essentially- full time, doing gig-work while a lot of my peers were spending months unemployed, or working in a different field, just because that's where they could get full-time work. Shrug. I like gig work. I need downtime between jobs. Downtime tends to freak a lot of people out.

B - Self Employed ... Similar to the above in that it's self directed time spent, and nearly anything you can imagine.

C - Jobshare... This one is a bit quirky, more designed for parents with small children usually, I've also seen it split with med conditions; particularly cancer, kidney disease (needing dialysis a few times a week severely limits employment!), & severe injury recovery. Most big corporate jobs offer job share if you can find 1-3 people willing to take on the hours, and many mom&pop very very small companies will. The middling ones tend not to, so much.

 

[jacx]

Worth shouldn't come from jobs, you should just be proud of you because you survived and you're you and you're amazing.

I guess it felt as though my job was all that I had left. I was never in any foster home long enough to develop real relationships. I'm back in touch with my birth parents but they are still addicted so there's not much help there. I used to have an uncle I was close to but he died. My husband and daughter were my whole world...

I was in a long-term relationship until a few months ago but the hospitalisation put a lot of strain on it (I got really depressed and moody) and then we broke up when I had to move. I haven't made any friends in this new city. I can't think of anything worth living for.

 

[Ocean5]

@jacx *hug* if you accept.

Can relate to feeling all alone. Grandparents died before I was born, or shortly after. Mom died. Disowned by father (not that he was ever a father, and tried to keep me from developing relationship with relatives.) I have one Aunt I can talk to really. But she's getting older and struggling herself. It's hard. I always felt like an orphan, or I was adopted. Also, in a new city....

If it helps, once I'm more stable I'm planning to Volunteer to give my life more a sense of purpose, and meet quality people. Was looking into animal rescue shelters.

Remember you can always come here for support!

 

[VioletButterfly]

I'm working now in the not-for-profit sector (and it's a cause that I really believed in, so I felt I was doing good work). I started out developing their website, then moved into management. After being hospitalised last year for a month, I got demoted to secretary for someone in the management position that I used to hold. Also I was moved out of HQ to a regional office.

I recently had a performance review - I won't be considered for promotion again because my health issues make me unreliable and they don't think I can handle the stress.

I'm so sorry for your situation. Have you approached an attorney regarding ADA violations? If it is expressly stated in your review that your demotions were due to health issues, it's worth a call to the ADA or a lawyer. If you are low income, there are usually nonprofits that provide free legal aid/advice. I'm not super well-versed, but demoting you due to illness/injury would seem to fall under some protection from this legislation. Check out ada.gov. Also, due to your injuries, can you not qualify for disability assistance and then work part-time doing what you might enjoy while still bringing in a little cash to supplement? I believe you are allowed to work part-time and still receive benefits. Or, if you are not in need of additional financial support, volunteering is always a good way to feel purposeful. Working in a nonprofit, I'm sure you know how much they LOVE volunteers. :)

Just a couple of thoughts to add to what everyone has offered above. Hoping you find a better situation, and also that you can build a family of choice for support and companionship. VB

 

[sun seeker]

I guess it felt as though my job was all that I had left. I was never in any foster home long enough to develop real relationships.

I wonder if this isn't what you need to work on before you are ready to think about what kind of work for money you could do. It sounds like you are deeply depressed as a result of the trauma you have survived. I can totally understand this by the way, I am in a similar position (for different reasons). @FridayJones gave you lots of ideas for kinds of work you might be able to do, and they are good ideas, but it sounds as if you are not at that point yet. From what you have shared it sounds as if there is a history of developmental trauma as well as trauma later in life, and it sounds as if working on that is where you need to begin to shore up your foundation as it were. I would expect that ideas about what to do with your life will come to you more easily when you feel stronger inside. A few questions: are you working with a good trauma therapist? And if you found places to socialize or volunteer in your new location, would you feel up to doing that? Both these things may eventually (not immediately unfortunately) get you feeling more positive, and from there, what to do for work might feel like less of a daunting prospect.

So what I am saying, and forgive me if I am wrong but this is what it looks like, is that the presenting problem is not the real underlying problem. For myself for instance, I can think of lots of ideas for kinds of work I might potentially be interested in doing, but if someone then rolled up their sleeves and started helping me plan how to get started, I would quickly realize that I am too symptomatic right now to carry through on any of them. That is where I need to work: on the trauma.