Hi disabled community! I’m so sorry the megathread is late this week. I hope everyone’s new year is going well so far!
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“Disability” is an umbrella term which encompasses physical disabilities, emotional/psychiatric disabilities, neurodivergence, intellectual/developmental disabilities, sensory disabilities, invisible disabilities, and more. You do not have to have an official diagnosis to consider yourself disabled.
Mask up, love one another, and stay alive for one more week.
I took a fake sickness leave even if its just the second day of work after my 10-day holidays because I couldn’t get out of bed. I feel like a total loser, but working at the office is both anxiety inducing, tires me for the rest of the day (which doesn’t go away with sleep) and very boring because of frequent waiting times due to the nature of my job and the long (45 mins x 2) commute. If I could play a game or something in the lunch break it could be more tolerable but having to stay in work mode for 8 hours is too much for me it seems.
I used to have four remote days per week as accommodations instead of the usual two, but the bastard higher-ups took them from me for morale, innovation and discipline reasons. I challenged the guy’s arguments and he didn’t even acknowledge what burnout is even though the company has a ton of bullshit mental health and burnout seminars. I fucking hate this job but it is my first one and I only have worked there for 8 months. Can I even find another one?
I don’t know if AuDHD + OCD is even a valid reason to feel like this, I feel like a total brat for not working without complaints and remote days. How the fuck did my parents which are possibly neurodivergent as well do it for 30 years after all. Was it that they had children to feed? Or am I that useless? I don’t know and it is eating me from within
First things first, your feelings are valid, just as much as anyone elses, and you don’t have to feel like an imposter for complaining about work. Period.
Second, AuDHD and OCD are extremely valid reasons to feel this upset about a toxic work environment. Let’s be real, it is, they took away something that was promised to you to make work easier. They’re assholes for taking away the two extra remote days from you. You have a right to be upset just as anyone else is. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve worked there, criticism or anger because of these things is legit. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise (including yourself!)
Lastly, and only as a suggestion: You mentioned your parents might just have neurodivergent traits as well and worked for decades in the same job. Depending on how your relationship with your parents is, have you considered asking them on how they coped? I don’t assume this will yield much helpful info, no, but maybe they can tell you some things that help you cope with stressful situations that otherwise might overwhelm you. It’s just a thought, don’t feel obliged to follow the suggestion.
In either case, I hope you’ll be doing alright soon, friend, and can find some peace of mind, as dim as the hope may be
Thank you for the kind words. My parent has pure autism I think and he had some social difficulties at various workplaces but I think my case is most similar to my mother who possibly has ADHD + mild OCD. Her job (elementary school teacher) she pretty much wings and she procrastinates a lot so this wouldn’t apply to my laptop toucher job. Also for the anxiety she just does chores all day even when not needed in order to not think (her words). This was actually pretty intense when I grew up because she would always find some messy detail in my home and would shout to us over it
You’re welcome ❤️
And I see why their experiences would not help you with your predicament. Did you by any chance have some coping mechanisms that worked in school that could be applied your job as well? I know it’s hard to compare the two but sometimes these strategies can be transfered to new contexts.
I hope you find something to make it easier.
School was easy enough so I didn’t have problems. For morale in uni pretty much having friends that struggle through the same thing helped. I haven’t bonded with my coworkers because while they don’t seem like bad people, I don’t have much in common with them to be able to communicate effectively. Also in uni I pretty much studied with the rate of 0.5 pages/hour due to OCD+ADHD so it’s not like it was better then. I am pretty burnt out by the whole period after graduating (meaning 6 months of job searching + 8 months of work)