It’s the utter waves like water of The Swamp that I hate. Woke up this morning with more apologies than a Canadian and figured that that really was going to be it for today.
I’m just incredibly sad with no reason why. Trying to explain what I do for work is miserable, there’s always been something wrong with how I explain my job (jobs really according to HMRC). People react like it’s a big deal when I explain what I do, even when I try and clarify they’re all oh but it’s important and then I tell them what I get paid and watch this facial expression change. Sometimes people look like they think I’ve tricked them, that I was making it sound like I had a fancy job deliberately and mostly they look like they pity me, like I’m deluding myself into thinking I have a fancy job. It’s this moment when they’re in some undefinable way disappointed in me. I really hate it.
Today I got; “oh I thought that was a side hustle”
Realistically everything I do is a side hustle. It’s really rare now for support workers to just be support workers, at the very least, like me they’re doing JustEat deliveries. Then of course I’m doing massage as well. I still can’t make any of it pay, which is depressing for me but trying to explain that to other people and they’re just so disappointed. Then trying to explain what support work is is a whole thing, that yes I do prep meals and ensure medication is taken but I also help people go to the pub, play D&D, find football teams… and then there’s the comprehension in people’s eyes. That’s almost worse because then you can see the thought that I shouldn’t be getting paid for that at all, that’s just what people should do for each other.
I do wish I’d managed to find a job I could do before I got ill but I didn’t and no one will pay you to paint or write. Or well, no one will pay me to, you have to practice to get good enough for that and I never factored in the idea that I’d be too tired to create things if I was working to fund my life.
So there you go, maybe I do have a reason to be Depressed. Failure to thrive.