I dont know how coherent this post is going to be, so I'm just going to blurt everything out. And I hope I dont offend anyone with what I'm about to say.
I have been unemployed for just over a year, ive had freelance jobs here and there. The process of dealing with c'link is awful, plus having too much time on my hands, its ripped myself esteem and is crazy making.
I have many qualifications and heaps of job experience, however I'm starting to think maybe it's because I suffer from depression and anxiety that I'm not getting a job and employers can see that I'm mentally ill and dont want to hire me? Am I paranoid? Is there something wrong with me? Am I defective? I had an abusive childhood, it was a weird childhood though. I was locked in a cupboard as a 3 year old, I had very controlling parents...I was controlled so much that I was barely allowed to leave the house, my father used to lock the door when I was a teenager so I couldnt get out. I was manipulated and brainwashed. As a kid I felt like I wasn't a real person, I was a science experiment. Everything was rules and structure. My father and his brothers and sisters all have some sort of emotional dysfunction, but have never had any major diagnosis' ....his parents (my grandparents, both died when I was about 10) were flat out batshit crazy. (sorry if I offend anyone here) My nanna had schizoaffective bipolar with a personality disorder, I have no problem with a person with this diagnosis but she was an evil twisted horrible person, my granddad never had any official diagnosis but he was a strange eccentric person and was an extreme socialist (or something? into all these radical ideas and had rules about how people should walk ...he died when I was a kid I was always very scared of him and didn't know him very well). I also remember visiting them in psych wards when I was a kid, it was very scary and confusing. I always wondered am I like this? My diagnosis has only ever been an anxiety disorder with dysthymic depression. I have always been very functional though. As I am unemployed and it's doing my head in my mind leaps back into this stigma of the mentally ill and my grandparents and how I should have some sort of stamp on my head, and how again now I need to classify myself and put into a structure the way my parents always did...although I do know that this isnt normal, but I feel hurt and alone. Yes I take meds and have a therapist, but how can I help and reassure myself?
