Like many people with depression, my professional career has been affected because of the illness, namely because of needing time off which many companies seem not to like very much, especially if you have a mental illness rather than something colleagues can see like a broken leg!
Anyway, my solution to keep money coming in and not feel totally useless has been to go self employed in addition to my main job.
(You don't have to pay National Insurance contributions on your self employed income if you prefer to keep paying it via your main job, you are entitled to a few grands -can't remember the exact figure- tax free every year).
All you have to do is phone HMRC and say you'd like to become self employed. They will then discuss with you how much you are likely to earn every year, whether you want to pay national insurance on this or not and once a year they will send you a self employment self assessment form in addition to your usual one.
Things you can do if you are self employed:
- mystery shopping (register with as many companies as possible then choose your visits, complete them and get paid!)
- anything you are good at (typing, computers, translating, graphic design, accounting, audio typing....), pick the jobs you would like to complete on peopleperhour or freelancer
- start your online business (selling on ebay / etsy....)
- pet sitting or any other activity you can think of!!
I don't know how I have managed to keep my online business going with the depression being really bad at times but all I know is when I would never have been able to do my main job, being self employed (and able to work a little bit when my mood picked up at night etc) has really been an excellent way to making a little bit of money here and there.
Hope this helps, maybe some of you are already self employed?
