Will my life ever change?

[lostmyway]

There's a 5 year gap, how do I explain that?  by lying?

[Amanda_George]

Far from it!  You tell them the truth, that you were ill and getting treatment but you've used the time wisely to study/learn new things/get treatment etc!   

[Pip]

I agree with Amanda and it is illegal to discriminate against a person because they have been ill / unable to work. 

[lostmyway]

I'm not sure I was that ill I was unable to work exactly, but the moods have been extremely low ones that is a fact.  It HAS adversely affected my health I am not denying that the past 5 years have been absolute hell without a job as it was the only thing that even kept me remotely sane.  You reach a certain age and wonder what the hell have you done with your life.  Yes, it might sound heavy and rather dramatic but I can't help but think this right now. 

The old saying 'it didn't work out as you planned' is a cliche if ever there was one. I am sitting here feeling very sad and sorry for myself, that I have somehow failed as a human being to provide the life I really wanted (but never got).  You think some doc or therapist would alter how I feel? I don't think so.  A complete change of career is almost laughable as I wanted to initiate that in 2013 and am still no further to my goal.

[Amanda_George]

You have been ill though, to varying degrees and your health has improved to such a degree that you feel able to return to work now.  You've been through extremely low moods, but with treatment they have improved and you are confident that you're well enough to return to work now   

[lostmyway]

Not entirely sure where I go from here, to be honest.  Confidence and motivation etc need to be built back up again, as it is sorely lacking at the moment.  I don't want to feel like this any more (who would?).

[Amanda_George]

That's totally understandable, Lost! 

Are there any small steps you can start taking to help?  For example the course I finished yesterday did wonders for my confidence and Steve's got the motivation to walk our pup every morning too (he's got depression as well)... they don't have to be big things, just something for you to try that will work on your confidence which will help your motivation, then you try something else that works which will increase your confidence and motivation etc etc.  I'm doing that with studying... the first few courses were a struggle to motivate myself to complete, but I've done 49 courses in less than a month now and there's no stopping me! 

Find something just for you and keep on with it... start a blog or whatever and challenge yourself to make at least one post a day?  That's what I'm doing too!

[lostmyway]

I do feel the moods have been getting worse the past few months or so , and I don't know what to do about it except goto the doc's but that's not always a good thing. I have to be frank, depression scares me, esp. when it's this bad.  That's part of the reason why my jobsearch isn't as busy as it could be, I just cannot face it even though that I need to do something about it.
The sadness/anxiety/despair has increased to a level I am very uncomfortable with.

[Amanda_George]

  if you want it, Lost?

What sort of job do you want... is it something that would benefit from online studying or not really?  How about getting yourself out of the house just for 10 minutes every day, it'll be hard to start with but just a walk around the block will get the Endorphins kicking in which will lift your mood and motivation so you'll want to go out for a few extra minutes a day which will increase your motivation etc etc... motivating yourself for the first few days will be the hardest.

Also, are there any businesses close to you that you could go to to see if they've got any unadvertised jobs for you?  Temping agencies too... that's how I got my 2 jobs when I first moved to Gloucester, the temping agency found me a temp job within days and it was me dropping in on a shoppers creche with my CV that got me my Saturday job too!

If I hadn't started throwing up then I would still be there and all I did was update and print out 3 CVs!   

[lostmyway]

5 yrs without work is too long and it is soul-crushing to be without for that long. Of course I never planned for it to go on that long.  My CV is mostly warehousing but I have very little interest in this particular sector.  I went to the OU to try and better myself, and it's been very hard work.  I guess I will end up with another mw job I hate with no scope for progression but that's how the cookie crumbles in this life.

[Amanda_George]

It's been at least 15 years for me, so I do understand where you're coming from!  Maybe see if there's something totally different to your previous jobs that are more interesting?  For example, I'm qualified to work with children but never thought of child psychology until I took an OpenLearn course and I'm going to try and qualify in that with the OU just to see if I can just for my own benefit... is there anything like that which would interest you?

Try taking some Open Learn courses in totally different areas just to test the water?  How creative are you?  Do you understand computers?  I'm just thinking about trying artistry or creative writing or computer building or programming or something like that?  What sort of things do you enjoy doing?  What are your passions?  Could any of those expand into a job for you or anything like that?

You can do it, Lost, just keep on keeping on and you'll find something eventually!   

[lostmyway]

I honestly don't know what to do next.

[Amanda_George]

Maybe open up a new Word/Notepad document and type out what your passions are, what you want to learn more about, the things that you are interested in finding out more about etc then look online for free courses about each of those things and make a list of the ones you want to take.  Then type out an aims/targets list with each of the courses you've found and work through them one by one.

You will prolly find that you don't get any kind of qualification from them because they are free, but every one you complete can be added to your CV.

Now use that list of passions and type out a formal paragraph saying what they are and why you feel so passionately about each one.  Add that paragraph to your CV.

If you know how to make a website, put that on your CV and add your list of courses as hyperlinks to the page.

Put a list of previous jobs and qualifications on your CV with a paragraph explaining each one.

At the end of your last job, put a single sentence explaining that you've been ill since you left your last job, but you have been working on improving your health and skills and what you feel you can bring to the job you are applying for.  Put the positives about what you've been doing and how you feel that you are a more rounded, understanding, compassionate person who could bring a lot to the company.

Really talk up the positives and barely mention the negatives unless they specifically ask for it and even then make the negatives as positive as possible.

You can do this Lost, believe in yourself and really focus on the positives!

[lostmyway]

I'm not really sure I have any 'passions'.  I will get a qual from the open university but what I actually do with it is another thing entirely. Life should be about progression and improvement , getting over one hurdle and to another, but it doesn't really feel that I have as much as others. In the modern western society, people are far too self-absorbed and busy to even notice what everybody else is thinking and doing.  Why? I don't know.  Probably society is responsible and you have to follow it's laws and regulations, whether you like it or not.

I need commercial work experience for IT and don't have it, so it seems I will go back to what I was doing previously, which I don't want to do... but life has an annoying habit of not giving you the choice.

[Amanda_George]

How about signing up with a few temping agencies or working from home or something like that?  I know you prolly want something more permanent but temping will give you the experience and money that you need and the temping agency will do the job-finding for you too!  Sometimes temp jobs lead on to something permy too... it certainly has with me in the past!