When your Chronic pain/Illness prevents you from working.

Life pretty much seems centered around work. You go to school for 12-20 years which prepares you for a job or career and then you spend 45+ years working and saving money to live off of in your old age.

But what happens if somewhere very early along the lines your body starts malfunctioning the way it was supposed to in your old age? Your life is a million miles away from the one you hoped for, the one everyone else seems to be leading, your kind of living in a bubble watching everyone else's life pass by. If your like me who became very sick before adulthood then you will find yourself mourning the life you never had, on the flip side young adults in their late 20s and so on will mourn the life they used to have.  Now this can cause a heavy stack of stress for a multitude of reasons.

One of the reasons it would stress you out is that you may feel like your lacking a purpose, a meaning, or fulfillment in life. Modern society weighs our worth so heavily on productivity and what we do that you might start to beat down on yourself for not keeping up the pace with healthy people.  Let me tell you a secret... It's not your fault, your not lazy, your not a hypochondriac, and you didn't choose this.

Now back to those feelings of lacking purpose and wondering what in the hell your going to do with your life because work and college are not within reach.

You follow or find a passion. Fill the rest of your life with hobbies that you love, hobbies that make you feel like your creating, accomplishing, and make you feel productive. Hobbies that you can set attainable goals with, you may not be getting a monetary reward with a hobby or who knows maybe you might get so good at it that you do. But at the very least you are being rewarded by feeling accomplished and purposeful.  You can even do light volunteer work virtually if not physically.

In my scrambles to find income with two of my entrepreneurship/freelancing ventures failing to not being able to attain a remote work position, I found myself in this terrible and guilt filled position after high school of telling people I don't work because I'm disabled. Sure it's a legitimate reason to not be able to work or attend college but I just felt so damned guilty as if I was doing this to my own life and I wasn't "trying hard enough".  These days I tell people I don't work because I'm disabled/sick but I fill my time with blogging and tattooing.  (er, well I'm an apprentice)  I feel so much better.

You can even try to follow hobbies that would be a job if you weren't disabled, they may not be in the same capacity and they may bring you little to no income, but this is about increasing happiness in your life more than anything else.

As far as myself  I know couldn't be work as a blogger & tattoo artist as jobs so they're just hobbies that fill in the time when I'm not totally incapacitated.  I know I couldn't earn much from tattooing because I have such a low stamina I can only sit for 2 hours and I have to take a break in between as well. So that means I'm limited to small tattoos and simple medium sized ones. If I could I would do intricate Japanese style art, I like to be challenged but....you know the whole debilitating pain thing haha...  Not to mention some days I'm totally incapacitated I can't guarantee I could keep an appointment with a client so it's better to just do it as a hobby.  As far as blogging, I can only look at the screen a limited amount of hours even with it modified and I can't look downwards and type for more than  20 minutes as my neck/shoulder pain flares up not to mention brain fog and again total incapacitation.

But just having these things in my life that I work on that give me a sense of fulfillment have made me feel more alive. It didn't come easy and it took time and acceptance on different levels. I hope this helps other out of work spoonies.