Issues of not working

Went to my last dental appt the other day. Was telling him that I'd not be able to come back after this as there's no more gov money going to pay for private dental treatment for me with the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme coming to an end. We got to talking about what had been happening with me lately, and I said I'd been redundant at work and was now on a disability pension.

His reaction was a bit strange. He straight away judged my situation as being bad by asking "So how did a young bloke like you end up in this predicament?" (I'm 50). There wasn't even a question asking if I was OK in being in that situation. Then he followed it with "What do you dooooo all day?" 

He was completely unable to grasp that my not working was actually a good thing. FFS it's not as if I've never worked or paid any tax. Thirty years in a very physically demanding industry has to count for something. And believe me, you work hard when you work in the printing industry, it's no walk in the park. 

It was only my last job that the factory was air conditioned, and that was for the computers in other depts, not us with our machines. Most places are simply tin roofed factories, many of them poorly ventilated. You'll have a hot humid day of 35 degrees C and the place doesn't cool down overnight. You go in there in the morning at 7am and it's still fuckin 35 degrees in the place. But they still want you to go the same speed, lifting tonnes a day. 

This was the situation that I was looking at when I thought about doing agency work; these are the sorts of places I'd be sent to. Yeah, the money good at about $35 an hour I think, but with the company being charged about $60 or so an hour they'd want fuckin blood man. That, and I'd be working 5 day weeks on occasion, likely expected to do overtime. In the end I just don't think I could've done it any-more, not at 50 years old, HIV+, chronic kidney failure, and clinical depression along with post traumatic stress.

It was either go back to work and drive my body completely into the ground when I'm at my weakest I've ever been, or go on disability. I chose the later. I don't regret it one bit. Don't feel guilty at all. Yes, it's good that that option was available to me, we're very lucky here in Australia as there's many other places in the world where I'd have simply had to work despite my health. It's a good thing I'm on disability now.  

It's been 3 months since the job ended. It has been an adjustment mentally I'd have to say. Before that I'd worked all my life. For many many years I had an extremely good record of attendance and performance, a very strong work ethic. Suddenly not working there has to be an adjustment there to how I think. Comments like above don't help.

In hindsight I honestly don't know how I worked that last 18 months. I was talking about this to the psychologist last time. Fucks sake, I'd just finished 2 months of dialysis and then went straight back to fuckin work! I even had the central line still hanging out of my chest as they wanted to wait a couple of weeks in case it needed more use. I had a list by the bed for the morning as my brain wasn't functioning very well after the brain injury, to "get dressed, brush teeth, take pills, feed cat" in case I forgot something. A few times I was in tears on the side of the bed as I just felt like I couldn't do this. 

No, I'm not going back to that. I just can't. It was really hard going. On top of that I had that ass-hole factory manager chucking hissy fits about time off work. Fuck, I was lucky to be alive, let alone at work.

It worked out good in the end with the redundancy payout, but honestly I still don't know how I did it. Must have been in some kind of denial about how sick I actually was.