Dear “Worried”,
I’ve absolutely no way of knowing how severe your illness is or how long you’ve been suffering.  I don’t know your age or your circumstances…

What I read though is that your job may be in the balance unless you can achieve some very tangible improvement in your health.

Losing your job may not be the horror you envisage – a wrench yes but not necessarily a bad thing for you.  If it were to come to it, and you can no longer work, I would tell you that it may be a blessing in disguise, as far as your health is concerned.

We all cling, with desperation, to what is and has been our normal life but with your illness, “normal” goes out the window.  The illness is no respecter of dates, red letter days, Monday mornings, birthdays, Christmas, etc.  It will rob you of many of these for a long time.

Life will change considerably, maybe it has already.  The thing is, you don’t like where you are at the moment, it’s really scary and very possibly lonely, but you’ve got to do all you can to get to a better place, where your health is no longer a hindrance to what you want to achieve, no longer a source of constant negativity and disappointment.

Being forced, or better still, choosing to give up your job will allow you the time and the environment everyday with which to nurture yourself, physically and emotionally, which will go a long way towards your recovery.

Work, stress, travel, timekeeping, running a home, having a social life, family commitments, etc. etc. are all preventing your body from healing itself, which is what it desperately needs.  It’s crying out to you that something’s very wrong and it’s begging you, with all too frequent, painful reminders, that you’ve got to take care of yourself in a positive way.

Forcing yourself to keep to work timetables and weekdays, doing far too much at the weekends just because it is the weekend, is a pattern which will simply make your illness worse and/or endure for longer.

It’s a desperately sad truth to accept but when you finally recognise that you’ve got to take on the responsibility of helping yourself recover in the best possible way, and that that may mean no longer working, then you’ll be on the road to eventually getting back your life, or to starting an exciting new one.

Of course, stopping work brings with it the stress of not having the income any longer but there are benefits out there to help you and, if you really take pacing and rest seriously, your expenditure will be cut greatly.  The MEA is a good source of information about Benefits.

You WILL recover, but only if you look after yourself, nourish yourself, pace yourself, and be kind to yourself.