Working for yourself/working from home

[Phoenix76]

Do you think your anxiety and general mental health would improve if you could work for yourself, or work from home (or both?). I find everything so much harder when I'm working for other people. When I have control, I feel so much more confident. For example, I could (and have) run a car boot sale, dealing with different people, haggling over prices, etc, and been fine. But that's because it was MY car and I was working for myself. Yet if you made me work in a secondhand shop, doing exactly the same thing (selling garbage to the public), I'd hate it. The difference is that I'd have no control - plus I'd be trapped in a building with a boss.

Have you ever considered retraining in something so you could work for yourself? My problem is a lack of ideas. I have an MA in English literature and psychoanalysis, yet very little experience. Thanks to mental illness, especially social anxiety (and avoidant/schizoid personality), I have only ever done retail and delivery jobs, usually for minimum wage.

[BlueIris]

Hey, fellow MA-and-low-wage person!

I don't think I'd be able to handle the pressures of working for myself very well, unfortunately - dealing with financial stuff, especially, and being the one with ultimate responsibility if (when?) things went wrong. I do get annoyed about not being in control, but it's one of those tradeoffs; if somebody in my workplace gets stroppy or hostile I don't have to deal past a certain point. I'm also very fond of not normally having to work past office hours.

I'm lucky that at least parts of my job are fairly stimulating; I accept the fact that I'm underpaid for what I do because the alternative is job interviews and having to present to a bunch of people who'll be judging me at a time when I'll likely be mid panic attack.

It's not ideal, but then life seldom is.

[Phoenix76]

Hey, fellow MA-and-low-wage person!

I don't think I'd be able to handle the pressures of working for myself very well, unfortunately - dealing with financial stuff, especially, and being the one with ultimate responsibility if (when?) things went wrong. I do get annoyed about not being in control, but it's one of those tradeoffs; if somebody in my workplace gets stroppy or hostile I don't have to deal past a certain point. I'm also very fond of not normally having to work past office hours.

I'm lucky that at least parts of my job are fairly stimulating; I accept the fact that I'm underpaid for what I do because the alternative is job interviews and having to present to a bunch of people who'll be judging me at a time when I'll likely be mid panic attack.

It's not ideal, but then life seldom is.

Hi Iris, thanks for your reply. What do you do, if you don't mind me asking?

[BlueIris]

I'm a learning technologist; I work in further education. Academically speaking, I'm a qualified librarian, but those roles are slowly being eliminated so I had to shift my skillset a little.