Freelancing and CPTSD

[rabo]

Hi everybody,

I'm referring to this thread: https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=16162.msg144637#msg144637, but I didn't want to hijack it with my own topic, so I opened a new one.

I'm a freelancer myself (web design/web development, etc.). Because of my CPTSD, I don't think I could work in a "normal" 9-to-5 company. That's why I'd like to know whether other members here also work as freelancers or solo entrepreneurs — or, which is equally important to me, whether they would like to.

Working alone has some crucial advantages: no stress with coworkers or a boss, no fixed schedules, and the freedom to work as much as you want, whenever you want. However, it also has a major downside: the income isn't guaranteed.

I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on this. What is your view on freelancing?

[NarcKiddo]

I worked in the normal 9-5 office culture until I was about 40. Then I switched to freelance. I was able to take the risk because my husband had a steady income and he was happy for me to make that choice. I didn't have a problem with the structure of the 9-5 culture and when I was more junior my people-pleasing nature was generally rewarded. I liked doing a good job anyway, but being praised for doing so was nice. As I rose through the ranks of my profession things got worse and my final office job was in a company run by a pair of horrendous narcissists. I was the golden child of the one who recruited me so things were not too bad but the whole thing resembled the dysfunction of my FOO in so many ways. The one who recruited me died suddenly and my position became intolerable. So I went freelance.

Having experienced both, I don't think one is necessarily better than the other. I had a couple of jobs with genuinely supportive and collaborative bosses and colleagues. Those were happy times. Freelancing has not been particularly happy. It felt safer because I was not at the mercy of a nightmare boss, and more authentic because I was never obliged to toe a company line.

[Blueberry]

I worked part time freelance, because I could only work part-time, in fact sometimes only very minimally, that's connected to my particular form of cptsd, the particular problems I have which may not be everybody's. Of the two professions I was working in, they tend to be done by freelancers where I live anyway. Although I did have an employed position in one of them before I collapsed due to cptsd 26 years ago.

Working freelance, I got to pick and choose my own clients and my own projects. They had to be very small ones with generous deadlines in one profession and in the other profession I could take on a wider range of projects but I turned down a certain type of project I would get asked about because my mind would get all fuzzy even thinking about it. If I'd been acquiring projects thru some middle-man/middle-person, it wouldn't have been so easy to simply turn down this type, because it's commonly required and kind of a buzz word.

I actually worked freelance in my last few semesters at university and continued that for a year maybe before I got an employed position. I'm glad I did get the latter, it plays a role where I live. I wouldn't have been able to get disability without it and I've had disability for a long time now. That may not be an issue in all countries, probably not in fact.

Where I live not all jobs are 9-5, there is flexi-time where you can start a lot earlier or later and certainly miss part of the day full of colleagues. It certainly got even more flexible during Covid times and has remained flexible in some professions. A friend of mine still works from home 3-4 days a week, on Zooms etc. It's cheaper for the company she says, they need less office space that way. It seems they'll never go back to how it was pre-Covid. I don't know how it is where you live.

Here in my country they say "If you're unemployed or you've been long-term ill, the last thing you should do is start your own company". Well, after my collapse 26 years ago plus some years trying to get better, I started bit by bit freelance like an hour here an hour there and built up because I knew there was no way anybody would employ me, so better to try freelance than not at all. I also know that "easier" work than my professions is not easy for me. I can't just say "Forget it, I'll go put products on supermarket shelves" because any work I do brings out a bunch of triggers and I get ill partially through exhaustion.

However, there are downsides to working freelance. One thing is: you need to be able to do the work that a company does for their employees: advertising, marketing, budgeting, accounting, proofreading, writing, acquisition, billing, finding and funding professional development etc etc. You may cover 1-2 of these in your own particular profession, but the rest is done by the company. It's not generally enough to be good at just whatever your profession is.

I was in a professional association for one of my professions and there were enough other freelancers round here to have little meetings occasionally, exchange work sometimes and more often just information, networking, but also support - Caution! Very bad client, doesn't pay, do not engage. I found it helpful to be involved a little with that group. And also good to come out from behind the computer from time-to-time.

The income isn't guaranteed as you mentioned. I noticed that among my fellow freelancers quite a few had trouble with the gaps in the year where there was less or no work. There's often a complete dearth in August for various reasons, but also from before Christmas into the first week of January, which you may not want as your holiday. In one of my professions you can't really know if more work is going to come in, in the other profession, I'd know that after August work would start trickling in again. Maybe not enough though... My fellow freelancers didn't have cptsd, but as I say I noticed they often got nervy too about lack of work coming in, except those with a spouse in a well-paying job! Even though you can say to yourself that when work is scarce you'll do something else - work on your marketing or paint the house or take up jogging/meditation, it seems not quite so easy to ban the anxiety and do these things.

I no longer work freelance because I simply cannot do the work anymore, it simply got too strenuous for my cptsd brain. The actual work in my professions, but also the basics you have to do as a freelancer like billing and getting the tax documents in. Despite my getting disability and financial support from FOO, it's been difficult for me to give up professional work.

I don't know if this has helped you at all. If you want to read anymore of my employment/freelance musings, you can read: https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=6316.0  and https://www.cptsd.org/forum/index.php?topic=9792.0  Both of these threads stopped at 5 pages and have Part B continuing my musings and brain-ache. When I read them again now, they don't read so bad, Idk, I can't feel the torment in them that I know I had, it reads to me as if they're not as long as they are. Anyway, you can check them out, if they help in any way, great! If they don't, forget them, look for something else.