Giving up work due to I’ll health

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skinnylinny
skinnylinny Online Community Member Posts: 1 Listener
edited May 2023 in Work
Hello everyone 

I had a stroke 5 years ago and returned to work too soon long story I suffer from post stroke fatigue and now have anxiety etc due to trying to keep up with everything 

thinking of giving up work because I can’t carry on and my health is deriorating 

also feeling guilty and very scared of stopping work 

and claiming finial support 😢

I’ve worked all my life

thanks for listening any help would be really appreacted 

Linda 

Comments

  • chiarieds
    chiarieds Online Community Member Posts: 17,132 Championing
    edited May 2023
    Hi @skinnylinny - & welcome to the community. You're not alone in facing difficulties over work, looking after yourself, & concerns about how you'd cope financially.
    Scope has some info which you may find helpful, i.e. have you asked for 'reasonable adjustments' at work. would it be possible to reduce your hours, etc? Please see: https://www.scope.org.uk/advice-and-support/work-careers/reasonable-adjustments/ See also: https://www.acas.org.uk/reasonable-adjustments
    Do consider talking to occupational health, if that's a possibility, to see what they also think.
    If you do need to stop work after this, then there's some financial help which may be available such as the Personal Independence Payment (PIP), ESA (if you have sufficient National Insurance contributions for the past 2 financial years), Universal Credit, etc.
    Do look at help from your employers first & ask for an occupational health assessment; don't just resign. Kindly let us all know how you get on as everyone here is most supportive.


  • Alex_Alumni
    Alex_Alumni Scope alumni Posts: 7,538 Championing
    Hello there @skinnylinny and welcome, thanks for reaching out, I can see chiarieds has replied with some helpful advice and resources. I'd certainly encourage you to chat with your employer about reasonable adjustments, as they have a duty under the equality act to provide them for disabled employees.

    You can discuss things like flexible working, or changes to workload for example. What do you think would be most helpful in enabling you to carry on working at the moment?

    It can be scary being faced with such a big change, especially when it comes to health, but nobody will judge you for this, or think you less capable.

    There's a lot of stigma around disability even today, but it's not something that is a burden, or which makes you lesser. It just means you might need to about things in a different way, or have certain aids or adaptions put in place to help you do your job. 

    If there's anything you feel we've missed or can help more with, then please ask and we'll do what we can to help :) 

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