Should i resign and go on disability- plz help!

[Amber98]

Trying to make this short so ill summarize. Im in my late 20s and have been on every medication for anxiety and depression since i was 16, nothing has ever worked. Also had lots of therapy, im told im treatment resistant.
Also had the worst case of insomnia anyone in my country has ever heard of. Ive had over 15 psychiatrists, been an inpatient in mental health hospitals over 5 times and nothing has ever helped the crippling insomnia ive had since i was 5 years old.

Now that ive told you how hopeless my life is, I also am an A type perfectionistic personality and despite all the challenges in the world, I managed to get myself a great career. I get paid lots of money to do absolutely nothing as most people at my work describe the job. Only difference is because of my social anxiety, extreme trouble focusing due to my depression, my job is extremely stressful to me. Everything that involves getting out of bed is extremely stressful and extremely confusing to me.

I have been at my job for a few years but most of the time have found some excuse to be off. As good of a job i have..it is also not accepting of mental health. So i come up with various excuses and have barely been at work. I also care wayy to much what people think of me and i feel im pretty much the laughing stock of work because people think im stupid and always confused when really its just that depression has completely fu*ked up my memory.

Anyways, i cant take it anymore. Ive become extremely suicidal this past year. The only days i dont feel suicidal is when i fall sleep...which is about one night every 2 weeks.

I know i have to quit my job and kills me inside because ive focused my whole life on success since i grew up in extreme poverty. In fact my focus on success over happiness is why im so anxious today and ironically its my drive for success thats lead me to my demise. I DONT want to be on disability. I want to work. But ive exausted all options. I cannot keep this up another day.

I should add that i made up another excuse saying i have surgery and have taken 3 months off starting tomorrow. I am not planning on returning. I fear that being on disability will drive me to suicide. Im only in my 20s and my career was all i have. I have no friends or family. But maybe the fact that i made my career my life is the problem and i need to quit to have a chance at a life.

Laslty, ive come to accept theres no cure for my mental health. Ive tried anything and everything. Ive also had a pretty messed up childhood with 2 parents who were suicidal. With these 3 months off i was going to focus on getting my psychiatriat to fill out disability paperwork. But somewhere in me is some sort of hope i can keep my job. My psychiatrist suggested ECT..but he also put me on so much clonazapam a day that withdrawl was hell on earth. Please help. Im in no shape to make decisions right now.

[Amber98]

Well on my days off i am able to sleep. When i know i have to go into work the next day i cant sleep. Same was true through my school years. From as early as 6, id constantly worry about the next day. No real worries, my mind would just race about getting up for school getting dressed going to school. I wouldnt sleep monday to friday, not a wink, then weekends i would sleep just fine knowing there was nothing to do the next day.

Years of this and its gotten worse over time.

Anyways i finally decided to take a stress leave. The fatigue got so bad i just wanted to lay in bed all day. But taking the leave, Sleep has gotten better. Im thinking exercise and meditation everyday will help. My job currently pays really well. But was thinking of quitting and going into something like teaching yoga or something easier. Its not that my job isnt easy, the enviornment is very critical and the people are very gossipy and just terrible people. Mental health is looked at as a weakness i couldnt even tell people at work what im suffering with.

So should i go into yoga or something. Its hard to give up a job i worked so hard to get and pays so well. But all these years of achieving success and id give it all up for just a moment of peace and sleep.

[Paxiled]

Can't really answer for you what your best place in life is.  That's a hard question for anyone who hasn't shut off their mind.  The issue is, if you're an anxiety sufferer, if you give up what you like because you have trouble with anxiety and sleep, what makes you think you won't dream up other reasons to be anxious when that one is gone?  You'll have a lot of empty time to do that.  If teaching yoga is something you're qualified to do, would be good at, and really really want to do more than what you're doing now, that's a good reason to do it.  If it's just to avoid, then it's a bad reason.  All jobs present problems -- good ones, bad ones, ones we love, ones we hate, they all involve dealing with things and people we'd rather not.  Life is artificial -- we're an artificial species that has created an artificial world where instead of joining our tribe to gather food and build our shelter and the like we now have to find something that doesn't have to be done in order to acquire script to pay for the things we used to spend our time obtaining.  Our lives have changed to this.  Teaching yoga also has its problems.  So again, if that's your dream job and you haven't done it so far because of the money and money isn't important to you, then by all means, life is short and do what you love.  If you love the job you have and are leaving just because of anxiety, then you'll probably find anxiety in any job.  Only you know what you'd rather do with your days, but I'm guessing it's really not laying in bed all day avoiding stressful situations that are only stressful because you haven't found a way yet to not make them that way.  You're just seeing that as easier, not as something you'd love to do.  All I can go on is you saying you love your job, you just don't love your illness.  The illness will follow you around unless the job or your perfectionism is causing it and teaching yoga won't because you won't care how good you are at it and you see it as stress free because you don't think it's important.  But every job is important to your customers.  See where I'm going here?  No answers, just things to think about.  If yoga is it for you and you can get a job doing it and hold that job and pay the bills, go for it.  If the job you have is what you want, work on what's making it not enjoyable for you.  Make the decision based on what you want, not on your illness, because the illness isn't going to go away unless you fix it.  

[Paxiled]

By the way, I fully realize this is easy for me to say -- it is the right thing to say -- but much harder to do.  Anxiety and the meds given to me for it have ruined my life.  I do get it.

[Paxiled]

Do you like your job?  Do you have other plans?  I mean, anyone who hates their job and wants to move on and can afford to do so should do so, in a disciplined way.  But if you like your job and all this is the judging anxious and depressed people do to make themselves miserable, then this is just avoidance, which never makes things better.  If you're going to be miserable not working, as you say, then at least at work you have some social interaction, you have something of a support network there.  If you like your job.  You're also way too young to give up on fixing this stuff.  You're also the only one who gets to make this decision, not us.  You also need to face that it's not the amount of clonazepam that causes the difficulty of quitting, it's the regularity of taking it.  If your psychiatrist doesn't know how to safely and slowly taper people off meds to limit withdrawal problems, perhaps you need a different one.  I don't really know how it went down, most people go through hell trying to quit clonazepam which is why benzos shouldn't be taken on a regular basis if one can help it.  I was put on it daily without being told the nature of the med, and so are many people, and so we just stay on it.  It's very hard to find a good psychiatrist.  I wish I could tell you something that will fix this, I wish someone could, but it's obviously not going to be true, it's going to be very hard for you.  But isolating yourself doesn't seem to be a great option.  Have you ever worked on not being so intense about everything?  Do you exercise?  Meditate?  Do you have fun?  Do you resist everything that might make you feel a bit better little by little?  If you could put the kind of energy into helping yourself that you put into getting this job, I mean, you're just really young to accept misery into the rest of your life.  Maybe that will happen.  But maybe it won't.

[Amber98]

I do like my job. But the problem is most of my anxiety is job related performance anxiety. Not that my job is hard or stressful to normal people..it just is to me. A major part of my insomnia is the anxiety of going to work in the morning. When i was in school my severe insomnia was all through the school week. I wouldnt sleep at all monday through friday..not a wink. Then id sleep fine on the weekend. This was as far back as kindergarden. I get anxiety about the next day...severe anxiety. Its been so many years of me trying to get help as young as you may think i am...im almost 30 and my body feels like that of an 80 year old. Im so tired and exausted. I can barely take care of myself. Cant buy grocery, cook, wash dishes. I barely get up to take a shower. At least if i quit my job the anxiety of being successful would be gone and maybe id sleep better.  

[Paxiled]

No, it won't, and from your description of what you've been going through, you know that.  Nothing you've done or quit doing has fixed your anxiety problem yet, so why would you have any reason to expect more time sitting around in isolation would do it?  Your anxiety isn't caused by your job, it's caused by the way you think.  If you can change that, you can fix this, and if you can't, medication is there to help.  I realize this hasn't worked out for you yet and no one can promise it ever will, but if you like your job, avoiding it will just amplify your belief that things outside yourself are causing your anxiety.   If that were true every human being would be riddled with crippling anxiety, as life has always been and will always be stressful.  Survival of living things depends on not giving up for most of the members of the species.  Some of us didn't get this message for some reason and grew to have this illness, but many do get better.  The one thing you seem to enjoy in life is your efforts paying off in your getting this job, so why give that part of your life up?