Current work/life situation August 2018

Hi everyone,

This is not a happy or uplifting message, but likely important for me to actually get out there.

As some of you may know my primary source of income is a call center job, with what I make through streaming being supplementary but still valued. I've worked there for 4 years but the call center work has never been easy for me in a variety of ways, both physically and emotionally. Physically I have a very hard time keeping up with standards asked of me while using just one hand for all the keyboard and mouse work, leading me to have to wear a wristbrace there to lessen but not eliminate the strain and pain. Recently they have also gotten more strict about time on and in-between calls, with some measures both increasing that strain and in my case adding a sense of worthlessness that I can't quite keep up; with the fact that I can't keep up being thrown in my face multiple times a day.

I already went into it a bit, but the emotional issues with the job are quite high; ranging from the expected difficulty of being yelled at over the phone every weekday for things I did not do, to the worthlessness mentioned previously, and finally moral problems with the work itself. The client for the center I work at is a relatively large electricity company, so there's the general issue that I strongly believe such services should be socialized. With that though, my role is both in service orders (requested turn ons, transfers when they move, etc.) and in credit (billing issues, discussing reconnections when disconnected for non-payment) with both departments handling outage calls. I started with just service orders and outages, which was fine as those would be needed in a similar capacity regardless, and was added to credit later. The absolute hardest thing within credit for me are all the calls I handle from folks with disabilities that really are just trying their best, and sometimes I can help with a few options, but very often those options are already gone and I have to tell them that they will be disconnected or can't be reconnected until they've brought together sums of money well out of their reach. This hurts so, so much! Here I am, having advocated for those with disabilities outside of work, but then I have to be the messenger that they can't have the basic necessity of electricity. It feels hypocritical and disgusting.

I've dealt with all of this for years, but with some changes and just general things building up there I don't know if I can handle it any more. The past couple of weeks I have skipped several days of work because I noticed a very strong feeling coming out: the feeling of wanting to die; and not in a light, passing sense. I have made no plans of suicide, but that feeling has been strong enough that it scared me intensely and it is so hard to convince myself to go back there. I've told myself in the past that if I reached a point like this I should just quit, despite the risks involved with unemployment. So I might quit my job and focus on full-time streaming for a while. I am by no means making enough currently through streaming for this to last as-is, but I do have some savings and could at least give it a solid shot before looking for more regular work. Also, I could potentially have time for more accessibility work again, which would be nice, although not expected to be sustainable. Whatever choice I make here, I'm scared but I'll do my best.

Thanks for reading as well as all the love and support,
	-halfcoordinated

tl;dr- My day job is bad enough that I've actually wanted to die, and I may leave it to give full-time streaming and other avenues a shot.