Hi Everyone, it has been a while since I last visited the form and I have made some progress with my recovery since I had my rupture about nine years ago but despite this, I have not made any significant improvements in the quality of life that I want to live. I had always imagined that on the verge of turning 30, I would already have a stable job, income and my own house. Sadly that is not the case as my AVM ruptured in 2016 and I have been recovering ever since. I do not have a stable source of income apart from trading the financial markets, which is okay as I made some money but not consistently and cannot be seen as something to be making a living and doing some side freelancing which I am still struggling with since I barely got any buyers who are interested in hiring me fir their services I have also tried applying for remote jobs but with no luck, I got rejected all the time.
How are you supposed to live a fulfilling life after surviving a catastrophic accident like an AVM if you can’t even get a side job as a disabled person? Can anyone here tell me their experience what i’s like being an unemployed AVM survivor or if you can recommend me a place online where disabled people can get work to sustain themselves financially? i do feel that we as people with disabilities are ostracized b y society by design. How do you get back to the life you want? I have tried my best and people keep treating me like dirt. Before my AVM ruptured, I had an okay job at a mining lab as a sample preparer and lab assistant as the pay rate was good but even with that job it was still a struggle for me to get a second job to keep myself afloat and now I after the accident I got nothing much. How do you break free from the same cycle of being disabled and on the edge of poverty? this is starting to be annoying. I am not depressed but I feel pissed at the world. My mum keeps saying that the goal of my recovery is to get back to society but why the hell would I want to go back to society if it had treated my like dirt in the first place even before my accident? If you are successful in breaking this chain of not progressing in life, please tell me how you did it, I would love to take notes, Thank you
Hi Sam,
I am sorry to hear that and I know how important is to have some stable income.
Have you tried to apply for Social Security Disability? If you have aphasia and other needs they might pay you something, provided that you have contributed to social security in your previous job.
thank you for the input. I have considered applying for disability benefits but this does not really exist in my country of Indonesia, since the government funds here are always used for corruption. and there is nothing left for disabled people like myself. if you know a community where disabled people can get some online work, it would be lovely thank you
This is a problem for people in every country, whether it was an AVM which reduced their abilities or something else.
If there is a disability support payment available where you are, I guess making an application for it is still a good idea, even if it may not go anywhere or get you very much. I know in the UK, much activism by disabled people has led to (temporarily) better consideration – especially in the workplace – but it ebbs and flows with politics. I think the finances in the UK are much tighter than they’ve been for some time.
We have something called the Disability Discrimination Act in the UK, the aim of which was to make it illegal to discriminate against someone as a result of their disability and also to bring in obligations for employers to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate someone with a disability. If that person was dismissed after becoming disabled, there was recourse if reasonable adjustments could have been made to allow them to continue in their job. If these kind of things are not in place in Indonesia, you might find out who is working towards this sort of thing and lobby the government to bring in these kind of things. Through being appropriately supported, many more people are able to do useful work and contribute taxes to the country.
If you’re struggling to find work through an employer, do you have any skills that you can do or make things yourself and sell them? At least part-time? I have retired in recent years and have moved my focus away from being an employee to doing a bit of art: drawing and painting: and the new crowd of people I’m mixing with are selling the work that they are doing. So if you have time and some skill and sufficient coordination to do certain things, would it be possible for you to be self-employed at something?
It’s very tough to be in your situation. My very best wishes,
Thank you very much for responding to my post and giving me advice. i have found sites online that provides online work that ids 100 % remote. sites like flex jobs, freelancers, and Glassdoor are what I visit daily to submit my resume and ask employers for work, so far I have only gotten rejection. it is tough getting work as a disabled even online. You ask me if I have any set of skills and the answer is yes, I have skills in content writing, graphics design, and also fundamental analysis from my daily job as a stock investor and forex trader. I also happen to be a certified human resource officer after I completed college and received a diploma of human resources management.
As you can see from my explanation I do have skills that most employers are looking for but no one seems to be taking an interest in me. I even include samples of my work in every application but even that is not enough. I don’t know about you but have you ever found a community or online organization that helps people with disabilities get jobs or help them with their financials? it is starting to get frustrating and time is moving fast and I am not getting any younger as time moves on. i don’t know how to gol from here. I am already self-employed with stocks and forex but the income depends on the market conditions like last year when I nearly made consistent monthly income from my trades but now the market is slowing down a bit and I am not making any money. i need an alternative. What are your thoughts on my situation?
Well, if you’re a qualified HR person, I’m quite sure there’s nothing I can tell you about how all this HR stuff works! You’ll know more than me!
I don’t know how things work in the Philippines but certainly in Norway and the UK, there are organisations that help with getting disabled or unwell people back into work. In the UK, the nearest one to me is Remploy, though I think it is focussed much more on in-person work than remote.
How open are you being about any limitations you have? (I don’t remember what you’ve said your limitations are). Are you getting to interview but not getting through interview or not even getting invited to interview? There are hundreds of reasons why people don’t get the job, irrespective of disability, though one expects disability can be a big negative factor for some companies.
I’m in my fifties and finished work a few years ago. I’ve not maintained my qualifications greatly in what I used to do, so if I had in mind to go back into work, I’d need to get those qualifications up again or seek new qualifications for whatever area I wanted to get into. I’d still struggle to show relevant experience in any new area and in the same way that disability is looked upon by some companies as a complexity they don’t want, often older age or a shorter work life is looked upon as a negative, too: that any training they support me with will get less return before i decide to retire. So I think this is a common problem.
I guess if there are organisations that are trumpeting their inclusion and diversity approach, they should be more open to someone who is disabled, possibly keen from time to time to show that they are taking on people who need some consideration. However, it can also be just babble.
I think the main thing is not to give up. If you can find work that doesn’t need you to work for someone – like self employed work of any kind – that might also cut out this problem.
Your English is beautiful! Have you considered being an online English teacher? With some training, you could get the credentials that you would need to do this type of work. There will always be a demand for it, and it can be very rewarding. If teaching doesn’t interest you, I am hopeful that, with your English-speaking skills, you could find employment working online.
Hi Oak, thank you for the suggestion. You are not the only person who has suggested that I should become an online English teacher. Even if I could I don’t think I would qualify enough for the role since English is not really my first language, it’s my second but I did get a ban score of 7.5 on my IELTS examination even though I never trained to be a teacher but I do know some technical writing since that was what I was doing while I was in my technical college training to be an HR officer. For now I’m just trying my best to get gigs to write reports or ads for money while I am still recovering. What about you? Have you found decent employment after your head injury?
