I really hate dealing with comments like this. I've already written and deleted one upset reply.
With 60 percent of the population impaired to some degree, it doesn't work for the world to say "Only the hail and hardy people should work."
I didn't qualify for disability. I still don't.
I had a corporate job. I quit it so I could prioritize my health.
Like many people, my job was harming my health. In contrast, gig work allowed me to get healthier.
This world does not usually reward you for having a good sob story. That's not how that works.
Saying impaired people shouldn't have to work and from there arranging a world where they aren't allowed to work is a nightmare scenario where any defect cuts you out of the system entirely.
When I was a homemaker, I couldn't get good drugs to treat my condition. I was bedridden and being treated like a hypochondriac who got off on cadging antibiotics for funsies.
Then I got a proper diagnosis. The following year, with appropriate accommodation for my condition, I attended an eight week GIS Summer School.
Halfway through, the air turned yellow, probably from sulfur from a factory, and I began reacting anaphylacticly anytime I set foot outside.
I had borrowed $19k to attend. Failure was not an option.
A doctor put me on eight prescription drugs so I could finish the program.
Twenty-two months of drug withdrawal followed. And it saved my life. All those drugs were a turning point in my condition.
People don't really try to help sad sacks live. They don't really try to heal the sick or have compassion for the poor.
But they will dope you to the gills because you have a job to do.
Working -- on my terms -- saved my life.
Maybe that's not a good thing. It's a shitty life in a shitty world full of shitty people and I routinely wish I had died instead.
But working was the only viable option I had for so very many reasons. Telling me I shouldn't work is like telling me to go die in a fire for having been born with the wrong genes.