I prefer to look at it as deliberately not bothering to participate in capitalism rather than saying, “I’m unemployed”. It makes me feel like I’ve got a measure of agency in the fact that I’ve not had a “real” job in about five years. I had lost my last “real” job like so many others, ultimately because of an awful sleep disorder that at times is a mild inconvenience and at others a living hell with a combination of the worst symptoms of narcolepsy, chronic fatigue, and world-class insomnia. But I’m not here to talk about living with a non 24-hour circadian rhythm.

I’ve managed to get by mostly on the generosity of my loved ones, some of whom have a modicum of understanding what my disability does to make my life miserable. That and scrounging random gigs and odd jobs that didn’t require me to be awake at any particular time, or at the very least with any consistency.

I’ve done just about everything under the sun in that regard. I actually earned my college degree in graphic design, so gigs of that kind have been coming and going for me for years. Though the work isn’t the hard part, it’s the finding it reliably that seems impossible most days. It’s fasting or feasting and more fasting than feasting recently. I’ve managed to generate multiple streams of income with some published writing and illustration, but it doesn’t exactly cover the bills.

I drove for both Lyft and Uber simultaneously at one point, but a combination of chronic hip pain and diminishing returns eventually put an end to that endeavor and lead to me selling my car for gas money. I’ve managed to get gigs as a background actor, but haven’t been able to make any headway with any kind of speaking role, despite signing up with for a baker’s dozen various “talent agencies” a handful of whom wanted me to pay them money for the privilege of getting to access their knock off Craigslist with twice as many fake offers. By the way, never make my mistake and actually ever pay an individual or organization to find you work, it’s not really any concern of theirs if you ever get any work so long as they get their dime.

More recently I’ve been focusing mostly on writing. That, FYI is what I’m doing here, trying to pursue the life of a professional writer.

Make no mistake, this is absolutely not the only basket I’m tossing my eggs in. You see it’s coming down to the wire for me now. I had a temporary job at a big-box pet supply store mopping the floors. I had sworn to myself I’d never work retail or food service again if I could help it, but there I was, trying to force myself up at 4 AM to ride the bus and train for two hours to work for three to six, literally cleaning crap off the floor for not much more than minimum wage. I told them when they hired me that they’d probably fire me because of my sleep disorder, and inevitably it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Now I’m a bit under the knife, I’ve got to pay rent the and eat and my coffers have unfortunately run dry. My partner who I’d been living with and was engaged to marry, broke it off a little more than a month ago, so now I’m totally on my own. I’ve resorted to selling my possessions, and my decency. That is to say, I’ve sold some rather illicit pictures I took of myself to internet strangers. It’s not the most dignified money I’ve ever made, but you have to take what you can get sometimes, I guess. I might manage to not get evicted for the new year, but there’s still no guarantee.

Things could still turn around. I’ve applied for disability assistance, and I’ve been prescribed a new drug that actually treats my condition and somewhat mitigates the symptoms, so I’ve actually applied to get my old job at the call center back. They’re short staffed right now from what I hear, and I’ve also heard that they have revised their attendance policy in the subsequent years after I was let go under otherwise good terms, so, I’ve got my fingers crossed that maybe everything will come together and maybe all the pieces will fall into place.

Anyway, that’s been my experience, could be worse, I’m sure, but there’s obviously room for things to get better. At this point I’m still hopeful, but certainly not expectant. So, I’ll leave you with what my grandpappy used to say about times like these: hope for the best but plan for the worst, additionally plan for the worst but hope for the best, but most importantly just keep going, you’ll inevitably get somewhere.

Be kind to yourselves out there.

About the Author: Tanya Elizabeth Tyler has been writing since she was old enough to hold a pencil and slightly before she knew how to spell too many words. She’s also passionate about animation, motion disciplines like dance, gymnastics, and martial arts. She also enjoys playing music with her friends and is entirely self-taught on both the viola and keyboard.

In an attempt to drum up as much lucrative readership as she can, she’s taken to writing cheesy romance novels and selling them on Amazon under a pen name. She’s doing what she can to promote her writing career by maintaining her blog MagnificentSmut.com where she features selections from her romance novels, stories of her own exploits, as well as original works and saucy roleplay that she makes as a hobby with various partners and internet strangers.

About the Disability: I have a fairly unique disability. I have a sleep disorder called non-twenty-four-hour circadian rhythm disorder. Thankfully N24 for short. N24 is at best a mild annoyance and at worst a personal hell. It’s made keeping a regular job literally impossible time and again, makes literally any kind of long term plan-making completely impossible, results in effects not unlike insomnia AND narcolepsy, it puts, as you might expect quite the strain on your social life, and even worse most other aspects of your health. N24 makes it so that my internal clock is set to roughly Martian time.

Every day I wake up an hour later than I did the day before without exception, and every night, I won’t be able to sleep until an hour later, no matter what I do. And I really do mean, no matter what, I’ve tried everything over the counter and under the table, some things are more effective than others, but I’m in luck there is a treatment designed from the ground up for what I’ve got. My health insurance balked at paying, (perhaps because of the $2K a month price tag). However the company that makes the drug that treats N24 recently began shipping me my prescription directly, at no expense, thanks to their patient assistance program.