Academia for 300

I wish I could work more. I am actively looking for work, I have a work advisor, I have a PhD. Most roles say they are not willing to be flexible on hours. Often you start without any ergonomic equipment and have to wait months (while your body is in increasingly more pain) either hoping your company or the government pay for equipment you are legally entitled to.

When you started that new job you have to re-explain your reasonable adjustments, also legally protected, and then not get them because your managers don't understand. Now your mental health, on top of your physical health, is declining. You try to hold on for months until the adjustments settle, but in that time you've either been unable to do the work due to the lack of support or you've had so many flare ups of symptoms you physically cannot be at work (have 6 weeks bed bound as a treat). You feel guilty taking time off a new job so you work while laying on the floor, or at random hours to make up the time, making everything worse. Meanwhile your employer does nothing.

You finally leave that job because the pain is just too much. You apply for Employment Support Allowance, £400 a month, and constantly fight with the DWP about your benefits while working a part time job that finally fits your requirements but the hours are too few to cover your bills. You will lose your ESA if you work more than 16 hours a week or make more than £812/month (you wanted to live your life? Fuck you). The DWP decides, without every seeing you, that you're not disabled enough and ends your support.

You become more stressed, the symptoms of your condition become harder to manage, your mental health declines further. But every six weeks the job centre calls and ask you 'are you applying for work', you say 'yes' and that's the end of that.

You burn out so hard that the need to work can cause you to have a panic attack.

Finished stitching my Oversight series.

Over fifty years of data show a peak in PFAS (also known as "forever chemicals") content in seabird eggs in the 90s, followed by a decrease as regulations went into effect. The most recent findings show a 70% decrease of most common PFAS.

We are making genuine progress! Producers are dramatically altering how much they use PFAS and how much gets released in effluent, but also there's a lot better understanding of how to remove PFAS from the environment!