This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/antiwork by /u/htcProbably on 2026-05-11 15:52:30+00:00.
Every day, I inch closer to a breaking point I can’t even picture. What the hell am I building up to?
A couple years ago, I watched my boss—a 35-year-old woman I considered a close friend—slowly kill herself under a mountain of medical debt. She drank herself into the grave and died unexpectedly. It was heartbreaking. Now I’m watching another coworker, 53, waste away from severe heart failure. He has a granddaughter who depends on him, so he dragged himself into work every single day—wheezing, weak, barely hanging on. I’d cry in the bathroom knowing he was suffering and there was nothing I could do to help. To even qualify for SSDI, he’d have to quit working for six months to “prove” he can’t work—money he obviously didn’t have. As of last week, he’s in the hospital and they won’t let him come back to work. Because he’s dying. He put off the care he needed to support his family, and now it’s probably too late.
Our employer offers zero assistance. I can’t even donate my own PTO to help. The sick irony? We work in an industry that gives loans to people with shit credit. This job has ripped the curtain back on what everyday Americans are actually going through. I see people scraping by on $700 a month in Social Security right next to people making $500k a year—all of them drowning, begging for loans just to cover medication, groceries, and utilities. This is the time of year people used to ask for home improvement loans or vacation money. Now it’s survival. It’s fucking sickening.
I can barely drive home from work without breaking down. I started therapy a few months ago because of this, and even my therapist just validates what I’m seeing: shit is fucked. People are struggling badly. I’m watching it unfold right in front of me every single day, and there’s nothing I can do. I don’t know what these feelings are building toward. I just want to come out the other side knowing I at least tried. But what the hell can I even do anymore?
I’m dealing with this shit too. My boyfriend is going through a depression that can’t be solved by just working through it. He checked himself into a mental institute Saturday night, but he checked himself out on Monday morning so he could go to work. He was not ready to check out yet. He should have stayed in until he was ok, but he has to work so he can even pay rent or eat. There’s nothing I can do because I’m in another state trying to save to get to him. I’m working minimum wage at only 5-6 hours a day because I have to take the bus and the bus doesn’t run after 6. It’s so damn hard watching him go through this and knowing that if he just stays in, he would start being ok, but money gets in the way of his health. It’s such bullshit
