I think the freelance dream is my nightmare
When being your own boss and working from home is bad for your mental health
Hi! As promised, today’s post is an honest essay about being self-employed and working from home. It’s a subject I’ve wanted to write about for a long time but I felt nervous to share this – it’s never easy to admit when you’re just not great at something.
I’m finally hitting publish after four days of deliberation because I know elements of my experience are likely relatable to many who worked from home during Covid, or left jobs to go freelance (through choice or necessity) and then realised they weren’t cut out for working alone – even if self-employment previously seemed like the goal to work towards. I’ve had so many in-person conversations about this with freelance friends who are secretly struggling, so I know I’m not the only one.
I’m about as open as they come but I have boundaries when it comes to my personal life and the unknowns of the wider internet. For that reason, the majority of this piece is only accessible to my paid subscribers.
There’s no juicy revelation behind the paywall (I don’t want to encourage anyone to subscribe for the wrong reasons).
I suspect this won’t be shown as a suggested post, so it would be a massive help if you fancied interacting with it (a ‘like’ goes a long way) to give me a better chance of being noticed by new readers. Thank you as always!
I’ve written about work a few times before, including the saga of my unlikely journey to journalism, but if you’re new here, I’m a freelance homes and lifestyle writer for magazines and I’ve been running this Substack for a year. I also style interiors and source homeware for brands and individuals (though not in a while – I think people have forgotten I’m available to do other things besides writing).
I work from home in a tiny one-bedroom flat in Barbican, where no one interferes with the Spotify playlist, I can choose my own working hours, there’s no hellish commute and if I want to spend a random Tuesday zipping up and down the Thames on an Uber boat, that’s what I’ll do. I don’t actually want to but I could…
It’s an ideal scenario for people who dream of writing for a living and being able to do it on their terms. I know how fortunate I am to have wangled such an opportunity and if any of what you’re about to read seems like I don’t know – I do. The knowing makes it worse because now guilt has entered the chat.
The thing is, I also know that I hate my job in its current form. It’s a bit like owning a sensational dress that just doesn’t fit. I’m unfulfilled, I know I’m underachieving (versus what I’m capable of) and I don’t feel like myself anymore. My interests are the same and I might even seem the same, but I’m different. Like a once-fizzy drink that’s gone flat. My decision to work from home, alone, has knocked the effervescence right outta me.
And I’m not surprised – I have a terrible boss who doesn’t encourage or empower me, I’m not progressing and my income is an embarrassment. I have notebooks full of ideas and goals but I don’t know how to bring them to fruition – they all feel too overwhelming to attempt on my own. I watch other people create the things I’d love to create and write the things I’d love to write but it’s as if I’m trapped behind a sheet of glass or frozen to the spot. And oh yeah, the terrible boss is me.
For the past six years, I‘ve felt like I could cry and shout and scream into the wind, someplace no one can hear me, lest they notice and mutter ‘Ffs, here she goes again – screaming into the wind’. Maybe a scenic little island off the coast of Scotland where I can unbottle all of the sadness and frustration I feel about my self-sabotaging choices without freaking anyone out.
Sadness for the loss (or misplacement) of the old me – the ambitious and energetic person I left behind when I decided to move on from my full-time office job in 2018. I’ve desperately wanted to admit just how fucking low and devoid of enthusiasm I feel as a self-employed woman, and how much heavier that feeling grows with every passing month, but I haven’t dared. I’m scared of seeming ungrateful for all the freedom and the perks – undeserving of the opportunities I have that I am arguably wasting. Frustration because despite all of this, I’m still working in a way that makes me deeply unhappy. I’m a deer in headlights. I haven’t made any changes.