Freelancing and Self-Employment With Chronic Illness
Freelancing can offer chronically ill workers more control and freedom, but it also shifts the work of finding clients, managing pay, and securing benefits onto you.
Latest
The tracker isn't the point
Chronic Ways of Working #1 | Jill Knobeloch Mills: Jill built a detailed system to track patterns across health, work, and daily life. Years later, we learn what remained after she no longer needed it.
Trying things, keeping what works
September brought me a retail experiment, a much busier schedule, and a return to making things plus a few lessons about what my body can actually handle.
SIPS Month 2: The long tail of recovery
Being functional and being recovered? Not the same thing. SIPS Month 2 explores the gap between usable capacity and fuller recovery.
Yes, AI helped me write this
I tried to get (human) help for my AI-assisted work, only to realize I might be asking for too much. Where exactly do debates about ethical AI use leave disability, money, access, and energy?
12 Job boards and resources for disabled and chronically ill workers
Disabled and chronically ill people like us are criminally underemployed in the U.S. These job boards and resources can help change that.
Field Recording: What month one of SIPS taught me
An audio companion to the first monthly field report from the Starr Institute of Physiological Shenanigans.
What month one of SIPS taught me
This imaginary 1930s travel research institute has become the home of all my health data collection and analysis to help me better understand my body with chronic illness.
Field Kit #1 is here! The Chronic Life Observation Kit
A low-burden way to observe your health in context and notice patterns over time.
Apparently I've been busy
I work from bed and use my cane significantly more than I used to, but life is settling down as I adjust to a new reality of physical and mental chronic illness.
Suicide is a control thing
Depression is easy. You just cease to be a functional human being. But choosing to live each day, over and over again? That’s the tough part.
3 lessons I've learned living with major depression
Back once again to share my thoughts on living with depression. It's been a rough six weeks!
Chronically Self-Employed
Disabled and unemployed. What's next?
Losing a job is destabilizing enough. Disability, chronic illness, benefits, and inaccessible systems can turn it into a full-time administrative crisis.
Work & Money
7 Self-management techniques for disabled and chronically ill workers
Work-life balance doesn't always fit chronic illness. These practical techniques can help you work with fluctuating capacity without treating your body like the problem.
Systems & Equity
Hiring disabled workers isn't the hard part. Designing workable jobs is.
Inclusive recruiting means little if the job itself is unworkable. Employers need to examine how work gets done and whether people can keep doing it.
Bodies & Health
3 things you might not know about self-harm (TW/CW)
Most people picture self-harm one way. My experience hasn’t always looked like that. Here’s what I wish more people understood about intention, risk, and support.
Chronically Self-Employed
Special health update: A month of surprises
I'm back! The last few months have been surprising to say the least, from potential new diagnoses to a layoff.
Chronically Self-Employed
Month 4 Health Update: Trying to find stability
Chronically Self-Employed
Month 2 and 3 Health Update: Lessons and setbacks
Chronically Self-Employed
Month 1 Health Update: Living on the suicidal spectrum (TW/CW)
Chronically Self-Employed
I'll be honest, I'm not okay. But I am working on it. (TW/CW: suicide)
I'm current in crisis due to depression and want to keep you all updated. Fair warning though, this gets a bit dark.
Bodies & Health
What's next for me? The Chronic Worker and other 2024 goals.
Work & Money
I've been a full-timer for 3 months now. Here's how it's going.
It's time to look back on the first quarter of my first full-time job.
Bodies & Health
Disabled needs are human needs. Why is that so hard to remember?
I've never been so scared as I was when I became a salaried worker. I'd spent over ten years (my entire professional life) freelancing, first off and on, then full-time. I'd never had PTO, employer-provided insurance, or a boss outside of my