An Inconvenient Phobia.

I have a theory. (Gosh, Jeffrey’s got a theory!)

It was Emily Bronte who put me onto it. When I was researching the family, I discovered something about her that has led to a difference of opinion among commentators and biographers. She went to school three times during her teen years, twice as a pupil and once as a teacher, and each time she became so depressed that she had to be sent home again. On one occasion, her older sister Charlotte seriously feared for her health.

It has become usual to see Emily’s objection to school simply as a case of homesickness. In my opinion, however, one biographer got it right when she said it was nothing of the sort, for Emily demonstrated several times that she could go away from home without becoming homesick. She said that Emily simply couldn’t stand to be controlled. Something in her nature made it impossible for her to function in an environment where she had to comply with somebody else’s rules, requirements, methods and timetables. It drove her into a pit of despair verging on insanity. Neither should we consider the possibility that she was lazy. All accounts indicate that she was virtually a workaholic when it came to doing the things she wanted to do. But while Charlotte and Ann held several positions as teachers and governesses, Emily stayed at home as housekeeper for the rest of her short life.

I see the same thing in my daughter. After she left school at sixteen, she tried several jobs but couldn’t keep hold of any of them. She became depressed and rebellious. And then she founded and ran an inner city charity because she believed in doing something constructive for the disadvantaged people of poor communities. She did it for thirteen years, whilst at the same time having children and bringing them up diligently. She refused to buy processed food; all meals were properly cooked using fresh ingredients. This meant that the time available to spend on the charity was limited, and she would often work well into the early hours of the morning dealing with funding applications and the like, only to be up again at six for the kids. She worked unbelievably hard for those thirteen years. She was anything but lazy, and yet many saw her as just that because she wasn’t doing a ‘proper job.’

And I’ve seen the same thing in myself. I was successful at school, and yet I absolutely hated going. I used to get very depressed every time a new term was looming. I’ve done a string of jobs and was moderately good at several of them, but I hated them nonetheless. I swear that if I hadn’t managed to become self employed when I was thirty five I would have gone mad. It was becoming that serious. And yet when I started to do what I wanted to do, I worked well. I would sometimes work twelve hour days as a photographer. I went actively looking for work, and was very happy when I got it. I have no problem with working, but I have a deep and abiding loathing of working for an employer.

So, since we’re not looking at laziness here, should we be considering the possibility that there is an inconvenient but definable condition lurking in the minds of some people; and, if so, should we be honest enough to face the fact and recognise it? Could there really be such a thing as employment phobia? Or perhaps we should call it ‘control phobia.’

I do realise that this would be a hard pill for governments and the public to swallow, since they do so like to dismiss as ‘work shy welfare scroungers’ all those who find working for an employer difficult.

And some of them are, of course. But maybe not all.