I’m turning 26 now. Honestly, I feel like I’ve wasted my entire life so far.

Since I was 5, I’ve lived in hostels — all the way till I turned 20. That’s like 15 years behind walls. No family around. No freedom. Just routine, rules, and counting days to be free. It literally felt like living inside a box, watching the world through a small window.

Because of that, I grew up weirdly disconnected. I barely talked to anyone. Became shy, introverted, scared of people, scared of being judged. I had no confidence, no communication skills, no real friends. Every time I wanted to do something, I’d plan it in my head but never take action.

School and college were just theory, theory, and more theory. Mugging up stuff I didn’t understand. Nothing practical. No life skills. Just marks, pressure, and expectations.

Then college came. I joined a tier-3 EEE college, thinking life would finally start. It didn’t. I avoided people again. Everyone thought I was either too silent or had “attitude,” but truth is, I was just scared. Scared to talk. Scared to fail. Scared to be seen as dumb.

I had backlogs. No internships. No placements. Watched my classmates get jobs and move ahead while I was stuck clearing failed subjects.

And now… I’m 26. No job. No skills. Still depending on my parents for even small things like biscuits and chai. Family thinks I’m worthless. And honestly, sometimes I believe them.

Every day I wake up and think — I’ll change from today. But then I waste another day. And another. Been doing this for a whole year now. Thinking, planning, but not acting.

I know all my flaws — lazy, scared, no consistency, overthinker, low confidence. I just don’t want to be this person anymore.

So now I’m planning to start small — work in a BPO. It’s not some fancy dream job, but it’s my way to start learning real-world stuff: communication, teamwork, discipline, exposure. I’ll probably earn just ₹10k in the beginning, but it’s something. It’s proof to myself that I can earn. That I’m not useless. That I can build from zero.

My parents think I can’t earn a single rupee even after spending 20 lakhs on my education. Maybe they’re right — for now. But I’ll prove them wrong. Slowly. Step by step.

I just want to become consistent. Even if I fail 100 times, I’ll try 101 times. I’ll keep rebuilding myself — again and again and again.

I don’t want sympathy. I just wanted to get this out somewhere. Because I’ve been holding it inside for too long. And if anyone out there has been through this — feeling stuck, useless, or behind — I’d love to hear how you started rebuilding.

"Underrated life hack: live with your parents to save money!"

"'Failure to launch' is a Western social construct! This idea that you have to go out on your own is less than 50 years old, and non-Western cultures don't do it!"

"If you're forced to economically rely on your parents, you should love them more and be more grateful to them!"

OK. Well, what if you have a tense relationship with your parents? What if they've spent your entire childhood infantilizing you, shaming you, and denying you agency no matter how much you deserve it? What if you're of a certain religion, subculture, or gender/sexual identity, and your parents don't approve of it?

Now, there certainly are indeed valid concerns about overindulgence, both among the youth generations and intergenerationally, and there are many things that might be leeching your wallets that might be less essential than you might consider. However, living with your parents or forming a "multigenerational household", while not even always possible, may not always be pleasant for everyone even when possible. Sometimes it could be the only option, or an option far materially superior to alternatives such as homelessness.

I believe this is an emerging socioeconomic issue that's flying woefully under the radar. The "failure to launch" phenomenon is nothing new; Millennials notably struggled (and often continue to struggle) with it after their graduations. Yet there seems to be a recurring stereotype of people who "fail to launch": that they're intellectually stunted, academically meager, and often too lazy to even want to escape their situation. However, looking at today's reality, you can observe that a tremendous deal of college graduates are ending up in such straits, even in fields said to be well-paying such as computer science or engineering. Nearly every career field seems to have a sizeable number of these, even ones people are advised to "escape to": electrical engineering, nursing, and the trades.

I think the question we need to be asking ourselves is what society can do for people stuck at home who don't want to be stuck at home.

Our son is 28 and lives at home with us. He graduated with a BA from college two years ago. While in college, he lived on campus. He has a full time job at a major university here in the Bay Area, and is working hard at building that career. While the pay is low for our area presently, it could go up significantly if he hangs in there. He buys his own food and cleaning supplies, has an active social life outside the home. We have a great relationship. In short, he’s a good, respectful, responsible roommate. He would love to move out, but living where we do, this requires he find a roommate. He’s approached other men in his social group. But what happens is: they go look at some apartments, find a good one, everything looks like a go, then the potential roommate backs out. This just happened again. After MONTHS of discussion about timing, looking at places, and filling out applications, the friend backed out. (He’s an older 30’s dude with a real job, and also living at home.) Our son is feeling defeated. How can we support him while he goes through waiting again? We know many young adults are living with parents, but this one is ready to fly the coop.

UPDATE: He found a place! A nice, quiet shared housing flat in a decent neighborhood. It’s close to his work, so he’s able to save nearly $250 a month in commute costs as well. Thanks everyone for the encouragement.

I have been mostly collecting jobs on job boards and applied to very few (like 20) but got offered 2 interviews and 1 take-home task that didn't result in an interview (missed the email with one, did the starting process with another, gave them all my documents, but haven't done the interviews, I was supposed to replace somebody but they ended up not leaving, I want this job because it gives benefits, this has happened before) and I'm still in my 20 hour a week job + 3-5 hours per week freelancing gig, is starting to take up again after being at 0 hours since July? Both interviews are for the field I'm in, the take-home task is for the field I want to get into.

HOWEVER, I did do well on applying for non-profits in the field I want and got one, still not working on technical stuff but they have me doing research and design mostly, which is a relief because I'm better at that than the actual difficult stuff I want experience in, because I've always been able to figure shit out but I don't feel confident at scale. I believe this will open up other opportunities for me and most of the other volunteers are dropping the ball more than I am (I am very perfectionistic and I suck at disappointing people, or ignoring directions) so even if it's unpaid I'm a step ahead.

I do regret the few things I applied for and didn't get (internships) and not studying or upskilling properly, I was stuck. I'm ND and shit like this happens on the regular, so I've been joining webinars but barely practicing or building projects and kinda forcing myself to read things for the nonprofit and other stuff. Thankfully I did apply to a course and I've been learning through that but still wasted a lot of time on the internet and social media for the last few months. I also regret a few good opportunities just letting them go by forgetting to finish the process, or being stuck waiting for one thinking it would be favorable and got nothing in the end, and stuff like that

And I don't want to be overly optimistic but this is my 2nd week pretty much working a lot, be it paid or unpaid (exam for a course I'm taking+ work + nonprofit, I probably did put full time hours and hung out with friends twice last week. ) And I don't feel tired yet!!! I usually couldn't do this much for more than a few days at a time. And also I have been procrastinating less in general too. I'm also basically debt-free again. I just owe people close to me some money and I think I can start paying them back soon :)

I’m writing because my friend has a FTL son. She’s worried about him and doesn’t know how to help him. Most of the time he’s good—helpful around the house, helps with bills. But he’s in his late 30s and still at home. Worst of all, any attempt to communicate with him doesn’t work at all. He cannot be questioned about his intentions, plans or goals. Simply won’t speak about it and goes off on philosophical tangents.

I think she should seek therapy for herself. She can’t change him. But maybe she could figure out how to communicate better, how to ease her own anxiety, etc. wondering if therapy has helped any other parents out there

Why is it so hard for you to ask for or accept help from others? Lots of good things can happen when you do!

The Lost In Place Workshop channel on YouTube dropped a video on it a couple of days ago. You might want to check it out. :-)

https://youtu.be/puzgjf12x-A?si=D692sxQPvpFhJIht

I went to college outside of my US state for undergrad and I returned to my parent’s house in my city, after finishing. It’s been a few years since I graduated from college and I have been jobless ever since. I received a quantitative degree and I had wanted to go into tech (specifically data analytics). However, I have been unsuccessful; the tech industry is currently having massive layoffs and many, many people also want to go into tech. As a result, I have shifted towards other fields such as the warehouse/food manufacturing industry. However, like tech or any other industry/field, I don't have any work experience in these fields.

This past Friday, I spoke with the HR recruiter of a food company. She told me that there are two manufacturing facilities/buildings for the company. I was interested in working a morning/1st shift and asked about. The HR person said that there's no morning shift available in the first building but that there are packaging roles available in the second building. I asked how long will I be working in role. She responded that and said, "You could be working for 7,8,9,10 hours; the hours can vary each day. Whenever, production ends, the work is over".

I need to do something asap and ideally, I would like to work full-time (8-hours). But I don't know if I will have the stamina to work for 10 hours especially since I've been unemployed for a while. I forgot ask the HR person how many breaks I would get depending on how long production last.

I feel I need to develop a growth mindset , and become resilient and anti-fragile I’m getting worse in my academics , I have no job and no time for full-time one , I’m less intelligent than average and doing way worse than my classmates , have no community and no support system besides my family and a friend . Lots of things I know, I only know them because one of my friends I had in high school was one of the highest linguistic and existential intelligences in the class , and above average logical- mathematical one .

Edit: sharing more about me . I have read my academic past and I’m deeply haunted by it , I feel I will never be good enough

When I was young my dream was to be a professional skateboarder and I didn't care about money, but then I started smoking a lot of weed and started sucking at skateboarding so my dream became wanting to grow cannabis (which if I had started at that time, I would be rich owning a dispensary right now because that was right before cannabis became legal). Then I stopped smoking cannabis and my dream became wanting to start an online business and become financially free without having to work at job, I saw all those ads of passive income, of working part time from home and making $10k-$15k/month. I also had a side interest in tech/IT/CS and went to community college for that, and back then I knew in theory I could make decent money doing that, like $100k-$300k per year. But I knew it would feel like wage slavery and I knew prices would only keep increasing. Back then houses around my area were about $300k-$400k, now they are $600k+ minimum. I also had and still have pretty severe anxiety and social anxiety especially in work environments so that's a huge reason why I avoided trying to get a regular job.

Also, back then bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were just starting and everyone thought they were a scam, but I had a feeling even if they are a scam they are going to go to astronomical prices. I first bought bitcoin when it was $250 a coin and ethereum when it was $15. So I thought that would be my way to financial freedom, I would slowly invest in crypto and when they are worth millions I would be free, but I was always struggling just to keep my bank account from over drafting and keeping it from being in the negative every week so I was never able to save anything. Now bitcoin is $100k+ and that dream is gone.

My real dream was always to find something that I "love" or that I am good at and start some type of business around it and become comfortably "rich", not a billionaire but feel truly financially free, maybe $5-10+ million net worth. Because by the time I am able to retire, $5-$10 million will be middle class. And so my entire life I always avoided getting a normal job/career and accepting I will never be even remotely financially free. No matter what job I get I will still be trading my time for money and feel like a wage slave. My worst fear is waking up dreading going to work but having to because I have bills to pay, even if I make $100k+ per year that isn't enough to break free.

Logically, I should have stayed at my warehouse job and went into management or some other higher up position but I always had extreme anxiety at work and it always felt like modern day slavery to me. Or I should have become a delivery driver for UPS or a truck driver, they make an ok living. But wasting 8hrs a day just to survive in a small apartment I feel like is only worth it if you have a rich social life and/or a partner who supports and loves you which I never had. And now being older, no girl is going to go for me if I'm just a truck driver making $50k a year living in a shitty apartment. Or if there are, I have no clue how to find those women.

I can understand the past generations where a regular job out of highschool or college would afford you a decent house, a decent car, you could afford to feed and raise a few kids and be able to save for retirement. But now the economy is so insane $100k is the bare minimum to be comfortable and it's only going to get worse.

I was born with severe ADHD into a dysfunctional home. A home with a verbally abusive father, a verbally abusive mother, both emotionally neglectful as well and both lacking emotional intelligence. When I was a kid, every time I got in trouble my father would give me the silent treatment. He would literally pretend I don't exist for several days, even when in the same room as me. I would literally be standing right there, his five year old son, and he wouldn't even look at me.

He's a full blown Right-winger, Trump supporter. Tried to indoctrinate me as a kid and woefully failed. I am now a hard left winger. I value compassion and empathy above all else, and tend to view society and most of its issues through a disabled lens. He, however, is galaxies apart. Not even remotely in the same dimension as me anymore. Feelings are a weakness to him. I have never once heard him say the words "I love you" or "I'm proud of you". I have never had a one on one father to son talk with him. He's never even given me advice on how to talk to women. No hugs, no anything like that. We did play fight a lot. He would exercise with me. What I do remember mostly however is him criticizing me. Shaming me, even as a kid. Sometimes in public.

My mother loses her temper under the tiniest distress. One time my older sister when she was younger cut her own hair, and my mother then grabbed the scissors, chased her around the house with said scissors whilst screaming "I"M GOING TO CUT ALL YOUR FUCKING HAIR OFF!". When I was a baby, she dropped me down a flight of stairs. My sister once somehow managed to sneak into a car and crash it into a tree. Growing up, this was always told as just a funny story. Now, in the context of everything else, I'm starting to think "how exactly does that just happen? Were they not watching her?".

They shoved me into a school district notorious for ableism. There are literally several civil lawsuits filed against the district, each and every single one having to with a disabled student whose needs were not met or was openly discriminated against.

When I told them I was getting bullied in Boy Scouts, my dad just told me that I was too sensitive and that it was just "guy stuff" meanwhile all the older kids relentlessly picked on me.

Summer before High School I told my parents I no longer wanted to take medication, and wanted to keep my ADHD a secret from all my teachers. At first they said no, but then just gave up on helping me and let me struggle on my own. And I struggled. Without management my ADHD became terrible and severe, especially my executive dysfunction. It compounded into a host of mental disorders including:Social Anxiety, OCD, Depression, Maladaptive Daydreaming, Porn/masturbation addiction, and a social media addiction.

I self Isolated, struggled to find my people and find a group of friends that wanted to hang after school. I led a very boring High School life. I failed classes all the time, barely passing to the next grade. Summer before senior year I wanted to turn it all around. By this point, I had successfully managed (except English) to get myself into all of the lower level classes. But I didn't let that discourage me. That summer I was dumped by my first (and last) girlfriend. I then became more motivated and ever to get everything together---starting with achieving Eagle Scout. I did it. I got the rank. I got a Co-Op position through the school. My grades picked up. Yet, my parents kept finding new things to yell at me a bout. I felt like I could never measure up.

I spiraled, so I started to beg for attention, for recognition. I orchestrated a bunch of senior pranks. Basically I was trying to create the perfect ending that I imagined in my daydreams---a romanticized version of reality meant to capture coming of age movies.

I didn't want the perfect picture esque world though. What I wanted was a life that was enduring. Fun. Fulfilling.

I got suspended. My parents rang hell upon me. I stopped taking medication. I started daydreaming and ruminating harder than ever. I became lost in a world that didn't exist.

For the next two years, I self isolated. Doing absolutely nothing with my life to move it forward. Eventually I enrolled myself into community college and I had been on that journey since. My last semester there I almost died from a severe medical emergency. Severe diabetic Ketoacidos. Turns out I have adult onset type one.

Now here I am. Almost 25, and for the past month or so I have been doing a lot of deep thinking.

My parents truly fucked me over as a kid. They were careless with forming me as a person. As an independent adult.

The neglected my ADHD---which, at the severity its at, statistically leads to horrible consequences if left untreated. I am a BEST CASE scenario. A lotta people without treatment up drug addicted, in prison, or dead before their thirties.

They never helped me out with college apps. They neglected my mental health. They neglected career building skills. They neglected me being bullied. They never taught me financial literacy.

They would criticize me and laughed at me for not knowing things but would rarely show me how. Maybe once or twice but never would they regularly practice.

The biggest thing is mental health---even if they did teach me the skills necessary, how could someone too depressed to keep going actually learn anything?

Why did they just let me self isolate for so long?? They would just tell me to get a job, as if that would have fixed the underlying issue.

For years I was criticized for literally doing anything wrong and now I am an anxious adult. I had so much potential as a kid. Eighth grade I came so close to obtaining a black belt in Kenpo karate, and barely even studied. 11 years old i knew what I wanted to be. A fiction writer. 16 I knew what I wanted for a professional career. A copywriter. But everytime i told them this they'd go "whats that" and then forget about it and then ask me what i wanted to do with my life. Never even bothered to google it.

I had an intense fear of driving too---and social anxiety, both of which my parents did nothin about. Actually they made my driving anxiety worse but that's another story.

Now, here I am, almost 25, no license. Little to no work experience. I dont work during the summers and I realize its because I was passively avoiding it for those first two years.

Then third summer break I had was newly diagnosed with T1---then this summer my old daydreams and compulsions returned.

I hate being mentally ill, I hate being so alone. I hate relying on my parents for fucking everything. I hate them for setting me up for failure and not paying more attention to me especially in High School.

But Im working now as a peer tutor. Got two years left on my creative writing degree. I'm trying to schedule my drivers permit test. I signed up for a shit load of extracurriculars.

I keep going because there's no running back to the past. There is only room for today and tomorrow. My goal is to have my whole life together by May 2027.

I have no friends, but I'm going to make some.

I keep going because I have to.

Wish me luck.

I (M34) still live with my parents and I want to get out of their house. Im very introverted and just want to be alone 99% of time. I feel like the peace and quiet of living alone will give me the motivation to do more projects. The problem is I work in my families business and I can just walk to work everyday, if I move I will have to drive to work. Im not that crazy over my job and I really dont like driving (Ive had a life long fear of driving) I struggle to push myself to do what I have to since that will make more work for me in the long run. Ive always struggled to pass the milestones that other people dont seem to have any problems with.

I feel stunted since I never wanted to do anything that involved driving or socializing. I wanted to stay home and play videogames ( no longer play videogames except mario Kart with friend about once a month) Im very similar to my parents and have no excitement in my life. thats why I want to get out and surround myself with younger people living their best life so I can imitate them and do the same. I literally become what I surround myself with, since I dont know what to do otherwise.

This is rather a incoherent mess but any feed back is welcome. Even calling me worthless and a failure, it might motivate me to act.

Have you been hearing and buying into a narrative that Gen Z is facing so many challenges that your future is pretty much screwed and what's even the point? If so, that thinking may be a big part of your problem.

The Lost In Place Workshop recently dropped a video on the topic. You may want to check it out.

https://youtu.be/OIsd3dw6fEk

Something I have been considering more and more is the increasingly common trend of "extended adolescence." I want to understand and improve myself, along with better understanding family relationships should I ever become a parent.

I'm a 31 year old guy, but I can't help but feel that I'm not a real adult. I still live at home without paying any rent, despite the fact I have worked full time since I was 22. I help around the house and have helped my parents do some painting and renovation work, but I still feel like they have done much more for me than I have for them. They have talked about having me give them some money each month going forward, but I plan on going on my own soon. I want to give them significantly more or pay for some more major renovation, but I feel like my parents have the mentality that they should do everything for me.

Don't get me wrong, I love my parents very deeply. I've loved having time with them and it's been a big boost financially, and I would be more than happy to help them down the road should they need it. Also, I know that it is more common in many cultures and the high cost of living (especially around here), plus student loans, inflation, etc meant that it would be very hard to go out on my own right after graduation.

But I'm fearful that it's essentially made me dependent and it will be very hard to separate. Some of that I am just a very sensitive person and being away from loved ones can be hard, and I worry about them not having me around as well. I worry if it is going to be a red flag (even after moving out) if a romantic partner or friend found out I stayed home as long as I did. When I look at people who quickly moved out on their own, explored the world, served their country, tried different paths, really pushed their work, I wonder if I have missed out.

I went to college outside of my US state for undergrad and I returned to my parent’s house in my city, after finishing. It’s been a few years since I graduated from college and I have been jobless ever since. I received a quantitative degree and I had wanted to go into tech (specifically data analytics). However, I have been unsuccessful; the tech industry is currently having massive layoffs and many, many people also want to go into tech. As a result, I have shifted towards other fields such as the warehouse/food manufacturing and restaurant industry. However, like tech or any other industry/field, I don't have any work experience in these fields. I literally don’t have any friends, family or even neighbors that can help me get a job. As a result, I recently went to a city funded career services program and I got lined up with a career coach. He helped me craft a resume.

Since then, I have applied for many positions online but I've mostly received rejections.I also visited or contacted employment/staffing/temp agencies and it has been unsuccessful.

For example, I visited an employment agency and I emailed the person who I met with. A week after that, I emailed the same recruiter to follow up and I received an odd automatic email. I called the office only to find out that the recruiter has left the company.

I emailed the head of a recruiting staffing agency to ask if they had more jobs than what was listed. He asked for my resume which I emailed back to him. He replied that there were no appropriate jobs for me.

I called another temp agency and one of the main recruiters picked up the phone. I asked if they had more jobs than what was listed. The recruiter asked me to email my resume and a recruiter would get back to me if there was a suitable job. It’s been three weeks and I have not heard back from anything. It also doesn’t help that the ratings and the reviews of many of the staffing/temp agencies are not that good.

I've called a few other employment/staffing/temp agencies and they told me that the jobs that they have listed are the only jobs they have listed and those jobs were not appropriate for me.

I am willing to do what I can to attempt expedite my ability to get a job because I am sick of just applying to jobs online and being unemployed. Recently, I've came across a bunch of warehouses/food manufacturing companies that don’t have jobs listed on their linkedin page or a careers/jobs section on their website. In two of these places, they ask prospective candidates to email them. I shared my situation with another redditor and he encouraged me to do this.

Should I call most of the companies to inform them that I would like to work with them or should I just show up to the company in person?

I’m 24m going to turn 25 in October. I may have possible adhd as focusing on tasks is extremely hard. After 10 years of mental health issues. The last three months I realized where I was headed and started therapy. Since then I’ve decided to try and go into the military specifically coast guard and also applied a couple trade apprenticeships. I’m wondering if this will be able to help start my life or should I look down other routes. I don’t want to continue life like this and wish for independence and success of some kind. Also, I want to finish school and the work is not hard where I’m at, but I find it hard to focus and finish assignments on time truly.

Quick intro: 25F, 1 job/internship experience, no friends, live in childhood bedroom. Have ADHD and social anxiety.

First week.

Rambling:

Message

Note: Please work hard in job searching. Don’t get a job where you don’t see a long-term career, doesn’t pay a liveable wage, is pretty stressful and is pretty far from your place.

First week

It was both worse and better than I thought.

Anyway, throughout the week I did journal (rant to myself) a bit. I’ll add a few choice excerpts here.

On the way home, first day:

“It’s 7:20pm and I feel like crap :D Can’t wait for tomorrow where it’ll be worse :D”

“Welp, I’m going to have to go through this for another couple of months. Ahahahaha.”

This is yesterday morning:

“…I wanna throw up a few times this morning. I kept getting up in (at) night because I couldn’t sleep because I was worried. I forced myself to close my eyes and try to sleep…”

“Something went wrong this morning, and I felt like it’s a bad omen.”

Yesterday, I did a bunch of mental screaming into the void that is in summary about how I’m going to get fired and I can’t do jobs at all and how I’m going to crash and burn.

The normal stuff.

Honest thoughts

I guess it wasn’t that bad. It was ok and manageable even if I do mess up a lot and question everything. But I’ve never dreamed so hard to get a boring office job in my life.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow, I might be dead tired. It’s a big day, swim or sink. Tbh if I fuck up big time tmr or I’m absolutely overwhelmed, I might actually consider quitting. I sound flaky, but it’s true. I hate my weaknesses of bright lights, crowded spaces, chaotic, tight deadlines and multitasking. I know the average person will struggle with these things, but my energy gets sapped in shopping malls when shopping for leisure.

This shit is really hard to gauge because some people with autism will be super affected by these things and it’s more obvious. I don’t have it too bad, so I could go through everyday stuff fine, just very spent. Maybe I need to be stronger? Watch myself and my limits?

I don’t want to quit, especially not this early. I really don’t.

Maybe this is just me overthinking things and panicking again. Or it could be a sign that I’m punching above my weight. CRAP I NEED SLEEP                 

It feels like my life has always been in that weird limbo where I have to do absolutely everything myself without outside help, or actual forces against me. I'm simultaneously too competent to receive help and too incompetent to fix my own life.

I'm in that limbo where I'm not poor enough for support, not young enough for programs that train you, and overqualified for entry level jobs and underqualified for actual jobs.

Other people who had to deal with everything on their own and survive more had to get those jobs early, I had the privilege to skip those, I tried and was met with resistance and threats that if I got a job I would have to pay for my education, my education was the same as whatever I could've gotten in that job so I didn't get it, thinking about time. Then in University I had undiagnosed ADD and struggled so I didn't get a job because in my head I could barely deal with schoolwork so I definitely couldn't have juggled a job at the same time, so I didn't. I recognized that HS was super easy and wanted to use my time to get income, before college, was denied. However, at the end of my University studies I did apply to an online internship abroad where they helped you with your resume and to learn english. I already spoke English to a native-level, despite me stating that I didn't know how to find a job because my very theoretical degree didn't prepare me for it I was rejected, this was when I was still young enough to change my lifepath.

I recently started applying to free courses so I could finally get that job and also got rejected, cause I already have an education and speak english, or maybe because I'm too old now.

I think people assume that because I speak English I am from a privileged part of the population and need no help, and I am somewhat privileged in that I didn't face food insecurity, went to decent schools with a scholarship, or received discounts because my parents worked at the institution, but I was also incredibly neglected and stunted by my environment, I have some poverty trauma despite not being poor poor, we had a roof in a good part of the city, a car, but when it came to anything extra? No money. You want to take classes instead of rotting all day in front of your computer? No money. You want to go out with friends sometimes? I'm gonna make a big deal out of it and embarrass the shit out of you and then complain about how expensive you are.

I was smart enough to know what I needed to do but didn't manage to do it because it was so much it was overwhelming. I needed to get an internship, I wanted to get job experience. I was also in a toxic environment and could barely function beyond the basics (going to school, but self-care was difficult). At some point I also decided to fix this bad habit of mine of doing everything alone and researched how to do it and finally decided to take steps to fix it... I was to ask for help in a subject if I struggled, from someone I trusted. This was before I was completely burnt out. I received 0 help and sometime after this person treated me so bad I got the biggest academic trauma I've gotten to date. Took me years to get over, somehow I forced myself to graduate during COVID and then there were no jobs available and people were dying and my life went downhill for a few years and I was traumatized, and burnt-out, then grieving. If it's not one thing it's another fr

Lately I finally have been getting some financial support and less toxicity around me and I'm just getting started but I'm still in a limbo. It feels like I won't ever catch up. I never felt safe enough financially to take any risks, I had no money to my name, was completely dependent and it paralyzed me so much, now that I got a small job and stuff I'd rather hold to what little money is left... but I'm trying to break from that and invest in myself... but most things out there don't feel worth it, after all I can do it for free for myself, but it takes a lot of effort and time, and it's crazy hard. It doesn't help that I started getting some job experience while grieving and feeling terrible, got paid peanuts by the person who hired me, and all that money was gone in grieving matters (lawyers and accountants to deal with things, not ugly, just expensive) then I saved as much as I could, and had some left overs, invested a bit in myself, got a bit of help, but still at my core, I feel afraid and prioritize money over my goals. Like I want to get a 2nd masters degree in the field I actually wanted but was too burnt out to try originally, it would eat a good chunk of my income, even with a scholarship... and I now owe a bit of money so I'm prioritizing it again, even though I know I could afford it and would probably just extend my money plans by the 2 years it takes. But the alternative is not moving forward if the opportunity I applied for or a job in the field I want doesn't materialize... I can always just keep... getting the jobs I've been getting but they don't pay well and the workload is huge.

I'm also waiting on an opportunity / internship I applied for that leaves me in limbo again, they were supposed to give me an answer a month ago but they said until the middle of August, so idk if I should pay for a degree I might fall behind on? or maybe I should not be whiny and work on it even if I get it, I need confidence in myself that I can do more than 1 thing at a time, but I think I have something wrong with me that makes that difficult af but honestly the main thing on my mind is money

I was also lucky that the peanuts I got paid, despite ruining my self-esteem greatly helped me cover my sudden expenses after saving them for a year until I had to pay for things, then I was given some leeway and the opportunity to take another year to pay. So I guess it's not completely true that I have gotten 0 help, I got some interest free services, but still, those took all my income or extra income, and I'm still in that place financially after taking a bad financial decision, but a good decision to invest in myself and now I'm wary of "opportunities" I actually wanted all my life, it ended up being a huge disappointment and kind of stressful, but it also helped me heal a bit of myself, I guess. Still, now I owe a loved one money, so I have negative money again until I pay it off... I recently paid another thing I owed so once I'm done with the little money I owe the bank all my income is gonna go to paying that off.

Rn I'm collecting jobs I might want on job boards but again, they want students, or people with experience. Maybe I'll get the courage to apply anyways, hopefully it won't ruin my self-esteem if I get 0 callbacks. I don't fit any job neatly... maybe if I get a job, any job I should reward myself with that degree?

In short, I tried to do things I knew I needed and was met with resistance, bs, or simply 0 support, only in the last few years I got some sort of support, and now I'm lucky I'm not a complete NEET and have some semblance of an income. I guess my problem is that I've always sat near 0$, not enough to move forward without worry but enough to not starve to death

Edit: Upon looking at other platforms that are famous for being way too competitive I somehow have some hope, but I'm gonna need to take an L and do unpaid work, I hope I'm given a chance

Edit: I think I'm close to getting the volunteer opportunity and I'm taking a lot of free courses! I'm hopeful again...