Hoping that this doesn't get too long (spoiler: it got long). Not sure where else to dump all of this. It was either here or the non-binary community because I might mention aspects of that. I feel like most of my problems are self inflicted, so I'm not even looking for sympathy or even acknowledgment here, just a space to put this shit out into the world, for whatever that might help.
I am stuck and have been for years now. My 20s were spent fucking around and my 30s have been mostly spent wishing I'd done a little less fucking around in my 20s. I dropped out of varsity and something one could call a stable career for stupid fantasies and life has pretty much just been chaos and uncertainty since then. Especially financial security.
And I'm stuck in this world now. Taking whatever unskilled blue collar back breaking soul sucking job I can get. That I never last too long in. And actually I've been unemployed and making scraps from odd jobs for a little too long now. And that's not even for lack of trying, my CV / resume probably just looks like one big red flag to employers at this point and I don't think my age helps the spotty and all over the show job experience look better either.
Now to actually get to mental health. I have been trying to work on myself and become who I am supposed to be and I'm finding over and over that while it might not necessarily be the source of happiness, the biggest obstacle to happiness is money.
For one, I highly suspect that I have some lifelong undiagnosed neurodivergence and tried going through the government system to get to the bottom of things. But so far I found that route to be nothing but actively worse for mental health and I get the impression that unless I have visible tics or 'act' like something is wrong, I'm not going to get very far there. And yet going to professionals on a private basis would cost a small fortune, on top of every other basic worry.
And as far as gender identity related stuff goes. I need money for basically everything that could be regarded as gender affirming care. And space and privacy which, surprise surprise, require money too. I need to be able to afford to live alone. And in the city where I can disappear into the crowd and not a town with all the pearl clutchers.
The biggest conundrum right now as far as being both unemployed and feeling close to exploding point at wanting to take the mask off and be my non-conforming self is that I'm waiting for the day around the corner where I have to cut my hair and put on a fucking golf shirt and brown pants or some shit for the next minimum wage job that I can't say no to and that doesn't actually improve your life in any way.
So here I am, stuck. I don't even feel like I deserve friends these days, I've cut myself off from all of my old ones and I feel too much like a loser in life at this point for new ones. Everyone has careers and marriages and children and shit. And here I am, taking what I can get, and spending Friday night smoking cheap weed and watching cartoons.
On that note I'm boring as fuck these days too. All of my good stories start with "years ago" and I barely feed my soul with the things that it needs anymore. I don't make any art, barely read or listen to new music anymore. I feel blank and burnt out and broken and somehow helpless to fix any of it. And I'm tired of being stuck here.
Thanks for reading, or not reading. Thanks for the space for me to post this garbage. Other people have serious problems, mine feel selfish and as I said, self inflicted. Just wanted to get this all off my chest though.
Couple things:
I've interviewed literally hundreds of people for jobs, it is incredibly rare I look at a resume and see red flags. Even when I see red flags, I still interview the person, I just go in being mindful there might be an issue and dig a little. Don't worry too much about that.
Secondly, you deserve your friends no matter how you feel.
You don't fit in the cookie cutter mould, so what? Most of my friends are "weird" in some way. I have a couple who like you work odd jobs and have very little money and smoke pot all the time. They're still friends. We give them rides to places sometimes and we do it without thinking about it because we love them and that's what you do for friends.
I promise you whatever you think your friends are judging you for, unless you're being a real asshole, they're not even thinking twice about.
And lastly you sound like you feel how I did before meds. Meds and therapy helped me a lot, no idea your situation but at least meds might be worth persuing.
All the best, I'm very sorry about the gender care and government health stuff, that sucks. I hate dealing with that kind of thing, so all I can offer is my sympathy.
Thank you, Wise Pancake. I appreciate the response and advice here.
As far as friends go. Honestly I lost touch with most of my old friends a few years ago already. And going by what I've picked up looking around Facebook (still widely used in my country), I've grown apart from a lot of them anyway. I've spoken to one or two in the last year at least but it becomes clearer as the conversation goes that there's nothing to actually talk about anymore. And I fucking hate the "so what are doing with yourself" question lol.
New friends suck to make for a lot of the same reasons. I feel shame about the situation that I'm in currently. I don't want to be put into a situation where I need to explain my situation in life at this point and how I live. And it's not shame from imagining what other people must think of me (well not entirely), it's my own shame. I never wanted to and don't want to live like this. Little me would be sad to know what became of big me.
You can sure as fuck count out romance too. I think part of why I decided to stay single and not even try a few years ago is because no one deserves this mess and I'm too embarrassed to let anyone see this mess of a life in the first place.
And definitely, meds are a reason why I've been trying the government system. Not meds exclusively but psychological/ psychiatric help. But I'm pretty doubtful of that avenue leading anywhere soon after my experience so far.