I finally hit 30.
I used to close my eyes and wish for time to accelerate, for the years to rush past just below my perception so that when I opened them again I would see myself somewhere else, with someone else, doing anything else.
I've never had a job, not a real one anyway. I've always worked though, even as a kid. Every weekend since I can remember I have been working a stand at a flea market. My family sells clothes at four different flea markets six days a week. As a kid I helped with what I could. Eventually I helped with everything. After I graduated, weekends became six out of seven days of every week. Now we all work ourselves ragged every day. I am a tired, mindless body.
We make ends meet by living within our means. I don't have a car. I don't have an income. Sometimes I'll hide a hundred dollars before handing in any sales to my dad. So maybe that makes my income a hundred dollars every two or three weeks. I mostly use that to buy vapes, cat food, and cat litter. Sometimes I'll use what's left for mutual aid or save up to do so later.
I suspect I am somewhere on the autism spectrum and/or suffer from ADHD. I've been depressed for almost half my life now. I suspect I'm only still around because I am a coward. It's gotten too close to escape its pull but I won't so I am trapped. Zoloft and therapy helped for a little while but I quit after they didn't. To top it off, this was all before my egg cracked but my home situation is not one in which I can present how I would prefer even now.
I went to college on the government's dime for a bachelor's in computer science. I looked at my degree once and haven't seen it since. Fragments of websites, webapps, api wrappers, an ecommerce store, blog posts, essays, and shit litter my memory, failures that weigh my conscience with shame. At this point I'm not entirely sure if I was ever actually able to write any code or if just I bullshit my way through everything in life to protect my fragile ego.
But I need to get better. My life will not change unless I make it change. I need to get a job, I need to be self-sufficient, I need to grow.
The largest hurdle I can see is my complete lack of experience. I graduated almost a decade ago. I'll be starting from the bottom way later than I should have. Looking at local job openings on Indeed, it seems my best bet will be some sort of IT or Help Desk role. I'm taking a break from reading theory to read about networking and cybersecurity. I remember much of the network material while the cybersecurity concepts at least make sense to me.
The next step of the plan is already daunting to me. I need to write a resume. How to do this thing with no experience? An eternal problem I'll need to figure out. This is as far as I've gotten but I'm not giving up. It's about time I grow up.
Thanks for reading. Apologies for whining about a job.
Don't forget that there's the neurodiversity comm if you think that you're neurodivergent.
There are also some good creators and books out there on these topics, although there's a significant proportion of creators (especially autistic creators) who are part of a lifestyle industry which market bullshit to neurodivergent people and who tend to talk over the top of neurodivergent folks with higher support needs.
For autism, there isn't any particular treatments that are effective. It's almost exclusively about adapting to the condition, although there are a couple of medications that can be used especially to aid with autistic agitation, although that's likely unsuitable if you're undiagnosed as an adult for reasons that I'll skip over here. In many ways an autism diagnosis can come with significant downsides and often there are few perks so there's probably little to be gained by seeking out a formal diagnosis.
As for ADHD, there are treatments for it and these can be crucial for functioning as an adult. The obvious ones are the classic stimulants that come to mind and these are generally strictly regulated and require a diagnosis before you can access them.
But not all of them.
A lot of ADHDers do really well with norepinephrine reputake inhibitors and there are a few dopaminergic meds out there which aren't part of the first-line ADHD meds (i.e. the classic stimulants). Many of these are of the antidepressant class of drugs (mostly SNRIs and NDRIs.)
If someone said that they don't have an ADHD diagnosis and that it's out of their reach but they wanted to try some medications for ADHD, the easiest thing to try would be amantadine - this is a medication which has a very low side effect profile, treats a range of mental illnesses, but which also appears to be about as effective as methylphenidate (Ritalin) for ADHD. It's not a stimulant in the classic sense, it isn't tightly controlled, and it isn't addictive. Honestly I have no idea why this isn't prescribed more, especially to kids with ADHD given the side effects of Ritalin.
There's also guanfacine, atomoxetine, bupropion, and modafinil. Modafinil is probably fairly tightly controlled in your country, but unlikely as strictly as amphetamine-based meds. It's often imported on the grey market and used as a study drug.
All of these aside from maybe modafinil would likely be within reach of a typical doctor to prescribe to patients (i.e. you likely won't need an ADHD diagnosis or a psychiatrist to prescribe them.)
Getting your life together if you have untreated ADHD can be extremely difficult, if not borderline impossible for some people. Don't pin all your hopes on medication as a magic bullet in this regard, nor on an ADHD diagnosis, but keep in mind that it might be the missing piece. For a lot of late-diagnosed ADHDers it really can be.
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