So, I'm boxed in. Money is due, I have no car, I live over 10 miles from the nearest business hiring, and I feel brain dead.
Backstory:
My last job stressed me almost to death. I was harassed, I was overworked, I didn't have time or money to eat lunch and so I was pulling 12 hour shifts without food until eventually I tore a bunch of muscles. The job then pressured me to come back to work which I did, and tore more muscles so bad I couldn't walk much for a few months. Eventually, they did something that prevented the department of labor doctor from saying I was injured. At that point I called them out on it, they played around with my money and I prepared to be fired, but we just sorta parted ways. I never was told I was fired, nor did I quit. I was also verbally harassed by my coworker everyday. She would come in early and try to get in my head, literally standing over me trying to argue about work loads while I'm actively setting up a test and trying to calculate data, only to run to the vp when I made minor errors due to running out of time or being rushed due to the coworker.
At another prior job I ran into a similar situation where I had to operate a custom built system that sucked, and the only person I worked with couldn't spend the time training me due to time constraints, so I made lots of mistakes on paperwork, but not on tests. Because the manager was insulted by me saying what I later found out was his system sucking, he refused to let me run tests we were behind on, assigned stacks of paperwork 2 inches tall that were not always uniform, often illegible, and contained between 30 to 40 fields of hand written data that I had to hand copy into a clunky system I wasn't trained on. We eventually went out separate ways, but of course that too wore me out.
I honestly struggle to enforce the “underpaid labor produces underfunded results” rule and between a rough home life and that, I keep winding up hurt, mentally or physically. Neither of these jobs even paid a living wage. I couldn't even afford a car.
Situation: So I'm looking for jobs in the AI industry instead of lab work. I have lots of experience on my own projects, as well as a true passion for it, and photography related jobs or side hustles to make some money, but because the prior situation I can't even muster the will power to fill out a job application. It may sound like I'm being lazy, but I'm actively working on several open source and for-profit projetcs to get my name out there, so I'm not at all afraid of working, but I feel my side and muscles aching, and my neck hurting, my brain so desensitized to trauma (of which I have plenty more outside of work too) that nothing seems to evoke pleasure or happiness anymore, and I just can't bring myself to put myself through that again. I got to the point in starvation that I lost 20 pounds to covid and stopped waking up. I've since been recovering, but in my current state being subjected to abuse like that might legitimately kill me, but not having money will kill me too. I'm scared and idk what to do, or how to build myself back up in such a way I can live a happy fulfilling life while being abused every single day of the week.
I really need advice on how to condition myself to this, or like a regimen to maximize my own free time or really anything that could possibly be of help. Obviously I don't know exactly what I need, but if you read this and something you know seems to apply, please by all means share it. I'm all ears.
Thanks guys!