For clarity: I live in Germany, we have a social security system.
I've been diagnosed with autism in 8th grade (which makes me disabled by law) and been depressed and suicidal since as long as I can remember. I failed my way through school since even though I have a legal right to accommodation, actually getting that would have been a lengthy process and wouldn't have stopped my classmates and teachers bullying me anyway. Because of all that I failed my Abitur (the highest of many school graduation exams) and therefore couldn't go to university. That still bugs me. If I weren't so stressed out all the time, to the point where I basically slept the whole weekend, I maybe would have made it.
So I entered the workforce and after some time secured an apprenticeship. Without an apprenticeship or uni education you're basically screwed and can't hope to get a job that actually supports yourself and isn't shit. I lost the apprenticeship barely 3 months later because I was too disabled for the workplace's liking. I wish I was joking. They hired me to fill their legally required disabled quota (and because I was qualified and talented in the field) and threw me out because I could theoretically in the future ask for accommodations.
I worked here and there for 450€ a month, but my mental state obviously didn't get any better. Then 2020 happened. Two things: Covid and I landed a new apprenticeship. Sounds good, right? I even found myself really liking the field (watchmaking) during an initial internship. And the place is specialized on disabled students. It requires living in a dorm in the middle of nowhere, gives you no control over when you eat and what (there wasn't even a store or a bakery nearby), you can't just fully move into the dorm, but only stay there Mo-Fri, and organized it's covid restrictions so badly it couldn't tell you on Thursday if you're gonna spend the next week there or work from home. Yeah, I had a breakdown and had to go into psychiatry after two months there.
I don't wanna blame the psych ward too much, they were working under extreme conditions, but if a patients doctor tells you that the patient needs a room for themselves because autism, don't put them in a room with an erratic old woman with alzheimer's. Just a tip. Also in tv there are curtains and screens and stuff in hospitals so there's at least a little bit of privacy. That sounds like a good idea.
Anyway, that was two years ago. I've been officially sick since then. And for the first time in my life, I had no monetary troubles, no stress, no work or learning to do, no people, no nothing. Just vibing. I felt myself unwinding from a tension I didn't know was there. For the first time in my life, I'm at peace. Still autistic (and maybe ADHD), and the world is still ending due to climate catastrophe and there are still Nazis and shit. But I'm good. I'm good BECAUSE I'm not working.
So after a lengthy process with the help of my parents and my psychiatrist (bless them), now even the state recognized that I can't be expected to work anymore. It would literally destroy me. Capitalism has broke me. So I'm retired.
It's too little to live off of and I could loose it theoretically, but for now, I'm save.
Sorry that it went on so long, but I had to get it off my chest.