So I just want to complain about my life situation to some people that will get it.
I'm 28. I graduated in 2017 with a bachelor's degree in physics, and currently I'm in a part-time MS in Astronomy.
After college, I was living in the city that I went to school in. My parents helped me with rent while I looked for work. So I looked for work. And looked. And looked. I applied to hundreds of jobs, and only got interviewed with staffing agencies that couldn't place me, except for one interview for a position that got cut shortly after I interviewed.
Finally I got a temp position… ten bucks and hour for two weeks of work at a college bookstore. Obviously, this wasn't enough. I applied to all kinds of positions, even service industry work, and heard nothing back. Sometimes I was lucky to get a “no” email response, but never interviews. I got one interview with McDonald's, but I decided I would rather move home than destroy my mental health working in that industry again (I had worked in fast food before). Finally, my parents' decided they couldn't support me living on my own anymore, and I was struggling with some pretty bad alcoholism. So in early 2018 I moved home.
In my very small home town, I got a job at a restaurant that paid me $10 an hour. They were always short staffed, and I worked 12 hour shifts without breaks. After a month or two at that place, I got fired because I got really sick. The policy was that you HAD to find your own replacement if you got sick, and if you couldn't, you had to come into work so that they could verify that you were indeed sick. Problem was, I had acute pancreatitis, so I could barely move (this was caused by the alcoholism, but I never drank at work, though I did have withdrawal symptoms at work). I was hospitalized for five days after that.
Fast forward to 2019, I've been to rehab after a withdrawal-induced seizure nearly killed me, and I had been out of the workforce for awhile and felt a lot better mentally, so I started looking for work again. I interviewed for a calibration technician job at a local aerospace factory. They decided not to give me the calibration tech job, but offered me a bottom-of-barrel layup tech job for $12.50 an hour. It was fine for a few months, but my mental health started deteriorating again. That, and they passed me up for an engineer job within the company, and I was overqualified for my job (one of my coworkers was a flat-earther ffs). Also, $12.50 isn't really that much. So, I left, for the sake of my sobriety.
At the end of 2019, I landed a job at a coffee shop I thought I could handle. $8 an hour, then $10 an hour a few months later. Of course, I started this job in December right before covid… so within a few months I was laid off. Turns out the most money I've ever made was the covid unemployment benefits. Over the course of the pandemic, I cycled between layoff and working at the coffee shop, until finally the shop closed last December. Honestly, not a huge loss, since I was VERY part time there. Also the owner is a progressive so idk why he paid us so little…
But even while I was working there, I thought surely I could find something better suited for my skills and my financial needs. Fast forward to now, and I've applied to thousands of positions since I graduated, I still live with my parents, and I can't even land an interview. I apply to jobs here, in cities, remote jobs. Nothing. Five years, and I have nothing to show for it.
I feel privileged to have my parents to lean on, I've never lost sight of that. But, they retired in 2020, and are going to build a house twice as expensive as this one (and not any bigger), in another state in the middle of nowhere farmland. So their financial support is going to start waning (groceries, helping with grad school when they can). If I move with them, I will need to support myself somehow, and my job prospects will be worse.
I'm burnt out, fast approaching 30, and I feel like a complete failure. And no matter how many times I explain it to my parents, they don't really seem to grasp how dire it is. I told them I think it's a terrible idea to build a house right now, but they are stubborn as all getout. In a more recent conversation with my mom, where she told me to get a job even if it doesn't pay well, I told her in pretty uncertain terms to get the point across, “I'm not going to take a job that will make me want to kill myself.” I wish they would understand that as a neurodivergent burnout who nearly drank himself to actual death, my prospects are kind of limited, and a job that pays anything less than 20 bucks an hour is literally not worth it, especially if the job involves mental anguish that I don't have the luxury of tolerating anymore. My sister in law (she and my brother are successful business owners) told us to go into businesses physically to talk to someone about getting hired. We told her that some places will literally throw out your application if you do that, and she didn't believe us.
Oh, and my brother and sister-in-law won't hire me at their business, despite, you know, me talking to them in person…
I am just sick to my stomach from all of this. I know I'm young but I feel like I'm completely wasting my life, and I can't get anybody around me to understand that I'm in a pretty dire situation.
Anyway, sorry for the rant. I'm just frustrated, and at my wit's end. To be clear, I'm not asking for advice or pity. I just want to tell this to people that will actually surmise with me.
Thanks for your attention.