I got accepted to SCAD a few months ago and since they're a private college, they have a $500 admission fee that I need to get paid off sometime before summer. I quit my last job 2 and a half months ago and I wanted to take a break from working before starting to work again. Well, now I'm at the point where I kinda need to get a job in order to have enough income ready for college and I've already gotten a few interview offers that I want to accept but… I just can't.
The idea of being in a work environment again makes me insanely anxious. Every time I think about going back to work my stomach just sinks. I had a horrible, traumatic experience at my last job, which was also my first ever job. I was treated like complete shit by both management and coworkers just for being trans and autistic. I was denied the same opportunities as my coworkers because they “didn't trust me” despite not even seeing me work in those positions and constantly confined to the same spaces that people who had just started working there were assigned to even when I had been there for more than 6 months. In addition to that, I was literally bullied by multiple people, including a manager. For the first few months I was at that job almost everybody talked shit about me behind my back and spread rumors about me due to me being trans. I was constantly misgendered. One of my coworkers even fucking quit as soon as I got hired just because she didn't want to work alongside me due to me being trans. This continued for 4 months up until I finally reported one of my coworkers and she ended up fired.
It was just extremely horrible all around. I'm grateful for the few friends I made there but the experience literally fucking traumatized me. I can't even think about going back there, even just to watch a movie, without feeling sick. Right after I quit I didn't feel this way but I've fully processed all of the traumatic things that happened while I was there and it's just completely ruined my attitude towards working. I don't understand why this kind of behavior is allowed, especially in a supposedly “professional” environment and ESPECIALLY towards someone who was a minor at the time.
And that's bled over into my attitude towards work as a whole now. I don't want to start at a new job only to have the same exact experience with my coworkers and managers again. The thought of being back in a setting like that makes me anxious beyond repair. Idk. I just wish things weren't like this.