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Antiwork

Unhappy with having to work to live

There's a million posts like this, I know. You don't have to read this, I am sure you got a lot on your plate too. I am a university student in Germany and still live with my parents at 26. I'm doing okay, not bad, not fantastic, just getting by and trying to pass. It's really stressful but its honestly still better than anything else I've tried. I worked in a courthouse last year and it was full of bullies and old people making fun of me. I worked at a kindergarten once and my advisors told me I was unfit to deal with children because I myself am not enough of an authoritative figure and they would see me more as a playmate than a teacher. I worked with disabled people in a workshop as a volunteer worker because I genuinely didn't know what else to do and it…


There's a million posts like this, I know. You don't have to read this, I am sure you got a lot on your plate too.

I am a university student in Germany and still live with my parents at 26. I'm doing okay, not bad, not fantastic, just getting by and trying to pass. It's really stressful but its honestly still better than anything else I've tried. I worked in a courthouse last year and it was full of bullies and old people making fun of me. I worked at a kindergarten once and my advisors told me I was unfit to deal with children because I myself am not enough of an authoritative figure and they would see me more as a playmate than a teacher. I worked with disabled people in a workshop as a volunteer worker because I genuinely didn't know what else to do and it sucked – got barfed on, yelled at, all of that stuff. I failed my drivers test twice, so I can't drive, and never felt good driving, it was always accompanied by my driving instructor bossing me around and almost bringing me to tears. At this point I just really really reaaaally hate having anyone exerting their dominance over me, but I have to enslave myself and work for people to live. University feels a lot more like school and that's why I am doing okay, but after that its back to work. There is no way out of it. I felt intense anxiety every day at every workplace I've ever been in, even the smallest oddjobs. After that courthouse job I was talking to my doctor about antidepressants and was diagnosed with depression by a specialist, but once I got accepted at university I cut off all treatment because even going to those appointments got me anxious and scared. I posted at a different subreddit about taking antidepressants once and about a panic attack I had.

I play video games all day because that's what I enjoy. They make me happy, emotional or get me invested. I am fine with spending most of my time gaming, I'd be content if that's what I could do for the rest of my life, but it really isn't that easy. I need money to survive, so I have to work – everyone has to work. But I am just really not cut out for it. For the past few years I've really begun to think that death might be the better choice. In death, I won't have to worry about having to pay rent. Having to work to live is simply not the life I want to live. I am not in a position to pick a job that caters to my interests.

There are so many people out there with much worse issues. Some don't even get accepted into university. Some don't even get a job in the first place. I feel like a parasite. Receiving government benefits and playing video games eating from the state's fridge seems like the perfect life to me, but I am not disabled or disadvantaged: I am perfectly healthy and capable to work physically, just not mentally, and no one really cares about that. And none of the work I've done makes me eligible for any sort of government money. In Germany, you need to have worked a certain amount of time to receive those benefits. I never held down a job for longer than a year, especially not recently.

I am not sure what responses I'll get, if any, but I am really clueless what to do with myself. All I can do is study and play games in my free time. I didn't even get into the possibility of failing uni which would limit my options even more. Do people who just perform poorly everywhere in Germany just die?

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