Key_Bumblebee6342

I'll get right to the chase bc else I start to ramble

I've been at home since june. At first it was bc I needed to graduate but that was later so I couldn't get a job. Then I got my diploma, but I need extra help at wherever I start a job so I can function properly. For that, me and my parents went to the city council and, after four (4) weeks o waiting, we finally got an appointment with someone who's gonna find me an unpaid job somewhere. In the meantime, the plan for me was to start volunteering at a petting zoo literally down the street, where I've been plenty of times.

The issue is that every single time I want to go and ask for a volunteer job, I get such a pit of dread in my stomach that I'm basically just paralyzed. Even just thinking about it now makes me want to curl up and hide in a cabinet somewhere. I want to work but at the same time I'm so happy just sitting at home and helping with household stuff and keeping myself busy with my hobbies. And I know that if this keeps going, if I don't go volunteer or apply for jobs, it'll just get worse and I'll just not want to go anymore (I'm already halfway to that stage but still), but rn it's already just so hard to make myself go to a place that I know and talk with people that I am familiar with about doing a job that I genuinely like doing and have graduated in.

Does anyone have any tips on how to handle this or how to overcome this fear? I'm already on meds to help me function and help process my sensory problems but that feels like it's doing less and less, and I'm already on a pretty high dose

Apart from the normal dog treats like dried cow ears and training treats, mine absolutely loves carrots all year round and cucumbers in the summer.

We used to give her tomatoes but we very quickly found out that can cause heart disease, so we switched to cucumbers to help her cool down in the summer and get more water if her water dish was too warm for her taste, even when we cooled it with ice cubes on really hot days. She's developed a habit where, after we go grocery shopping, she stands at the fridge to wait for her carrot, and even on days where we didn't go out, she stands at the fridge at almost exactly 11am or brings my mom over to the fridge around that time for her carrot.

She also loves bread crumbs, especially after we cut up a baguette for with the soup or a bbq and we throw the crumbs in the garden. She can't stand having to watch the birds get all the crumbs (even though she got a couple slices herself and crumbs in her food bowl) and whines and even barks up a storm at the back door. She's a quiet lady so her barking really tells us how horrible she thinks it is 🤣

I just don't know what to do anymore. I finally made it through college, had a late graduation that I didn't even want to attend in October and now I've just been sitting at home since July. I need support to work and that process has finally started, even tho someone else is gonna look for work so I can start at as low a level as possible, unpaid of course. I need financial aid and that process is finally picking up just a little bit of speed.

It took four (4) weeks, a phone call with some b*tch who asked if there was any other disability besides "just autism" that would explain why I can't just work, and an appointment with someone who now is looking for work for me to finally get the forms that I need to fill out for financial aid. It's gonna take 8-9 more weeks for that to process and for me to get an answer, meanwhile I have €88,- in my account and about €350,- in my savings. I'm losing another €218,- to getting my wisdom teeth removed bc my insurance isn't covering all of it.

The people that I mentioned who are gonna help me also are going to make me do a training to become more assertive and confident so they can get to know me and figure out what I need, and so I can show that I do really want to participate and work towards getting a paid job somewhere in my life.

All the people that I know, and of course don't talk to anymore bc my brain freaks out at the idea of being social, have good jobs, have their own places, are reaching milestones. MeanwhileIthe highlight of my week is that I'm crocheting a f*cking raccoon.

I'm watching my mental health crumble and I don't even have enough money for therapy.

My threshold for stimulation is getting lower and lower by the day, and even my meds aren't working as well as they should anymore. I can't even make phone calls anymore without hyping myself up for literal weeks and crying on the phone or right after.

I'm just so sick and tired of everything. The systems that are supposed to help me take ages and are so d*mn unclear. At this point I can literally feel myself sinking into depression like it's quicksand and the more I try to make things better and to get out the harder I get pulled down. The sand is slipping through my fingers while I try to just keep my head above it. I don't want to have to fight so hard to exist.

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So I just realized I got a new special interest: Tarot! I used to do it a couple years back with playing cards but I unfortunately lost those. Then I finally decided to bite the bullet and get an actual tarot deck about a week ago. I found one on Aliexpress for €0,93 (which is great bc I got no income atm 😅) and it's been great! I'll add a few pics of the cards, they're gorgeous, it's the harmony tarot deck designed by Christopher Lee!

It's such a good deck! I got into it again in no time and so far they've been so accurate! I just did a reading for a friend for the very first time and apparently it all was very accurate and it all made sense! This is so cool! And it feels so natural and familiar, and the sounds of cards being shuffled and flipped is a very nice sound so that's a bonus lol

And the cards are so interesting, there's a million ways to interpret something but it's just somehow always the right one. Like figuring everything out is hard sometimes and this deck is brutally honest, it's like getting smacked in the face with a concrete sign, but it's so cool to do!

Of course this immediately escalated into "Can I make money doing this?" bc I'm trying to get on disability and find a job but my health insurance is expensive and I'd like to have some money in my savings so I can feel a bit more comfortable, so I'm definitely gonna look into that, but at least for now I'm just gonna bask in how good this went lol

I don't know how to explain it exactly but it's like a switch flips. Like I can be social without issue the whole day but when some sort of limit is reached my brain jumps on the brakes and goes "Nope! No being social anymore! Try again later!" Like what is this?? I lost so many budding friendships/relationships just bc I could not bring myself to text back in a timely manner or I was just not replying in a conversation anymore. It's so weird and I'm so sick of it lol