Hello, I've never had a job and I live with my parents

[worthless_loser]

I’m new here so I thought I should tell my story.
It might be long.
I’m 27 years old. I’ve never had a job.
My parents have let me mooch off them since I was 18.
I have no education or life skills.
I wasted my youth playing video games.
I deeply regret basically my whole life.

I don’t really want to work hard but I am too stupid to do anything other than menial labor.
I don’t want anything out of life other than a woman who loves me.
But I have to fix whats wrong with me first.
I have been trying to find work online at home because I have no car or driver’s license.
I don’t want to drive anyway because I can’t concentrate and I am afraid of getting into an accident.
Every time I find some work-at-home idea it turns out they either want experience or don’t train you at all.
They also want attributes that I don’t have like confidence, assertiveness, good communication skills, and basically everything else I don’t have.

From age 18-24 I was thinking about killing myself because I think I have no chance at life. But I care about my parents and don’t want them to feel sad if I did that so I was going to mooch off of them until they died and then kill myself.

I received hope that I could change when I was 24 when I heard about spiritual “woo woo” type stuff so I started working towards that.

I want to get help for my problems but I don’t have any money.
I feel too ashamed of myself to talk to anyone about this.
If I did they would probably just tell me to “figure it out” or something.

I’ve been trying to fix it but I am not really having any luck.
I’ve tried to learn programming but it is hard and I don’t really like it.
I’ve been looking for “work at home” opportunities but they are either scams or pay and extremely small about of money.
Any other make money at home opportunities I have found require money to get started and I have none.

I found one opportunity to make passive income but I am waiting to see if it pays off.
It is the ONLY break I have found in the past few years.
I just REALLY hope it goes well it feels like the only break I will get.

I am so tired of doing this.
I don’t really know what else to say other than I hope someone reads this.

[wanderer]

You know, you remind me a lot of a nephew of mine who I care a lot about and is in the same situation. He’s in the same boat. He didn’t try at school. He tried to go to college, quickly learned he couldn’t coast through it, then ended up basically living off of his parents’ money. I imagine he feels a lot like you do right now, hopeless, and helpless.

I often wonder, what would I tell him if I sat down with him and talked about his life? He seems to like me for some strange reason. I came very, very close to being in that same situation myself, and it was only through the help of therapists, psychiatrists, family members, and very, very dear friends that I was able to claw my way out of that hole. Maybe he sees that in common with me. So, I guess I’d tell him that I’d think twice before I judged.

Yes, you screwed up. Yes, it’s ok to feel badly about it. But at some point, beating yourself up isn’t going to do any more good. You can’t change the past. Honestly, would you want to anyway? Think about the story you can tell your kids when you get out of this, and the life lessons they’ll learn when you tell that story. But first, you have to get out of it, and you have a long, long way to go.

I wish I could give you some advice to get there, but I dare not, because honestly… no one has any answers in a situation like that. Some people like to say, “just change,” but it’s never so easy. You have to find the reason you want to change. You have to find some reason that you can love yourself. I’ve never been convinced that the reason people change, or the way they change, is the same for everyone. Going from video games all day to hard-working individual is quite a change.

And I’ll tell you, that despite all that has happened, you have good in you and are not as worthless as you think. Many people just ignore the fact that they’re mooching off of their folks. You feel guilty about it, which means you have compassion. That’s worth something. Your parents obviously love you very much, and though life is tough right now, just remind yourself of how much you love them too.

You’re going to have to learn to work harder and do some things you really, really don’t want to do. That doesn’t mean punishing yourself, and it doesn’t mean you quit trying even though you will - definitely - make mistakes. A wise man told me once that no one is a failure until they choose to give up. That choice is, and will always remain, yours.

[sylphiae]

I spent two years in your position after having manic episodes and dropping out of school. I started with construction, then retail and other part time work and kept working. I didn’t have a degree or any marketable skills either, but I’ve built them up. I also self-studied programming for years and that’s what I do for a living now, but it was slow.

If you have concentration problems, see if your parents are willing to take you to a doctor and get a diagnosis of ADHD. Being able to drive will open up a lot of opportunities for you.

Then take it from there, and start applying to low level jobs. You can do this.

I spent many days just literally lying on my bed and watching daytime TV because I couldn’t even bother to change the channel to watch anything better. I did absolutely nothing. But I’m in a better place now even if I am starting life late. You’re still young, and you can turn your life around too.