I’m 30 years old, and the longest I’ve ever stayed in a job was 6 months.
I have schizophrenia, but I can appear somewhat normal if my condition is well controlled with medication.
Recently my mother passed away, and my father is already 75 years old and is also in very poor mental health.
I completed 12th grade and later enrolled in a law degree, but I was going through a very acute phase of my illness at the time and had to drop out.
I’ve made several attempts to work, because honestly I’m not lazy—I simply have symptoms that can be complicated (hearing voices or echoes of voices, and some delusional thoughts like “everyone is watching me and talking about me”). I’ve realized that I’m not suited for customer-facing jobs because sometimes, under stress, I can’t even understand what people are saying to me.
My family is poor. My mother and all my grandparents died with dementia, and I carry that genetic burden, so I don’t expect to have many more years of mental clarity, especially since I also have this mental health condition.
Now that I’m older, I would really like to study in higher education, but I have no way to do so because I can’t afford even a public university.
All I have is my PC and internet. I really enjoy computing/technology/development, even though I’m still quite a beginner.
I want to see if, with the few years of clarity I have left, I can do something meaningful with my life. I would really like that to be working in this field—when I’m intellectually challenged or solving logical problems, I feel good, and I think I have above-average intelligence (whatever that means).
But everything around me is falling apart, and when my father dies, I’ll be alone, with no means of support. Social services rejected my application for RSI (minimum income support) because my household includes my father—who only has a €500 pension—and I don’t understand how they think that’s enough to support two people.
I’m making this post to ask if you have any advice on how I might one day get an entry-level job in tech (I don’t know which area—anything would work for me), considering I only have a high school diploma. I don’t know if there are affordable certifications, or if it’s possible to keep learning on my own, but I don’t have a degree to show in any application.
Basically, I don’t have much “useful” time left in my life—and I would still like to try to do something with it in a field I enjoy.
I’ve already tried dozens of jobs like shelf stocker, supermarket cashier, store assistant, and similar roles, but my coworkers/managers notice when my symptoms start (sometimes I hear customers’ voices twice or more when they speak to me), and I simply don’t identify with this type of work.
If anyone would like to share ideas about what I can do, or how I can position myself to enter the job market in a field that challenges me intellectually (that doesn’t stress me—my hobbies at home to distract myself are doing exercises and learning math or physics online), I’d really appreciate it.