i don't want a career, i want to do crafts
While I understand this is probably venting, I have some thoughts I wish to share.
If you don't want a career, you want to craft, maybe look into the trades. I've started working as an elevator mechanic recently and, holy shit it's changed my life.
Like, seriously. While the work is tiring, it's deeply satisfying too. To me, very similar to getting a pattern in crochet or sewing figured out. It involves using your hands, using your brain in a similar way crafting does, and it can also pay incredibly well (meaning you can use your left over pay from making things in your day job to making things just cause you want to with your evenings and weekends).
With fewer and fewer people going into trades, there's more and more demand, making it easier to get in. My province is currently paying eligible students to become trade workers, so you can see if you have a similar program where you live. (if there are any Quebecers here interested, check out Operation Main D'oeuvre and call your local Emploi Québec office for information).
And for Mentally ill people, I've found construction insanely helpful for managing my conditions. Like, regular exercice helps the management of so many conditions, right? But I've always hated exercise for the sake of exercise. But now my work has me moving every day, making my depression and ADHD way easier to manage. Nothing like beating a recalcitrant rail support into place to help work off the nervous energy creates by anxiety either. I've been struggling with my mental health for well over a decade and I do not have words to describe how good it feels to wake up and have no dread about the work I have to do today. I might be tired and grumpy, but even then, there's no soul crushing dread.
I've also found it empowering and it helps me with my crafting (it teaches precision and gives you a really good eye for measurements, depending on the trade). It gives you financial power as well as power over your space (I've changed all the switches in my apartment for dimmers, easy peasy).
So yeah, TLDR, don't want a career, want to craft? Maybe manual trades are the route for you. I know they were for me
Computer repair was easily the best most fulfilling work I ever did. Just me and a little puzzle I knew how to solve.
if you have autism please look into welding. you get earplugs and gloves and a cozy helmet. you do the same shit the same way every day. you are surrounded by the weirdest and most dysfunctional men ever invented and you don’t have to respect any of them. you go to your little horse stall and glue bits together until it’s time to go home. it’s exhausting and sometimes painful work but i have worked retail and i have sucked dick for money and i can say with my whole chest that welding is significantly less stressful in terms of time, effort, pain, and dealing-with-people.
if you have ADHD i do have to warn you that welding gets boring after awhile and you are discouraged from making little bugs out of scraps. you can do it anyway. but you have to hide them from your boss.
