Hello Bananananananer, ( had to copy and paste that from a different comment lol)

Firstly, how are you? I see that this post was originally made in 2021, so maybe you don’t need anymore advice by this point. However, maybe someone else could benefit from seeing this?

Anyway, I also have ADHD, diagnosed in adulthood and I have been experiencing the same thing as well. This feeling of WANTING to work, WANTING that stability and normalcy but for some reason, I LITERALLY can’t make myself stay at a job. I’ve experienced ADHD paralysis before, too, but for some reason this is different. It started about 2 years ago for me. Before that, I had held a pretty good paying job for almost 5 years. I’d gotten raises and promotions at this job and was more financially stable than I’d been probably… Ever. We’d always struggled to have enough money for anything all throughout my chives anks gusta had continued into my adulthood as well. Until, that is, I landed this particular job. While I was working, I told myself that I would never struggle that way again. Then all of a sudden, I started feeling lower and lower at my job. I was so stressed out, easily aggravated and depressed. I was sad all the time. I couldn’t sleep and never had energy for anything. Depression and anxiety were not new to me but for some reason I found that it was becoming more and more difficult to wake up each day and function, let alone go to work. In fact, it felt impossible. I started feeling this… Dread every time I had to go to work. It got to the point where I just couldn’t do it anymore. I would cry before work because I knew I had to go in. So I quit. Ended up getting a job I really liked, working at the zoo. The job had it’s good and bad parts, like all jobs. But it was fun and unique to get to take a trip to the Zoo for free every day. Until the dread started again. This time, though, it started extremely soon… Only 2 weeks in. The dread and stress got too much again so I eventually quit that job too. Afterwards, I spent the next 2 years going from job to job, thinking maybe if only I could find a job that I could love and stick with that I’d be alright.

I thought maybe it was a sign from the universe. Maybe now I was supposed to be finding my calling, the thing I was meant to do, then I could stay. Then I could get stable again. Bills were piling up and I was months behind on my rent. Once again I was in that place of never having enough money for anything and being on the verge of eviction. And I was more depressed than ever and wondering every day if any of this was worth it. Then I came across a job that made me feel like it was my calling: Pet play specialist at a pet daycare. Yes, it was as fun as it sounds. All day I got to play with dogs and cats and get paid for it! It was and still is the best job I have ever had. I came alive at that job and did actually realize that working with animals WAS my calling. I still feel this way. I started to have hope again because I was happy. I felt so lucky because I felt that THIS is where the universe was trying to lead me. That it WAS actually all for a reason.

But I was wrong because after only about 2 weeks, the dread returned. Now I would cry in the bathroom before work because I DID NOT want to leave this job. This was supposed to be the job that I was meant for. The job that I could stay at and have some semblance of normalcy again. But a few days later, I sat on my bed in my work clothes, and I just couldn’t make my feet go towards the door. I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t move. It was like ADHD paralysis turned up to freaking 10. I never made it to work that day and I never went back. I cried so much that day because what was wrong with me? Everyone I talked to, even my psychiatrist, just wasn’t able to understand. Why can’t you just tough it out like the rest of us? No one wants to go to work. You gotta do what you gotta do. I couldn’t explain why I couldn’t just do what I had to do anymore cause I just didn’t know how to. I couldn’t understand why I’d been able to hold a job before, even work 3 jobs at once before but I couldn’t now. What had happened to my work ethic? I’d gotten myself out of poverty before, so why couldn’t I do it now? What is WRONG WITH ME???

Well, 2 years, like a million jobs, and 1 eviction later, I am living full time in a camper RV with no power, no water and no sewage. I’m in a completely different state and still can’t make myself stay at a job. I’ve tried multiple different antidepressants and ADHD medicine, but I still couldn’t hold a job. I was really starting to feel like I was cursed or something. Then, about 2 weeks ago, I stumbled on a forum where there’s a person saying that they’ve been going through something similar. They can’t keep a job to save their life and I’d thought I was pretty much the only person going through something like this. It made me validated for the first time sense I started feeling this way. But what made me want to reply was actually a reply by another person. Someone named Anita. They mentioned something about intense long term anxiety damaging the nervous system, making tolerance for stressful things much lower than a regular person’s. And they talked about trying to fix it with therapy. And then, shortly after I found this forum, I see a vitamin bottle in the store that says it is essential for repairing your nervous system. Vitamin B12. I researched a bit online and found that this appears to be true. So, I thought , why not? What else do I have to lose? And started taking it. Now, I know that this not some magic cure all. It will probably take a combination of the right types of therapy, these vitamins I’ve started taking and lots of work, but I almost cried when I realized that the dread that started to creep in while working my crappy little pizza delivery job had started to ebb. Like it’s not fully gone, but my resilience while working has NOTICEABLY improved. Enough to make a difference. It’s been almost a month since I started work at not 1 but 2 part time jobs and I still haven’t quit. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that on those days where everything is stressful and life is, for lack of a better term, kicking my ass, lol I didn’t have a bit of that dread return. There has even been days where I just felt like sitting in my car and crying. But I still went to work.

I said all of this because there’s probably other people out there who feel just as hopeless as I did. They may feel that nothing makes sense right now and there’s just no way out because if you can’t work, you can’t survive in this world. It’s like you’re sandwiched between fire and lava: you can’t work but you can’t NOT work either. Now you’re stuck in the middle, stressed depressed and maybe contemplating some other way out of this hellish cycle, this system that you just don’t seem to be built for. How can I live here and have any amount of happiness when I can’t get myself out of this hole? Well, I’m telling you you can actually get out of that hole. It’s going to be tough. It’s also probably going to suck really bad for a minute too. But you CAN do it. Step by step, struggle by struggle. You can dissect your life and rebuild it the way you need, the way you WANT.

Start small and work your way up. Research vitamin deficiencies and what they cause. Research therapy types and which ones help with which traumas. Look up grants, or programs and resources online that may be available to you. We are not yet a success story. But years from now when you look back at how far you’ve come, you’ll be so proud.

Don’t give up!

https://www.usa.gov/benefits

https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.healthsherpa.com/top-10-government-programs-for-low-income-families/amp/

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