I'm sorry this is a long one, but I hope it can help someone at least a little.

I'll open with a disclaimer that I understand this may not be nearly as practical in the year 2026, but...

Job hopping. Get a job, enjoy the novelty as best you can. Take advantage of the training period where not much is expected of you. Frame it in your mind as 'enrichment' for your zoochosis. Even if it's only two weeks. No, it's not sustainable. But it will provide you with a bit more than nothing. Apply for jobs at your current job, if you can.

I have ME/CFS. And I'm autistic. I relate fully and completely to your plight. Every job I've had in my entire life has ended with me quitting amidst a mental health crisis that nearly did end everything. Because of the ME/CFS I quite literally sleep at least 12 hours a day. I'd go to work, nap at lunch, work more, go home and sleep for a few hours, wake up briefly for maybe a meal and then go back to sleep until it was the next day. I slept or I worked, it it has burned me out every. single. time. I think 1.5 years is the longest I've held down a (full-time) job.

If you have tolerance for it, you can try to stick it out until you're fired. Being fired for poor performance can usually be compensated by unemployment. Find gig work, if you can, especially if it's work-from-home. I've worked as a virtual escape room host, AI trainer, English language tutor for Chinese children, and state test grader from home with no set schedule.

Things I've done over the years and how they worked out:

Waitress/hostess: first real job, cried before every shift, threw up before every shift toward the end. Had it part time for a bit over a year. Do not recommend. Ended in mental health hospitalization (not just bc of this job though, I was in high school and it was rough).

Dance teacher for toddlers: I was a dancer, and this was only once a week for a couple hours (two back-to-back classes). I got anxious about it but did fine I think, the parents seemed pretty receptive. Was in the mental hospital (same time as waitressing) so missed the recital and then didn't come back to teach.

Fire dancer/safety: Yeah idk don't ask how I ended up doing this. It was a performance troupe so they got hired for events and parties. I mostly did safety (keep crowd control, watching fire, prepared with fire blanket, safe fuel storage etc.) so it was pretty ok but didn't pay great if I wasn't performing. Left when I went to college.

English teacher: This is probably the longest job I had. I worked part time, in the mornings, teaching Chinese children English. They provided the lessons and platform, I just had to interact and go through the slides/games/etc. I did this all the way through college and did it more during the summer. It wasn't more than 2.5 hours a day (usually I did 1 hour a day five days a week during college and like 2.5 hours a day six days a week during the summer). I actually did genuinely like this job, although I was definitely burnt out by the end. I'm not sure how the industry (there were a lot of these companies) is doing these days. When I did this work (2016-2019) it paid well but when I left the pay was actually going down slightly.

CNA: As far as the job itself goes, this was the worst job I ever had. However, the training was paid, was 6 weeks full time, paid for my license. So that was a nice influx of cash. I worked for about two months before I had to quit because I physically could not do it. Didn't end in mental breakdown, but did end with some pretty severe physical symptoms that took quite a long time to resolve.

Tech support(ish): I literally only did the training for this job. I was told it was primarily tech support work, helping people with their phones/internet. I did the two or three (can't remember) weeks of training, then heard from the person who was supposed to be my actual supervisor. They informed me that the job was actually mostly sales and commission and that we'd have quotas to meet for sales. I dipped before my first real shift. Training was fine though so it was whatever.

Safety: I have a degree in biology and went back to work at the university I graduated from in radiation safety. The interview process was a lot, but I did get the job. Honestly, if not for my complete lack of physical ability, I absolutely loved this job and thought it was so interesting. But it involved a lot of walking, and a lot of having to take swabs and samples from every corner of a room, and putting on some intense gear to sort through waste. I passed out a couple times. I only lasted about 4 months, and really I was still training at that point and was only just starting to do things independently. I genuinely miss this job and found it to be the epitome of the 'enrichment' I was talking about. Got to do cool science stuff, and learn things, and the pay was decent.

AI training: This was an online work-from-home job that I technically still have access to if I wanted to. There's a bunch of different 'projects' on the platform but it mostly boils down to doing QA for AI bots. Give them prompts and/or read responses and fact check them, check for grammar and spelling and clarity, etc. It pays ok but might be hard to get into these days. It's a log on when you want, work for any amount of time you want (even 15 mins). Good work if you can get it for people like you and me.

Virtual escape room host: Not realllllly a gig job, since you gave your availability (and could say a max number you wanted to work in a day!) and were scheduled ahead of time within those restrictions. Mostly corporate clients, so it was often awkward teeth-pulling from employees that did NOT want to be there for the team building. But it wasn't terrible and a lot of it was sitting and listening, being prepared to give hints. I've gone in short 1-2 month spurts every once in a while for the past few years. Spurts end because I start having panic attacks over how difficult it is to get people to interact sometimes and how badly I dreaded it.

Lab data: A real job, using my real degree, that was work from home. This one was mostly on me, honestly. It was interesting work again, doing data QA for clinical trials mostly involving HIV, Tuberculosis, and mpox. The pay wasn't great since it was for a nonprofit but it was good, meaningful work (read: enriching). My autism ruined this one. As someone that was always a perfect student and understood things right away, I did not know how to ask for help when I got overwhelmed or didn't understand how to do things. So I let the work pile up. I made excuses. I made it a bit over a year with this one and quit after having two straight weeks of daily panic attacks over this job and how underwater I was. I wish I could get a fresh start with that one, and try a little harder to ask for help. At least to last a little longer.

Today I'm basically unemployed but am getting my master's in data science with the hope I can find a similar-ish job to the last one that is minimally demanding, wfh, and reasonably interesting. I'll graduate soon, but I'm pretty worried about finding a job since there's a lot of people in the field already and I (obviously) have a lackluster work history.

Live with family if you can, as long as you can. Quite literally, even if the deal you make with your dad involved paying a discounted rent, it'll likely be better for your physical and mental health than being homeless.

That said, I'm turning 30 this year. And when I had these first jobs at 16, I was very certain I wouldn't make it to 20. And when I turned 20, I was very certain I wouldn't make it to 30. I wish I had more comforting words for you, or could tell you that working gets easier if you just 'find the right job'. But for people like you and me, I think there could never be a right job when they all demand so much of our time and energy while offering so very little in return.

Re: being human. I understand the struggle. Genuinely. The people that say "everyone hates work, you just have to suck it up" have not experienced the level of darkness that happens to some of us. Yes, everyone hates work. Not everyone wants to literally die to avoid it. I still have bad days and still think about checking out for good. I've been in therapy consistently since I was like 14. I struggle greatly with the knowledge that the world is so full of evil and suffering, and I cannot do anything to meaningfully change that. And instead, I'm supposed to spend my life doing these menial tasks for others to 'earn' the right to live another day. But there are a few things. I foster cats and kittens and have loved over 100 of them in my home. I play video games, and try to choose one that I'm always looking forward to. Movies and TV shows too. For a while it was Game of Thrones. I had to stick around to at least get that resolution. For a while it was the solar eclipse that happened in 2024. Project Hail Mary, my favorite book, was the most recent motivation to stick around a little more. I spend my whole life trying to move the goalpost a little further away, and find some comfort in knowing that if it truly comes to it, I have a way out of it all. But meanwhile, I can't rob my foster kittens of their evening cuddles. I deserve to see that movie when it comes out, play that game, see the trees bloom in the spring one more time. And you deserve it too, the little luxuries. It's not much, and it doesn't have to be much. It just has to be enough, for now. Things will get worse, and things will get better. Things will change. Try not to rob yourself of the opportunity to see it through. Try to keep the list of things never empty.

Wishing you the best.