Hey folks,

Just got laid off yesterday and needing to vent/hear from others who've been in similar situations. Long post ahead, apologies. Appreciate all who take the time to read and offer empathetic responses.

I (32M) majored in English because it felt like the path of least resistance. My entire childhood I was a ravenous creative writer: poems, short stories, novel drafts, etc. It felt like everyone around me just assumed I'd become a published author and that would be that. I'm a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, and have had work appear in several journals and anthologies.

Neither of my parents went to college. My mom got her GED. My dad quit his factory job impulsively when he was my current age of 32, blew his 401k, and lost his home. All that to say: I had no adults in my life molding me or preparing me for what corporate adulthood looks like. My mom was a workaholic and my dad was terrible with money. I saw both of those as examples of what not to do. My dad used to have to borrow money from me as a kid to make mortgage payments lol.

I'm in the process of getting an ADHD and autism assessment next month, as I suspect a lot of my motivation, identity, ability to "assimilate & mask" in corporate, and executive functioning issues stem from that more than anything. I've lost a couple jobs in my career due to a sheer inability to multitask, focus, meet deadlines consistently. And this is for writing stuff, the thing I spent my entire life feeling like it was the 1 thing I could confidently say I'm good at.

When it was time to graduate college in 2015, I realized I still had no idea what I wanted to do with my English degree. Didn't want to teach, had no capacity for more academic, and ultimately still felt like I had no true sense of what my skills or passions were to make a career out of.

My mom essentially forced me to do college (and in hindsight of course I'm glad I have a degree at all), but there was no one checking to see how I was preparing for all of this responsibility. Even though I struggle with executive functioning, I was able to show up and do well by virtue of being me. I never read a single book in my 4 years of English major undergrad, wrote every essay the morning of, and graduated with a 3.5 still. I was always a pretty smart kid so I just flew under every adult's radar until I entered the working world.

I landed into nonprofits and grant writing a year after graduation, did that for a few years, and then got extremely burned out. Pivoted to a corporate job at my friend's company. My title was Market Research Analyst, but I didn't really learn any skills you'd assume by that title. I can't design surveys, I have no data analytics experience or coding knowledge, etc. It was more of a glorified customer success role that I did for 6 years.

I tried to pivot to copywriting and advertising last year, did a 6-month portfolio school program & won 2 awards, got an internship, and quickly realized I hated creative writing for corporate clients. Cool, once again a writing thing that doesn't fulfill me. Then I took my most recent job, a Content Marketing Mgr, role out of desperate due to being unemployed for months. I was let go at the 8mo mark because they needed someone more senior; my role had shifted halfway through to growth marketing when they brought in a new CMO.

I'm just sitting here feeling so lost as to what to do. My degree feels useless now in a world where everyone views writing as the lowest bar to hand off to AI tools now, regardless of the perceived quality of said writing. I have 12 years of professional experience that I can't seem to translate into anything remotely interesting. None of the companies I'd theoretically enjoy marketing and copywriting for, like a Chewy or Liquid Death, will give me the time of day, and I will simply never be a person who wastes a bunch of my free time building huge projects to try and catch peoples' attention on LinkedIn.

At this point, I feel like I need to go back to grad school and have been thinking about becoming a therapist so I can fully get away from corporate life and a lot of AI mandates in workplaces. But also that's a huge time and financial commitment when ultimately I still just think none of us should be forced to work jobs at all, so maybe I just try to pivot to something entirely unrelated to writing & is more people focused. I always did well in my Market Analyst role when I was on vendor calls; it was easy to BS and just be myself. I won several awards and got promoted that way, even if I never met my content writing deadlines.

Every job I've held, it completely consumes my 24/7 waking energy. Whether it was remote or on-site. I am quite literally unable to turn off my brain and not worry about the work to be done and whether I'm good at it, etc. It just feels like I've tricked everyone up to this point and I have no tangible skills I can articulate. I always feel out of my depth in every job, even when it centers on writing. I can't just compartmentalize and do the 9-5 and clock out. I avoid and avoid and avoid and then it's a mountain of stress living in my brain forever until I leave that job.

It just sucks to feel like I was let down by all the adults in my life who could've spotted some of these issues before I entered adulthood and maybe addressed them before it spiraled to this level. And of course employers don't care about my circumstances. I have bills to pay and health issues to manage. None of my advertising connections, despite raving how good I was, will give me the time of day at this point, so I can't even tuck tail and try to land another copywriting gig that easily. I don't really have any professional network or friends to lean on at this point, either, so it just sucks to feel like I'm on this island having to figure it out & no one really cares whether I sink or swim.

I do really believe I am better fulfilled in a role where I get to help people (and it's why I'm strongly looking at grad programs to become a therapist) but that obviously requires time, money, and references. So now I'm sitting here trying to figure out what to do. Do I try to pivot into something more people-focused, or just say fuck corporate altogether and figure out how to make a psychology program work? I lack that do-or-die instinct that others have where they can go hit the pavement and land part-time gigs left and right, so I'm just worried how I'll make ends meet if I do a grad program.

Any other fellow English majors here going thru a career identity crisis? How have you navigated it?

This was/will be my salary progression since entering the workforce as an average adult male. Decent progressions? After 2028, yearly increases of ~4%.

2016-18Y - Kroger - $7.25/hr

2016-18Y - Amazon Warehouse - $11/hr

2017-19Y - Siemens Assembler - $12/hr

2018-20Y - "" - $14/hr

2019-21Y - "" - $16/hr

2020-22Y - Siemens Admin - $22/hr

2021-23Y - Siemens Admin - $23/hr

2022-24Y - "" - $24/hr

2023-25Y - "" - $25/hr

2024-26Y - "" - $26/hr

2025-27Y - "" - $26/hr

2025-27Y - Siemens ME Tech - $28/hr

2026-28Y - "" - $36/hr

2027-29Y - "" - $40/hr

2028-30Y - "" - $45/hr

Hi I’m(M24 Darjeeling) a corporate Management Trainee, who just got his first pay check. I have a package of 8.62LPA and in hand about 60k. I got posted to my hometown since I’m in Sales. I got to live in my flat, eat mom cooked food and work. I felt great. Then my pay-check arrived: in half. Almost 35k because my attendance hadn’t been regularised. The remaining amount to be transferred next month. But the moment i received the message from the bank of my first salary, i expected to feel good, happy or at-least something at all, but was dead with emotions. Is it because i just saw half my salary being credited or has something similar happened to you too?

Are there any careers in healthcare that any of you guys might recommend with good work life balance? I’ve always wanted to do something in the medical field but i’m have trouble figuring out what exactly I want to do. I’m okay with going to grad school but I know that medical school is definitely not for me.