What Should I Do? Advice?

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I have trouble finding jobs. I only held a job once
in my life, for only 3 months. And that was 10 years ago!

For many years I was reclusive, full of anxiety
and worry, and afraid of being around people.
Therefore, I have many years of empty progress and no
resume to show for it. I'm not lazy, it was pretty
extreme anxiety, panic attacks and PTSD.

How does someone find a job at my age (27) without a resume?

I still do not prefer to be around people, but
I can handle it a little better now that I have
been living alone for a few years. I feel braver every day.
I'm on SSI and I don't feel like I deserve it now that I'm able to function again.
But I desperately wish to work now, but I really don't know
where to go or what to do at an interview. I don't even know
what kind of jobs are out there for someone who has trouble
around a lot of people, and I can't be in stressful situations...

Any ideas? Thank you.

In the immediate future, look for jobs in retail or labor that require little or no experience.

Apply for vocational rehabilitation. It might take a while for you to be approved. In the meantime, if you have any therapists or support services of any kind, ask to be referred for job development programs.

Look for things to put on your resumé that were not traditional employment. Volunteering, your own personal projects, pet-sitting, skills you taught yourself. Even if you can't make what you did sound like a job, you can list the skills you used or gained to do it. For example, if you spent the last 10 years researching AS on the Internet, you can list researching and familiarity with the operating system on your computer in the skills section of your resumé (if it's relevant to whatever job you want to apply for). You can enroll in community college or an adult school course and add that to the Education section of your resumé.

Create a portfolio to show off what kind of work you can do. If you know how to create presentations in Microsoft PowerPoint, make up a bunch of nice-looking presentations and print them out or put them on a website. Drawing, writing, photography, computer programming, web design, etc. are all skills you can show off in a portfolio even though you've never had a job in the field. You can even add in any nice samples you did while in school.

If you have basic computer skills, you may be able to get free testing for typing skills or skills using specific software. Then, you will have a certificate that would help you get some administrative or clerical jobs. Temp agencies also offer these sometimes, but sometimes you have to pay.

Have you considered any volunteering opportunities that may exist particularly in areas that you would be interested in? It will give you new skills and help you to ease yourself back into a working environment and also looks great on a CV. It may not be paid work but it's a good start and may make a good first step back to employment rather than taking things too fast and regretting it.

I'm in a similar position. I only had 2 jobs ever. One lasted 2 weeks and one lasted 5 weeks. I'm 37 now and one was when I was 19 and the other in my early 20s.

If I looked for a job I wouldn't even know where to apply as it seems almost all jobs expect me to have education, experience, a license, and/or a car, none of which I have. I also couldn't work with customers a lot or do hard manual labor.

Start applying to places. Some employers like to hire people off SSI or other government programs are there are things like Welfare to Work tax credits.

Listing volunteer actions, self employment, things like that can be valuable. You could also say that the reason for the gap was due to medical reasons and get a doctor's note.

I would suggest applying to mom and pop style stores though. You want to apply to a place where you can talk to the person doing the hiring and give him the app, not go through an online system that will prob eat your resume due to lack of experience.

If you can meet the manager and talk to him/her your odds are much better.

What your doing is noble, you should be proud of it. There are plenty of people in this world who would be content to collect SSI forever.