If decent therapy is an option, I’d recommend that. I’m in my late 30s and quit my job 5 years ago due to depression and burnout.

Now I’m suicidal and still unable to cope with my autism, depression, and other things like asthma.

So take my life as a warning and try to talk to someone you feel comfortable with about your anxieties. Lest you live with your parents in your 30s like I do, or end up homeless like I was planning to.

If the idea of studying for a degree is entirely unappealing, then don’t do it. You are more likely to waste money and time on it than to actually get any value from it.

My first suggestion would be to learn a trade. We have far too few people in the trades, and they are often some of the lowest bars of entry, and your upfront costs for educations are far lower and pay for themselves quickly. Something hands on, interesting to you and no where near as academic as college. You could apprentice as an electrician, plumber, or hvac installer or go to school for culinary arts, welding, cosmetics, drafting, etc. These forms of education may be more interesting as you are actually doing something while learning, and you can often walk out with a certification and a job offer.

If trade school isn’t your direction, or maybe you’ll do more education someday, but not now, get a job immediately. Any job, don’t be picky. You can immediately job hop to a better opportunity when you find it. But don’t sit at home doing nothing while waiting to find a satisfying job. There is good reason for that. It is WAY too easy to fall into a cycle of depression, self-disrespect, and feeling stuck when you do nothing for a long time. Been there done it.

I chose work over classes in college because I was broke. Failed out and moved back in with my mom. Lived in BFE, Tennessee for over 3 years, and had employment for about 4 months of that. My mom decided she was moving and I wasn’t coming with her. Moved in with my dad and before I could get stuck in a new routine, I found a job washing dishes. And two weeks later I was hired for a factory job with better pay and benefits. A few years and a few job hops later, I was working in IT, back in school again to finally get my degree, and married. 12 years ago I was getting kicked out of my mom’s house after 3 years of mostly unemployment. Now I’m 4.5 years into being an engineer, own a home, and have a wife, a daughter, and another on the way. And all of that started with getting a dish washing job at Steak n Shake. So I mean it. Don’t be picky.

My point is this: stay active and gain independence as quickly as possible. Do not let yourself fall into a rut or it may take someone else giving you the boot to get back out of it. Get that shitty job. Pivot that into getting a less shitty job. Gain independence. Have your own life that you earn. And plans can and will change. If you decide to go to school later you can. If you can get a better job, do. And find a good, smart, and stable partner to share the load with. It makes things so much easier. But that does mean you need to be a good partner for them too, so keep working on you to earn them.

Just make sure not to beat yourself up over it too much. That just becomes a spiraling mess of depression. You’re 18, you have time to figure out what you click with. Most jobs aren’t like school anyways, so it’d be a reality check even if you knew what you could engage with.

Also for college, don’t sweat the first year or two. There are plenty of general credits that go into most degrees, so just continuing your general education is a good thing until you get to year three or four (by credit count, not by actual time).

As for finding your groove to move forward… Heck, I don’t know, I struggle with that crap, too. I’d say find some activity that you like doing (or when depressed, can momentarily get absorbed into is a good sign), and figure out how that can translate into a career, or at least a first serious job. Being able to contribute to the household should really help your headspace unless your parents are real dicks about things.

I’m sure it’s difficult with your parents pressuring you, but I would advise you to not rush it, if at all possible. Try different therapists and prescribed medicine combinations. Then, focus on what interests you, and what you want to do. You don’t want to go to higher education, then after years of work and studying (and the expense) only have a useless degree, or one in a field you’re not interested in. With that said, try not to do nothing, make some progress. (I know, easier said than done). I know it’s daunting, but you’ll look back and be glad you planned everything out… “You have your whole life ahead of you”. Good luck!

Apologies, but I don’t know a ton about Brazil

Your English is really good, would trying to work in translation or something be accessible? I know people are exhausting, but tourism is a huge industry that is always very happy to see bilinguals.

Regardless, good luck mate. All it takes it a little movement and these things can snowball.

I can’t say I know anything about your situation aside from what you stipulated. What interests you (anything, not necessarily career stuff)? I’m just going to list a lot of things so you can just try to narrow down what you want from that.

Have you taken a trip to a bigger city like your regional capital or like Rio or Sao Paulo (Brazil is big so no idea how much of a trip that would be)? Sometimes being in a small town limits what options you think you have.

Check if there’s a college or university fair style event where you can tour some programs to see what career path interests you. You don’t necessarily have to find “the one true match”, just take it seriously and jot down notes of what you saw so you can think about what stood out. It’s pretty normal to not know what you will or won’t be good at for a career because you haven’t had a taste for the experience. Career fairs might also be a help, if there’s a job you didn’t know existed you can ask what education is needed to get there.

There are also plenty of jobs you don’t need to be booksmart or be that strong to do. Like get a forklift or commercial vehicle license and become an operator of those for example.

The financial thing might mean you want to “get it together ASAP” but that’s just the situation put on you, it says nothing to me about whether you are capable or not. You still have time to figure things out. Me saying “Just don’t be depressed” is not useful, but I will leave it at this: I get it, it’s easy to get in a doom loop, but don’t judge your career prospects from what you know at this moment. Of course you know nothing, same as everybody, you’re just out of high school. Think about where you think you’d enjoy being, after you figure out the things you need to figure out, whether by studying, certification training or working on creative and interpersonal skills, and make your decision based on that. One thing that worried me at your age, is that I’d have to ‘lock something in’ and be stuck with it the rest of my life, but I found that to be far from my and others’ reality.

I didn’t go to college until I was 21/22

You aren’t going to “figure it out” by immediately going to college

You should see if local universities and polytechnics have counselors to talk to

I think you would want line ups with jobs that that have a good outlook in your region, and these counselors should know or have access to data that could help make a good choice

Do the colleges you can go to offer mental health supports? If so ask them how you can access it. Seems a bit tricky to try to access student supports when not a student so you can be a student… I hope they can help with that though.

As for not knowing what you want, well thats what first year is all about; trying a bunch of things out, seeing if you like them. It’s rare for someone your age to truly know what they want, if they do it’s likely because their parents taught them.

Also it’s not rotting, it’s fermenting.

It’s hard to give advice to young people, because the world you’re forced to grow up in is night-and-day different from that which most of us came up in. You all have it way, way harder.

I think the best advice I can give is that waiting is only going to compound the problem. I remember being your age and going through several jobs over my late teens and early twenties. It’s a process, and some of them you’re going to hate, but you will learn about yourself in the process and hopefully earn some money.

Also if your parents are housing you freely, you need to be doing something to help them out, assuming you’re not already. Figure out which chores they hate the most and make a habit of doing those for them. It’s just a nice way to repay them because they’re doing more for you right now than may be apparent until later in life.

One last thing, whatever you decide to do for work, always put something aside for your retirement. A dollar you put in an investment account now can turn into 100 by the time you retire, and that is particularly true for a nineteen year-old kid. You can set one up on Robin Hood and put a couple of bucks per check in VTI or a Vanguard index fund or an ETF and just forget about it. You’ll thank me in 40 years.

I feel like getting into a tiny hobby can awaken interest in fields, where you previously didn’t even know these jobs existed.

You could try growing one (1) chili plant. Maybe you discover a passion for grafting, mycology, biology, soil chemistry, plant trade.

Manual labour is really cool and not all of it is backbreaking work. If you’re in rural Brazil, are there essential oil extractors near you? Maybe working with dairy cows is backbreaking but working in cheese making might be more up your alley.

Often we know the most famous jobs, but there are so many specialisations and branches in every pipeline.

Figuring out what you for sure want to do with the entire rest of your life is nearly impossible and probably just going to stress you out. Try to figure out where you think you might enjoy being a year from now (or even a few months or weeks from now), and then figure out what you can do to get there. If it turns out you don’t like it once you do get there, start thinking about where else you might like to be and try to get there.

Life is very long and there’s no final answers or figuring things out permanently, there will always be bad days and good days, new problems and new solutions. Don’t let the tiny facet of time you’re currently perceiving overwhelm everything else.