I would be very grateful for any career ideas for someone in my situation, which involves a partial disability (chronic/complex PTSD), multi-year gaps, and, after 2000, a typical job tenure of months. If there is a way to recover from this without lying, I’d love to know.

Over 20 years ago, as an embedded software engineer -- mostly finding & fixing bugs in a network of embedded boards made by 600 engineers -- my employee stock options vested near the stock's all-time high. But by then, I was barely hanging on. It had been almost two years since I’d felt good about my work product, and I’d been trying to get a leave of absence, but I hadn’t been diagnosed with anything yet. After a cashless exercise, I resigned. Living on the windfall allowed me to mask my burnout for long enough to lose credibility as a professional.

I need a career that is compatible with ongoing treatment, which will take years. By the time I got a diagnosis of chronic PTSD, my funds were low enough to interfere with treatment: Treatment for complex PTSD (from continual situations rather than specific major events) requires unboxing painful emotions, which increases the stress level, and the mind won’t really permit this process unless it feels safe-enough to do so. So, to progress in treatment, realistically I first need to identify and establish myself in a career whose stress level, for me, could leave a safety margin. It has to pay enough not to bring additional poverty-induced stress, be challenging enough not to induce stress from boredom, and be easy enough for me, who is, for now, not a quick thinker as a programmer or engineer.

References: [1] https://www.dropbox.com/s/1d96l1ood9re55h/Ask%20HN%20Re-establishing%20a%20professional%20career%20after%20hiatus%20%28w_%20complex%20PTSD%29%20%281%29.pdf?dl=0 [2] https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/11x8um0lpccji7wmvnlk6/Post-uni-employment-history-to-2021.xlsx?dl=0&rlkey=h0w9xcnifnh6exkefrongembn