Hello truthnlove: I don't know as I have any particularly useful suggestions for you... particularly since I have no idea what types of jobs would even be available to you where you live. But I wanted to reply to your post because you sound a lot like me.

I'm retired at this point. But my career, such as it was, was pretty-much a disaster. I chose a career path for which I was fundamentally unsuited. It required a lot of public contact which is something I'm just not good at. I guess I thought that by exposing myself to what I feared, I'd gradually learn to do it. I didn't. But what it did do was to inflame my already serious levels of social anxiety. And by the time I realized what I was doing to myself, my career path was set to the point where making a significant change would have been too costly. So I just kept plodding along until the whole sorry edifice came crashing down.

So I simply want to encourage you to continue to take a serious look at what's going on with you vocationally & try to get onto some type of career path that is in keeping with your personality. The fact that you have the self-awareness you have is a good sign! This is so important. Perhaps one thing you might consider is to see if there is any type of vocational testing that might be available to you. Something of this sort might be offered by your state employment services office or perhaps a community college. If they don't offer it, they may know who does.

Lastly, I'd like to recommend a book. The title is: Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation by Parker J. Palmer, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2000.

P.S. Take a look at this website & see if it would be of any interest. I just learned of it this afternoon.

http://www.seedyourfuture.org/