Work and the trials thereof, including changing jobs or roles

So, firstly, I think a lot of people are undergoing significant changes in their lives and not least their work; these are the times we live in. Mine, ironically, have nothing to do the pandemic, but that is neither here nor there. I wanted to find out who was experiencing significant change in this area and how they were faring? I have a secondary reason for posting that will come up at the end of the post. Thus, I begin:

For 20 years or so I worked the same job - not with the same employer and the specifics of the actual role or work changed, but essentially I just solved technical or computer software-related problems, as only a neuro-divergent could. This isn't really something I chose - I fell into it, and just kind of stayed - changing always seemed overly dangerous. I helped a lot of people shift their thinking and outlook on the process of solving things, as well as understanding problems. What to me seemed the most obvious approach was something my colleagues had to learn or be taught.

That was all quite good, but eventually I ended up in Consulting and several years into my career, and I lacked the social acumen to adapt to promotion criteria, so I was being left behind and expectations placed on me didn't meld well with my interests or inclinations. I made significant adjustments on a social level and learned a lot about how people do things and why, but I always came up short in review.

Eventually I ended up on a couple of bad projects with people behaving in a way I couldn't cope with, and people responsibilities I didn't want, just as some stuff happened in my personal life with family. As a result, I think I had an emotional meltdown - I'm still not sure about that, but I definitely experienced burn-out, lacked motivation to do my work even to a basic standard, and fell into depression, so I'm assuming that's what happened. Naturally, I took some time off work (with some encouragement from friends), but some time turned into a lot of time, and I ultimately took voluntary redundancy when the initial wave of covid layoffs started hitting the big firms.

That was a year ago now - and I think I've recovered from the family and other social drama - but I still don't feel driven to re-engage with work, and this is kind of a problem. I'm in a pretty good place, but if I stay in this state of almost complete inactivity, that won't last. So, I'm trying to figure out how to get back into things, but I don't want to just do the same thing I've been doing. Part of the problem is that I don't think I really understand what I'm good at; everything I do just comes naturally - there's no sense of accomplishment or effort - and I also don't really know what I want to do.

I thought I'd start by looking on this site for some advice/guidance, and while I was at it, I thought... let me see if anyone has a similar story, or at least a story they want to share, Maybe people here have had experiences akin to mine. Maybe I can learn from that or just not feel so... alien.