You asked in the right place because the modern programming field upholds this toxic positivity about how anyone can do whatever they set their mind to, and this is emphatically false.

I would recommend leveraging what you do know about front end and marketing yourself as a UX/UI Designer or the like, this will get you a decent paying gig before you aim for a more senior graphic design role at a bigger company.

And your instincts are correct about targeting government or academia, most entry level roles are for some ecomm or fintech startup with all kinds of client deadlines, which will be a nightmare if you’re a slow learner.

Also going to school costs money and time, whether it’s design or development you’re going to learn more on the job. Idk if you should do it without a clearly defined goal