#autism work

Honestly i can only work by doing not a lot else, as depressing as that is, because i need money despite not being physically or mentally able to work enough hours to earn enough money to financially support myself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don’t really know how apart from that work is my number one priority in life so I write off most other things? (which is not a good work life balance at all, but what’s the alternative?)

I used to push myself to work full-time in the hope that the more i did, the better i’d get used to it and would learn to be able to do it. That’s not true, and i just made myself ill to the point of having to be signed off work multiple times, so working reduced hours is the only way i can manage to work at all.

That was really hard to accept because I grew up without a diagnosis and being constantly genuinely-well-meaningly encouraged (by people who truly believed it) that I could do anything asked of me if I put my all into it. This obviously reflected in feeling like anything I couldn’t do was a personal failure, because logically if i could do anything I set my mind to if I tried hard enough, then not being able to do that thing meant I just wasn’t putting in enough effort yet, and I needed to do more (even if i was giving it all i could).

So I work part-time, and when i’m not there mostly save my energy for work - i can’t really got out with friends (or date) because meeting new people or even just going out with people i already know takes so much energy, and i often end up feeling ill or having anxiety/panic attacks. If I do too much overall, I start to lose mental abilities like memory and concentration (and just being able to get my head around things), and I’m near-constantly tired + physically ill, with scarily worse physical symptoms too if I overdo it. I try to do some nice things when i can, but i don’t really leave the house a whole lot at the moment.

I asked for reasonable adjustments at work, like being allowed to wear headphones so i’m not as exhausted by sensory overload, and having a 10 minute break. I stim when my brain is telling me the bad things. I count down the minutes until I can take my break (that i get because of reasonable adjustments), and then again until I can go home.

I picked a job that doesn’t involve a lot of talking to people, no using a phone, and is very structured, to put minimal strain on myself mentally. (I’ve had lots of retail jobs in the attempt to desensitise myself but that largely doesn’t work + leaves me mentally and physically  ill to the point of having to take time off or quit.) And if I’m feeling good, I like my job! I can normally do it well and I care about making things good and right, so I’ve made myself valued as much as I can. It’s just feeling bad that takes away my resilience for dealing with the hard bits.

When I get home, I go straight to bed if I’m at meltdown point and can’t deal with being awake. I spend most of my free time resting so I’m not too mentally and physically depleted to do the next work day. I try to bank enough emotional/physical/mental energy to embrace doing my job, be actively kind to the people around me, and be able to baseline function so I can do my job role.

I can’t help thinking that it isn’t sustainable, but what can i do? It seems like there are a hell of a lot of autistic or otherwise disabled/chronically ill people faced with the non-choice between overextending themselves and making themselves sick to earn ‘enough’ money (if they even are able to do that), or setting reasonable boundaries and consequently being unable to support themselves.  

I’m okay for the most part though! I spend some money on material things that make life nice short-term, like my camera and laptop, or nice clothes so i feel like i’m making an effort, or stationary so i can do nice journalling things. I try to make small things meaningful, and to build as rewarding a world as i can (even if it is really little). I’m incredibly lucky that my parents can support me financially in terms of rent/living, although i pay my medical bills and deal with all the other costs. If I was on my own I don’t know what I’d do.

I, and lots of other autistic and disabled people, are constantly explicitly or implicitly asked or encouraged to work more, often well-meaningly, and it’s kind of soul destroying - I’m doing as much as I can to have a job and consequently to ‘be a valued member of society’ but it’s not enough. I can’t support myself because i can’t earn enough to do that, but somehow admitting that is being negative and putting myself down - lots of people think I should believe i can do anything i can put my mind to and work to do it??

Part of me wishes I’d been diagnosed as autistic when I was young so I wouldn’t have grown up being perceived as an abled person and expected to achieve to neurotypical standards, both by myself and others. The rest of me is relieved that I didn’t get diagnosed before I was able to self-advocate, so I escaped any ableist treatment when I was young.