How do you cope with low social status?

Hi, i have enough autism to be rubbish at all my jobs - clumsy, bad coordination, no memory, easily confused, never know what time or day it is, find it hard to follow conversation, useless at maths, physically weak, don't notice anything around me, no social skills etc etc - with no strengths or special interests. The problem is that i am always the one who is clearly worst at their job, way below average. However, i have adequate verbal production skills so people aren't able to ascribe my mistakes to my learning disabilities as they do with people who are 'obviously' learning disabled (slow or limited speech etc). This means that i am always bad at it and colleagues are always glancing at each other as i make another mistake yet again, or worse (whispering, laughing, when i come in the room when they're sharing my latest stupid error.) Now i'm extremely lucky, as they tolerate me here, for the first time i haven't got sacked, and it only happens as a result of what i did and happens to everyone when they make mistakes and isn't malicious. But mentally and emotionally i find it hard to cope with, partly because i have never been emotionally close to anyone ever so i can't talk to anyone about it (internet means nothing to me so can't help), and partly because i'm sick of the normal childish coping methods (fantasies of being different, clever, powerful, or of revenge 'i'll show them'). When you're stupid at school, pretending one day they'll realise you're a wizard or planning to one day be a super-spy are fine as you'll escape into real life. But i'm rather sick of the adult equivalent. There isn't an area of life or an interest in which i shine (i don't really want one but i can see it would help if you did). Instead i need to not mind being backward and having low social status because of it. I don't mind when i'm not at work, but i spend forty hours a week there and make constant mistakes, dyspraxic ones which aren't going to go away, so i'd like a way of emotionally coping. Intellectually i accept my status fine, but i really need to stop getting a bit cross and upset about it at work. (I don't mean meltdowns or anxiety, i mean sulky or grumpy.) A lot of people here must be in the same boat, so i'd love to know how you cope! Thanks.

nb unskilled manual labour constantly around other people, in sales, not office job or management etc

  • Hello Maia,

    I have autism and spent the entirety of my twenties making clumsy mistakes and stressing terribly over paperwork. And why? Because others believed I was intelligent due to my verbal skills and the fact that I was able to ace an exam by reading a book the day before. However, I have never had any ability for managing or administrating or 'using my brain' and was often told I must use my brain as I was gifted. It took me years to learn to ignore these constraints. I gave up on struggling to excel myself in an environment that I neither coveted nor derived any reward from (due to my constant mistakes) and people's apparent incredulity that someone who writes so well could not possibly make such amateur errors. 

    Any way cut a long story short I went and started a business with my partner working with my hands. Much to the outrage of various people who accused me of wasting my brain. However, I love my job. I work outside cleaning all day and come home tired. Yet I thrive on the repetition and the fact that I don't have to think. Also by not having the constant meltdowns associated with working in a corporate environment I do not feel anxiety and the almost debilitating adrenaline rushes and self-blaming rage. 

    As such I beg you not to concern yourself with social status. It is entirely a social construct. I earn more money than I use to also and I can't get polishing a conservatory wrong and so don't end up in a heap of self-loathing at the end of every day. 

    All I am saying is there is no shame in admitting something is not for you. Hey they expected me to go to Oxbridge. I didn't. I dropped out. I couldn't follow that path; it was too stressful and I couldn't cope.

    I hope you are feeling better soon x

  • maia said:

    i don't meant, social status as something i feel i have: i mean, that feeling of humiliation you get when you're the stupid one everyone else is whispering about or laughing about.

    In order to be the 'one everyone else is whispering about or laughing about' you have as such been fostered with and assumed the 'stupid one' role in terms of social status, i.e. the 'village idiot' or 'fool'.

    The more you allow yourself to play into the role in terms of feeling humiliated by others, the more you emotionally adopt the role ~ the more you thereby strengthen your social status as such. Learn not to focus on that which others do in terms of treating you as a laughing stock, as in the sense of focusing more on other things instead. Not easy I know, but certainly doable, developmentally speaking.

    Consider for instance that firstly you are not stupid at all, otherwise you would not be able to relate with us and respond to our replies as you have done in your posts.

    The reality is more in fact that you do not have much of a short term memory, but you do have a long term one, and working with and from that will be much more worthwhile and productive. By this I mean you need to work by routine in order to establish a pattern of activities that can be enhanced, improved upon, as slowly and progressively being refined. Take your time and watch for mistakes, and have them become more and more retakes.

  • Exclusion is very familiar to me.  Not just thru autism.  I had other problems in my childhood and after many years it becomes normal and I just accept it.

    Even worse, I now exclude myself because I don't know how to act/behave in situations. So I don't go.  And other people get upset because they think that I'm snubbing them.   And openly accuse me of thinking that I'm better than them.

    Life is full of irony Birthday and misunderstanding. Frowning2

  • i don't enjoy humiliation and i find it humiliating to be excluded from groups my whole life all the time, but that's what autism is

  • i don't meant, social status as something i feel i have: i mean, that feeling of humiliation you get when you're the stupid one everyone else is whispering about or laughing about. I don't feel it for long, i mean, how do you cope with the emotions of humiliation and rejection for the ten or twenty minutes afterwards that you still remember it? I personally do not enjoy these emotions and cannot avoid them either; i don't like being laughed about, although it's perfectly fair, it happens to anyone when they make a mistake. This must be an everyday experience for everyone with autism at work, so i expect it's just me that doesn't enjoy it

  • I agree DeepThought...society is a puzzle which needs its pieces or various shapes, sizes, and attributes to survive...

    leach piece is of equal worth and value ...without each each nothing can be “complete”

    good to hear from you by the way

  • Elephantintheroom said:

    So....is it because our perceived “usefulness”...is not always transparent to the NT world....they are too linear and funnelled in their thinking that maybe they lack the perception that alternate ways of being and thinking and doing can exist and be purposeful....

    In some parts of world where spiritualism or religion have not been politically hijacked and converted to 'survival-of-the-elitist' materialism, or put to an end ~ remains certain cultures where being different is a fundamental principle that is essential to such cultures.

    In Canada, a couple had come with their young child to an autistic diagnosis centre. The father was a big time financial accountant, and the mother was a particularly successful artist and illustrator, and it turned out that both mother and father had Asperger's Syndrome also ~ the fully functional variety!

    The diagnostic specialist had never met fully functional Aspergians before, and was somewhat baffled as to how this couple could index so highly yet be so functional in social terms.

    The young specialist checked for literature, called up colleagues, and colleagues called up their colleagues, but there was only hypothesis. So it was suggested to the specialist that inquiries might be made with the family.

    It turned out that they were brought up in a spiritual community that was protected from outside 'materialistic' influences, and that as allowed their members to find there place in the community ~ according to their individual abilities.

    Rather a big research gig was established with the families community and other communities of the same calling, and the researchers lived and worked amongst them according to the communities rules.

    The interesting thing being that Asperger's syndrome, autism and neurological divergence is an essential component for such healthy societies, as suffered no mental illness nor serious illnesses.

    Who would of imagined that ~ hey? Rolling eyes

  • Ignoring autism for the moment.  I just find this obsession with social status a mystery.

    I found myself in the middle of these social status rows when I was at school in the 1970s.

    After I was discharged from my second stay in a special school, I was back in a mainstream middle school.  There we were streamed by ability in certain subjects.  There was a slow, middle & fast stream.  And to encourage academic achievement,  it was informally linked  to social status ( As I discovered).

    I was initially placed in the slow maths class.  At the end of year exams I was top by a large margin and I was promoted to the middle stream.  The boy who came second in the exams was very upset because he was staying in the slow class. Up to then we had been fairly friendly.  But after that he never spoke to me again although we were in the same classes for other subjects.

    After a month in the middle stream we were tested again and I came top of the class by a big margin. I was moved to the fast stream.  The girl who came second blew her top, and blamed me openly for stealing her place in the top class.  Other pupils explained to me later  that this was a social status situation.

    I thought the whole thing was silly.

  • So....is it because our perceived “usefulness”...is not always transparent to the NT world....they are too linear and funnelled in their thinking that maybe they lack the perception that alternate ways of being and thinking and doing can exist and be purposeful....

  • I believe, although I have not done any comprehensive research.  Or seen any research.  It is just my personal opinion.

    That societies perceived social status of autistics is very low.  Although many respected figures are, or have been suspected of being autistic. Such as Newton and Einstein.

  • So, Robert123....what is Autistic ? And what is the perceived social status in your mind, from societies perspective? 

  • Some people are obsessed with social status.  Even at school with teenagers it was social games and status.  I being antisocial, never participated.

    One anecdote I remember. I was once talking with my sister about someone being very middle class, my niece interrupted, "what's middle class?", My sister answered, "it's people who think they are better than us, but they aren't".

  • Back in my mid 20s when I first went into therapy TA was the model that my therapist used. I can highly recommend TA it certainly helped me start to understand the NT world and function better in it, even though it would be another 20 years later before I seriously started considering I was aspie. TA Today in particular is excellent. In the late 2000s I started to train as a TA therapist and studied with one of the authors Ian Stewart for a couple of years... eventually I knocked it on the head as I found the training too academic and stressful (very costly too!) but never the less many of the concepts of TA have really benefited me over the years and I second Deepthought's  recommendations.

  • How do you cope with low social status?

    As a complete egalitarian or equalitarian I treat all that authoritarian status anxiety stuff as like being at a dance, and either dancing freestyle, or not dancing at all ~ nor being social at anyone else's expense, which does unnerve some people, but it is better than the accepted way. 

    There is a book titled, GAMES PEOPLE PLAY - THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS, by ERIC BERNE, M.D., which is a good way to learn how to 'dance' transactionally the other way ~ save yourself from investing in all that social anxiety stuff, or be more executive about how much you allow yourself to get socially ripped off ~ being that is what the majority do and keep as such psychotherapists gainfully employed.

    There is another book titled, T A TODAY - A New Introduction to Transactional Analysis, Second Edition, by Ian Stewart, and Vann Joines, which is actually therapeutically immersive, easy to read and socially educational ~ all at the same time.

  • You may feel like you have low social status “out there”....but here you are held in high esteem....we will always be forced to be in a lowly position or status and when are difficult to understand ...people find it difficult to identify with "different"

  • Why do you care about social status?

    Just enjoy life and don't think about it.