HELP ME PLEASE!!! Surely I can't be the only one???

Hi Hendrow. Try focusing on something else you like doing and do that when you feel low. It could be going for a walk, reading a book, play a sport. In the meantime what you can do is focus your efforts in job searching. Use the internet etc. it breaks your day up, doesn't cost anything and will hopefully lead to something better. There is also a great autism website called Autism Plus and they support people on the spectrum to find a job. Hope it helps. 

QuirkyFriend Wrote: said:

Yes us ND get funny reactions to medications but if you persist hopefully you will find the best one for you (I have tried 7 meds and still have a cluster of side effects, but I can live with them)

I profoundly, but respectfully, disagree with any idea that meds are a first line of response to depression. They are useful in some situations for some people but they can be singularly ineffective in some people with ASD. Depression is not necessarily a result of brain chemistry but it can be a very rational response to the hard life that one has as a result of ASD. Social isolation and the ingrained misery of living on benefits can lead one to depression without the involvement of any bad brain chemistry. Please read all of this as an "it depends" thing - meds work brilliantly for some people with ASD but they are not the right answer for a lot of other people.

My personal views are highly coloured by what happened to my father who, in hindsight, was an undiagnosed autistic person. He was on meds for many years because of depression and there seemed to be no alternative. His life ended with Alzheimers and there is a suspicion (my GP agreed with my suspicion) that meds might have had something to do with that ending. Long term use of mind altering substances (meds, tobacco, weed etc etc) is always going to be an experiment on yourself.

The alternative to meds is to "change your mind" by challenging yourself to think differently about the world and your part in its downfall. If you accept that you can only ever know a fraction of what can be known, that you are not perfect but instead you are OK and that you are an entirely acceptably decent person with decent ideas and decent morals etc then you might be a bit less unhappy with your situation.

My experience of depression was that I became a zombie after years of undiagnosed autism and the resultant conflict and lack of progress in my working life. I was on a relentless loop of working for managers that I did not understand and I ended up in the GP surgery in what I recognise now to be a bad state of depression. The recognition that it could be ASD that had brought about this state of affairs became the key that unlocked an acceptance that I was different to other people. There are lots of things that are well known about autism and I have used that to understand how I can still be different but avoid the relentless conflict and clattering about that went on for the previous 50+ years. I have turned that into a useful circumscribed interest and am now fascinated by studying people and how I can accept myself for what I am and accept them (most, but not all of them mind) for what they are.

These are just my views. They are incomplete and they may well be different to anyone else reading them but this is what I think from my limited experience and life on earth so far.

Hi, part of my job is budgeting for business purposes. I have always had an obsession with numbers, so it is the right career path for me.

Anyhow, first pay all of your bills, take out half of what you have left in cash then make a list for dinners and use the list to make a grocery list. Add stuff you normally stock up on like sugar, coffee, stuff to make sandwiches for lunch. Check over the list and ask yourself about each item if it is a necessity, if not, cross it off and make a wants list. Only go back to the wants list when you have saved a little money and are capable of buying a few wants. This way you can then prioritize your wants and buy them as a reward for yourswlf one at a time. You will find that you no longer wants some of them and permanently cross them off, others you will find a way to stash a little money here and there to save for that want. Then when you go to the store, only ALLOW yourself to buy stuff already on the NEEDS list. Budgeting comes down to self control. Make rules for yourself, write them down and post them on the fridge if you have to!

I understand it in theory, but in reality, I just lose control. I have so crazy idea that it will work out somehow. It's like I never learn and I can never learn, my Quirky Friend.

Here is my trick for my impulsive ADHD stepdaughter. Pay bills first take out the rest in cash and only pay by cash. She went from risky debt to savings by doing this, anything she didn't spend was saved.

Seriously go to a budgeting advisor. It can help immensely.

Hey Quirky friend, thanks for the reply. I have something about my brain that makes it so I can't budget, I just can't do it.

Hey there. First of all it is bloody hard to live on a benefit whatever way you say it and whatever country you are in.

Secondly, go speak to your GP if you are depressed like this - depression is commonly comorbid with ASD. Yes us ND get funny reactions to medications but if you persist hopefully you will find the best one for you (I have tried 7 meds and still have a cluster of side effects, but I can live with them)

Thirdly, if you haven't gone to a budgeting service, do it. You might learn very little but you might also pick up some useful tips.