Published on 12, July, 2020
I've come to a point in my life where, after looking back over it - at the things that have happened, the things I've done and not done, the things I've achieved and not achieved - I can begin to make a reasonable judgment about what's likely to happen with what's left. I have far more behind me than I have in front of me. My physical health is reasonably good for a man of my age. I could carry on for a fair number of years yet before things start to break down physically. But I know that, when they do, I won't want to endure them for very long. I don't want to end up on medications for life (I already have one that I have to take). I don't want to lose my independence, and need support. I don't want to be reliant upon others. When my time comes, I'll take my own action to obviate those things.
I have just over seven years to go now before I will be able to retire. It's unlikely, therefore, that my personal circumstances are likely to change very much. There isn't a great deal I can do to improve my financial situation. The hours I work aren't full-time, but they're as much as I feel able to manage given the current state of my psychological and emotional health. Recent events have shown that my mask is beginning to slip: that after a lifetime of trying to get by in a world which has rarely made much sense to me, I'm reaching the limits of my tolerances. I'm gradually burning out. I'm beginning to break down. Not physically yet... but the physical and psychological breakdowns will work in tandem with one another, of that I'm sure. I've already done myself some damage through drinking, which I've done increasingly heavily over the last ten years. I struggle with stopping it. I've had some periods before of not drinking - a week, two weeks, a month - but I've always gone back to it. Because it's really the only thing that relieves the anxiety I feel most of the time. An anxiety which I've carried with me for most of my life, from my earliest days at school. I have to weigh the damage it does to me against the 'benefits' of feeling temporarily relieved and happy - free of anxiety, able to laugh, able to enjoy myself.
So... what do I think I have ahead of me? Over seven more years of work, with the burn-out accelerating all the time. My financial position doesn't give me much room to change my circumstances in any definite or positive way. I cannot afford to move. I cannot afford to set money aside. There's nowhere else I can go. I have a job which gives me a good sense of satisfaction and life-purpose, but I'm finding the demands of it increasingly exhausting. I simply can't see myself being able to do it for another seven years. Meanwhile, given my age, my options are becoming more and more limited. If I end up having to leave this job through ill health before I can find something else, I face the benefits system, which many of us already struggle with. I had it once before, and it was certainly no fun. It's not the 'easy cop-out' that some of the tabloids like to portray it as. At my age, too - and given my limited skill set - finding something else, and something different, won't be easy.
My Asperger's diagnosis has a double edge. It enables me to make sense of my life. But it also enables me to see how my life has been 'limited' by it. I'm not saying that I wish to change the way I am - but I think it could all have been so much easier if I hadn't been born this way. The positives and negatives of it fly around in my head all day - like leaves in a whirlwind.
To many, I would sound ungrateful in saying this. Focus on the positives. I don't have money - but I also don't have debts. I'm in a location I'd like to leave - but I have a job and a roof over my head. I don't have friends or any close family - but I have this community, and I have my cat. Many people have far less than this, and are much more worse off. I should take reassurance from that. But it doesn't always work that way, does it.
I'm not saying anything that anyone else here doesn't already know. It's a common enough experience. But it helps, though, to write it down. Maybe it helps to share it, too.
Thanks for reading, if you have.
What troubles me is that in the autistic community there are so many talented, insightful, intelligent, capable, empathic people who have effectively been excluded from the workforce.
Partly it is an environmental issue - many of us have experienced the hell of open plan offices and know how badly they affect our ability to function and maintain our well being. The requirement to be a good team player has become pretty much ubiquitous too. We're obvious targets for bullying, and all the policies and procedures in the world don't afford us any real protection.
Then of course there's the issue of how we are managed. Many of us have had jobs destroyed by toxic supervisors playing power games. I saved this quote from another thread but forgot to make a note of the author. I will attribute it when I can:
"I think that managers believe they know employee psychology and use this knowledge to manipulate their employees to their own interests, by pulling their strings. As long as people operate like puppets the puppet masters are happy.
But when it comes to spectrumites they cannot pull their strings, they do not understand their psychology, so their power is undermined, and they get frustrated and angry and see it as rebellion and non-compliance. Workplaces are more than just work, they are theatres of power, where managers play out their power games and since spectrumites don't play along they have to be expelled. By getting rid of a spectrumite they win and satisfy their need for power and to be on top."
This all sounds terribly negative. Of course there are still autism friendly jobs and working environments, but I struggle to find any in the list of vacancies. In career theory if you want to succeed you have to 'stay on the bus' - in other words stick with a job until you can move with strategic advantage. We usually ricochet from job to job for reasons associated with being autistic, resigning or being forced out in other ways.
The cv we end up with arouses suspicion. We put a positive spin on constart turmoil even though we know the awful truth. The facts often speak for themselves - a steady decline in income, disintegration of full-time professional roles, a shift into part-time and casual low-paid work with limited autonomy and scope to use our specialist skills.
Effectively autistic people are being designed out of the workforce, having never been properly included in the first place. I applaud recent efforts to recruit and support autistic people in the IT and tech sectors, but this needs to go much further. Available work needs to reflect the full range of interests within our community, and we shouldn't have to be segregated, we have the right to work in the mainstream.
I feel much better for having written this. Autistic people are subject to so much misunderstanding and mistreatment at work. I knew it before but I see it even more clearly now. It makes me terribly sad, but it also makes me angry. The best way of channeling that anger is to fight for change.
It is all a bit frustrating... Obviously we're a part of the world, and we need to make our place in the world. But we're different, and a small minority, and generally things aren't set up for us. So either we try and fit in to the things that we're not really well adjusted for, and get bent out of shape doing that, or we end up not really doing anything, because the opportunities aren't really there. Neither is a really good situation.
It feels like we need a place where we can concentrate mostly on doing our thing, with some sort of "interface function" that can interact well with both the two different "cultures" and handle the translation between norm and mutie.
Spot on! I've just depressed myself further by reading a case study on autism at work in an HR magazine. An autistic employee notices clear breaches in the application of H&S legislation. When these are drawn to the attention of her colleagues and managers conflict arises as they "see things differently". The resulting interventions seem to focus on the behaviour and actions of the autistic person - as if it is taken for granted that she is wrong - what about re-education of the NTs!
I wonder whether in the digital age one could be a hermit via the internet .... you know, share words of wisdom from your remote island. Not sure how you would eat though!
Norms don't put systems in-place to stop things going wrong or to improve/streamline things etc. Norms put systems in place because they are means of social power. Also if you are in the right part of the social hierarchy you can ignore the systems. But if you are in the "in-crowd", then the systems are a weapon you can use against your enemies.