Autism and poverty

I've been in relative poverty my entire life.

My family were similarly in poverty and outcasts from the neighborhood and our community.

Some of it is our fault from bad behaviour and decisions.  And the company we keep.

My mother was a compulsive gambler, she wasted a fortune on the football pools and later the national lottery.  

Then there was the bad company who introduced my parents to hobbies such as stamp collecting, they spent large amounts of money on pointless collections such as first day covers of stamps, whole mint collections of new stamps, etc etc.

Then the coin collecting, again large amount of money gone.

But as children we were short of essentials such as clothes and food.

Now I'm in poverty because the state benefit system is inadequate and I can't find paid work.

The job centre and various employment advisors insist that I'm capable of work.  But employers disagree.  And I fail job interview after interview and when I do find paid employment, the employer discovers quickly that I'm different and gets rid of me promptly.  I've even been kicked off employment training schemes as unemployable.

Dad didn't have much education, so he only ever did low-paid manual work.  Mum always had to work, too - often simply to pay his debts and keep us fed.

I've absolutely no doubt in my mind that my autism was at the root of my bullying at school - and later, in the workplace.  When you don't 'fit', you become a ripe target.  School was hell pretty much the whole way through.

You're probably right - I spotted very early that it was easier to graft a fake personality while everyone else is still a child and hadn't deveolped their own personalities yet.

It probably makes me sound very cynical and calculating as I set out to manipulate the opinions of those around me - but I saw it as a self-defence mechanism..

Yes, that seems to me to be a very sound approach, untainted by the distorted values of much of our society. 

When it comes to bullying and abuse, I also wonder whether this is something to do with autism (I hear this pattern an awful lot) or other factors - the school yard can be brutal for anyone at times.

I do have a fear of poverty instilled in childhood.  But the thing is my dad was never a drinker or gambler.  He just couldn't make a reasonble living or even see that our circumstances weren't reasonable.  As with a massive blind spot, we were all ashamed and afraid of others seeing how we lived, while he would have invited them in to show them his splendid house (complete with filth and grime, green mould and a hole in the ceiling in the bathroom, torn furnishings and a lack of hot running water due to us neither being able to afford a plumber or the elecricity bill).    

Ah, I wonder whether me creating my false personality a little later in life has been a factor?  My persona was created a bit later on, after leaving university and really struggling, so it's been like a very late graft that never really took.  Certainly moving away from accountancy felt as though I was lopping off a very weak and rotten top growth, leaving the much stronger but sadly stunted me underneath. 

I did always know I was somehow different but I'm not sure it was a fully conscious realisation before then.  Leastways, I did cover up my real self in a sort of automatic way, but I couldn't manage to fake extroversion until my late twenties.     

Hi JennyButterfly,

I wouldn't call myself impoverished.  But poverty is relative, like a lot of things - and by the standards in our society, I'd probably be regarded as 'poor'.  I've never made very much money, and currently get by on under £1000 a month.  Half of that goes on rent and council tax.  Then I have the other usual household bills, plus a car to run.  I eat well, even though it's pretty basic food (I don't have a freezer, so shop most days, and I never eat out).  At the end of the month, there's nothing left to put into savings.  It's a pretty frugal existence by most standards.  But I like it.  It's how I prefer to live.  Even on a small income, it's manageable.  I cut my cloth according to my needs.  Some extra would always be nice, so I don't have to worry about unexpected bills, but I don't have any debts.  I have a pathological fear of debt, having experienced the effects of it in my earlier life.  Mum and dad never had much money, and dad was a drinker and gambler.  Some weeks, he wouldn't come home for a few days and would go on a spree - then would have to hide from people he owed money to.  It was a very insecure existence, and mum struggled a lot.  In my early teens, we lived in a tied cottage on the farm where my dad worked.  He was laid off and we were evicted.  The council had to house us in an emergency, and we ended up in a damp flat that affected my mother's health.  The thought of it all now scares me. 

I have a degree and a high IQ, but I've never really been able to capitalise on them.  I'm very much the black sheep of the family.  They've all got houses of their own, big cars, flourishing businesses.  I often wonder, though, how much of it is just what you see - like on Facebook - and if they're in debt underneath it. 

I don't know if there's any connection with autism, though I know I've never been able to cope in high-pressure jobs, and I'd certainly not want to run a business.  I just don't feel secure enough in myself.  Perhaps that's a result of always having low confidence and self-esteem, which itself came from bullying and other abuse I've endured since childhood.  Feeling 'different', too, can have a negative impact.  Some people can rise above these challenges.  In many ways, I think I have.  But again, I don't think anyone would look at me and see someone who is successful and well off.  Not by any stretch.  Maybe my being okay with it is all that really matters, though.

I realised I was very different to everyone else at around the age of 12. I spend a lot of time measuring and comparing people and creating data banks of behaviours - so I deduced that extroverts do better than introverts.

I deliberately created a false personality of confident 'super-extrovert'.

I had spotted that extroverts are just accepted and rarely need to give reasons or explanations for their actions because people just accept that they are 'unusual'.

I learned a few guitar chords and how to cheat on keyboards enough to look brilliantly competent and formed a school band - did a few gigs, got well known. That seemed to open lots of doors because my personality became bigger than the hidden real me. My fake extrovert out-going personality sparkles at interviews 

My eidetic memory meant I could appear to be better than reality. I crave data so I will volunteer for anything for the experience. I have no limits or boundaries or inhibitions. More data = more knowledge & more experiences so my personality got even bigger.

My personality and experience got me into good jobs and my memory made me look briliant.- I bacame the 'go to' person for solutions to everyone's problems.

I think my experience shows that you can get a lot further with a fake confident personalty than tons of qualifications.