Published on 12, July, 2020
I haven't ever made a public post about my autism like this, I just know I want to say something... even if I'm not 100% sure what that something is.
I'm self-diagnosed, I started finally accepting that I'm autistic a few months ago now and I'm currently in training for my first job in 5 years. I'm 27 now and I have had a few jobs in the past, usually they lasted around 1 month and I managed to stick with one for about 6 months. For a long time, I thought I had just been so unlucky with the life I got (abusive parents, exposure to violence and drugs growing up, neglectful teachers, exploitative employers, and so on) that when I finally got a home I can live in alone through social housing and benefits that, mostly, got me enough money to stay alive. Hm, that sentence sure did get long.
Anyway, when I finally got this home I thought "Now I can recover from all those traumatic experiences at my own pace, and eventually I'll be able to cope with normal life as a normal person". But, if I'm right about how my autism has affected my experiences then maybe I've just been more susceptible to trauma than a neurotypical person would have been, maybe the idea of recovering and becoming normal is flawed. Maybe I'm just doomed to repeat the pattern and the job I have now is going to break me again.
Ah, this job. It's a call centre job and I work it from home on my PC. I have worked in 2 other call centres in the past, the first was temporary. Just a week long and it was bearable. The second was the most difficult time of my entire life, worse than growing up in my family, worse than the isolation and bullying in high school. Frankly, it made me suicidal and one of the two friends I had at the time become more resentful of me the more negative I became. Now, my current job I haven't officially started and maybe it'll be fine. After all, I found it through a "work and health programme" in the job centre after I specifically asked for minimum customer service and stress. But the training so far has been giving me flashbacks, I hear phrases like "rapport" and "soft skills" and I instantly clench up and feel nauseous and after just 3 days I've been crying and self-medicating with alcohol.
I just don't know what to do. I can take care of myself, I can cook and clean and maintain hygiene. I just haven't been able to survive in any job I've had and I don't even know what I can ask an employer to do to help me cope better. Will short shifts help? Will a less social job help? Are there even entry-level jobs I can do that aren't hospitality or customer service? It's not like I'm not capable of getting educated or learning skills, I got a microbiology degree and sure I don't know what I can do with it but I like to think it counts for something. I need money to live but all the ways I can find of getting money are harmful to me and it's not like Universal Credit is enough to keep living on if I ever want to pay off debts or to have a decent quality of life. I'm pretty sure I'm too "functioning" to get any other kinds of benefits.
So this is my life now. Trying whatever job I can get, inevitably more call centre work, and hoping it'll just happen to work out for me because I don't know what realistic adjustments I can hope for. "Hello, I see conversations as simple exchanges of information and trying to force myself to behave in the ways you want burn me out, can I please never have to talk to someone?" By the way, it's not like I *want* to avoid people, I'm actually quite a lonely person and I love interacting with people even if it is tiring. It's just the way employers demand I communicate that I can't deal with.
Finally, in an attempt to get some kind of question out of this so it's less of a pointless shout into the void, has anyone had similar experiences? Has anyone found ways to make work life more bearable? Are there any suggestions for work that might be suitable for me?
The best way to make work life more tolerable, or at least controllable, it to be self-employed.
It's a lot of hard work, is risky and lacks the support that employment brings, but it allows you to carve a work path in the way you want.
Find something you enjoy and are good at, and try to make a business out of it.
I agree. Getting there is the hard part. Finding something that gives my brain any happy chemicals anymore is tough, finding the motivation to really work at it is tough too. But, maybe, I can slowly get there.
Haha, yes.
It can be hard to get going, especially if you have no funding. But many things can be started with very few resources.
MOTIVATION is probably the hardest thing for me. I hate work, I hate the concept of employment and working for pay. But that is the society we find ourselves in.
I even find it hard to motivate myself to do the things I want to do and enjoy doing. I'd rather spend my time doing nothing.
Unfortunately, there's no secret vault full of motivation. It comes and it goes. For me, motivation will often appear when the financial situation is getting dire, but that isn't always the case...
Another issue for me, I usually want to be doing something other than what I'm supposed to be doing at any given time. Whether that's autism or something else at play, I don't know.
Haha, so familiar
Yup, I was a bit too into certain types of scifi, often structured around post scarcity society.
UBI would be a great thing, but I don't think it will ever happen in any useful way in my lifetime. Not until society decouples value from effort. Greed, productivity, and perpetual growth are too ingrained in our psyche at the moment.