The future and what do i do?

Good Morning all,

I am new to the NAS community and recently was diagnosed with an ASC, as such I have felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders in terms of explaining my past, however it has left me with more questions too, I have come from a rather traditional family who basically say "get on with it" or "we didn't have autism back in our day" type stuff as a means to justify their statements and who they are as a person which i guess is fine for them.

However for me, I am currently coming to the end of a L3 Business Admin Apprenticeship which personally I have never been bothered about the qualification, I took this job mainly because of societal and familial pressure to conform and work, I have found this really hard, whereby i have had numerous meltdowns at work (for clarification I am the typical trio of Autism, Depression and Anxiety) due to the stress of lots of things, the working hours of full time i.e. the 8 hours analogy of 8 hours work 8 hrs sleep and 8hrs play which we all know isnt true but i digress,

I have noticed many stressors as of recently which I will bullet point because for the life of me i cannot formulate a sentence with these.

  • Fear of the unknown (if I leave my job early)
  • Societal pressures on being a young male with the expectation of working, providing for a family, having housing / kids etc.
  • Familial pressures - Family putting undue pressure to conform and "not be like them" or to "be like them" in certain cases
  • Financial pressures 
  • Relationships - Romantic and social
  • My future and where I see myself (this is a massive part because i dont even know what i want!)

There are probably more but I cant think for the life of me, however I want to elaborate on the last point, I am currently in what I call and identity crisis, I dont know what I want from life or where I see myself in the future, all I know is I REALLY enjoy gaming, but that is it, it is my only interest, this feeds into family pressuring me to hold down a job and be a functioning member of society and contribute financially to the household, which in turn hampers my ability to find my own housing and enjoy a solitary lifestyle

I feel bad for my mother as she must feel hopeless in understanding why I am as I am, but I cannot explain it either, there seems to be no support and I have been so unlucky that any support service I go under, goes bust or has funding pulled away and I get left in limbo, so right now I dont know how to move forward or what decisions to take.

For example right now im torn between two things;

Full time apprenticeship which ends in January at £1,300 per month pay, however involves me being awake at 5:45 and i get home at 4:00  so I have hardly any me time

Part time Work from Home job at estimated £900 Per month, but is less hours in the day, I deal with less travel which in turn saves me money and saves me from having to keep holding up my mask to pretend im fine on the bus and no travel time so more time is reclaimed for me to be me, the caveat is this would be a kickstarter job and only funded for 6 months but the company have stated they are willing to extend to permanent contracts for the right people.

What should I do? as I dont want to cause any aggression at home or be a burden..

I apologize if this is not clear, please let me know if I have completely missed the mark, but if you have had these issues or feeling of an identity crisis, please share your experience.

  • but soon as i got job everything slides into place and it just works, you find cheap place near where your work will be, that will be where you go,

    that pretty much how my life looks like outside, last 14 years

  • What should I do?

    Hello, Yeke. What should you do? You should do whatever arises moment by moment. That is all you can ever do. 

    As Albert Einstein is said to have famously written, " [ ] ... the distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion."

    To avoid pain and suffering, you might also want to change your focus from getting the understanding of your mother (and others). It's an impossible task that you are asking of other people, and it will always lead to your disappointment and frustration. Understand yourself. That's a full time occupation and for many the work of a lifetime.  And then maybe, just maybe, other people will have a better chance at understanding you. Or not. But that's not their job in this world. It's our job to understand ourselves. 

    Be gentle and kind with beautiful self. You are going to be spending a very long time together. 

  • I am Tzeentch

    but you can go collect skulls for me

    He does like Khorne, btw

  • ah this title, my head was always bombarded with questions like what will i do and where will i go, despite the fact i knew the answer of nothing and nowhere. but soon as i got job everything slides into place and it just works, you find cheap place near where your work will be, that will be where you go, and what you do hopefully your work become permanent contract like mine did and thus a lifelong job hopefully. until it goes bust and then leaves you inevitably stressing out and lost again lol the only thing that can ruin my place i work is the silly environmental shite in 2030 such as banning petrol and diesel vehicles and forcing everything to be electric.... yeah, that will make alot of companies go broke and cause nearly every single person in this country to be out of work, it will cause the next great depression and economic ruination listening to green idiots. how can a company replace all their vans and lorries with electric ones when there is no electric ones and if there was that would be very very expensive to do anyway to the point of making the company fully run out of funds and go bust.

  • Hi Martin,

    Thank you for your response.

    In terms of the written word, sadly my mum doesnt do "written" and will always come for face to face confrontation, of which she tried in January and her constant pushing drove me to a meltdown where she ended up punching me sadly, and I then fled from home only to be picked up by the police.

    As your likely aware being from the UK, the prices are astronomical, if i took the part time job for me, that would be £600 - £900 P/M (before tax), the rents in my area are very high with a studio apartment going for £450 in the dodgy neighbourhoods, but even so £450 is rather expensive on top of Internet, Gas, Water, Electricity, Council Tax and Food, that would probably hit up to £750 with ease, so if I was on the lower scale, I would be £150 in defecit every month, there are other areas of the UK i could move to, but I would know no one so it kind of puts me off and the lack of the area knowledge may make it harder too.(naturally ive never lived away from home)

    In terms of gaming, its all I have had from a very young age, I have never had an interest in people, the only thing im slightly interested in is painting warhammer miniatures and that is is, I struggle with going outside and meeting people, so I avoid it unless I have a direct goal i.e. going to the shop and back home

  • Hi Mariusz,

    Love the Chaos Profile Picture, Have to say its really hard for me right now, only 23 and its just got to a point now, of what do i do? in January it got all to much for me and it ended up in a physical altercation with my mother and also there is a bit of financial manipulation from my family too such as "if you leave, how will you pay keep, if you dont pay that I cant afford to keep the dog or pay the bills" etc etc or the other part of "if you move out you have to pay <listing off all the bills> as a way of discouraging me, as such i already know the expensive plight of housing and Young Adults, but it seems reinforced to keep me there.

    I genuinely have no idea what to do, as of now im currently sat in my workplace still griping over do I hand my notice in and go for the part time role  or not, but luckily i have a meeting with the part time company (e-sports org) to discuss contract and see if i can do some form of seamless transition.

    I have to say my original purpose was to be a Police Officer, but that changed, as my mental health deteriorated it became apparent it is not a good fit for me, so I tried streaming of which I was semi successful stremaing Roleplay games on GTA, however that got too stressful because I got soo engrossed and was really into Roleplaying my charecter, that the server couldnt handle it and people got upset and broke charecter and caused issues for me, and since then i got a "proper job" and now have no time to stream or learn content creation.

    So i have no idea what to do anymore for my future.

    Thank you for your reply and I wish you all the best

    Skulls for the Skull Throne!

  • I had loving parents, but the family ethic was stoicism. I am rather grateful for this, as I have never 'bailed out' of things that I had started in earnest, it just hasn't occurred to me as a serious option. For clarification, I was diagnosed this year at an advanced age with ASC, Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Social Phobia. I would opt for an open letter to your family, the written word is often more useful for autistics than spoken conversation. That way you can formulate your difficulties and the uncertainties you feel.

    I am not sure how earning money would prevent you from leaving home and setting up on your own - I would have thought that an income would help towards these goals.

    I quite like gaming, but have many other interests. I see the attractions of gaming, but I think that they are illusory. Gaming offers short-term gratification, games are designed to give the illusion of having achieved something, but the achievements are mostly worthless in real life. I would avoid investing too much of yourself into gaming. 

  • Hi

    You pretty much summed up all the reasons that bothered me and they bother me still. Though i left home 23 years ago, because I couldn't take more of what you described you get from family Had to return once for a year because of financial troubles when I had a massive egzema, bleeding hands. I was hooked up on gaming and it did not change, My family continued bothering me over phone and email and refused to back off, so 4 years ago I cut all contact. I had a girlfriend and she left me after 10 years together when it came out I'm autistic, and I'm happy about it

    Still no solution to ''What is my purpose'', and anyway in NTs world i can't get a job any but national minimum.

    So now it's Carpe Diem. Overindulgence is my biggest sin. LOL