Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all,
I am writing this as a partner of someone with autism. Looking for some advice and support.
My partner since I have been with him (5 years) has always struggled with 'normal' jobs. Having no qualifications from school, he was stuck cleaning for a long time which at one point due to the physical strain it put on him and how miserable he was, I encouraged and supported him to quit. He found a better cleaning job, but it too quickly become horrendous, and this continued through a number of other jobs. He tried branching into other areas such as administration work but couldn't cope with the job or people.
We finally got to a point that due to his mental health that he wouldn't work a 'traditional' job, and due to his love and interest in games I was very happy for him to try make streaming a career. It is obviously very hard and competitive, and I still want to keep supporting him. It has been 2 years almost, and while he is not making a lot of money (maybe a few £100 a month in a good month), I know in some ways it makes him happy and gives him flexibility with when and how he works.
He obviously still finds parts of this job stressful. Firstly, not earning a lot of money really puts him down, especially as his family generally all do very well and often question him about his work. He was working part time for a while in a pub alongside doing the streaming, but again, this was too much mentally for him and he often came home and had a breakdown. I couldn't bare seeing what it was doing to him. He is unfortunately currently hiding from his family that he has quit the job, because dealing with the questioning and obvious unapproving voice is horrible.
We had an incident today where his family ended up asking about his work, how it was going, etc. He said he didn't have any shifts this week as he was zero hour contract, and they instantly start questioning about looking for other work, that part time 2 hours a week isn't enough. That 'back when I worked I did what I had to do to pay the bills' etc etc. (by the way, we pay all our bills fine with my money currently). I find it incredibly frustrating and upsetting because their nonchalant remarks puts him in an absolute spin. He suddenly ends up feeling really bad about everything he is working so hard to do (they don't get to see how hard he works, or really even understand what he is trying to do). He ended up spending the evening afterwards belittling himself, having no confidence, feeling like a failure, questioning what he is doing, and the worst part.. basically hating himself for being autistic (and having other Specific Learning Difficulties) that makes all these things harder for him than neurotypical people.
I struggle because part of me doesn't know at that point what I can do to help him. I try to reassure him, remind him how hard he is working, tell him that it isn't his place to really try meet his parents expectations (that they probably got from their own parents about having to always work hard and graft till you can't breathe because apparently there isn't more to life).
If anyone has read all this, I would really appreciate some advice on how to be able to support him through these downs and help him see what he does.
If anyone has anything or anywhere I could point my partner too for support that would be great. He doesn't know (and neither do I) if or where he can really get support for this sort of thing. I always feel lost when it comes to.. support or help and we both have just continued to struggle alone these past few years that it has been very bad and difficult. Sadly his family don't often understand and just 'meddle', probably wanting to be helpful but instead just end up making him feel down.
In general, we are both very happy together and with our life right now. It is only when other people start to question to him what he is doing, and what his life is like, he suddenly sees everything as bad.
I'm glad he has a lovely partner like you who understands and gives him the support to pursue something he can cope with rather than push him to make more money against his well-being. I am at the point I'm considering lying about my employment in casual conversation because people are so obsessed and ask about it so often it really knocks down my self esteem and I feel ashamed and embarrassed that I don't function well enough for full time work. It's kind of sad how much everyone's sense of identity revolves around working. Yes its necessary to make money in this society but can we talk about other things and judge people on their qualities not their job history? I found reading about anti-capitalist politics and disability studies make me more able to separate my sense of intrinsic value as a person from productivity in a work place.
Agreed. Interestingly I've also found anti-capitalist ideas helpful. I just feel there's so much pressure to conform to this one part of life (making money) as if it's the only thing. When it's literally my least favourite part of life, so why would I want to spend more time on it than I have to? (Not to say I don't value doing something constructive with my time, just the jobs I get value from don't really pay much, and I don't want to work all the hours to make more money.)
I recently told someone close to me that I'd given up on the career idea when they asked about it, and they were super put out and now want to have a longer conversation about it. But I make enough money to live and going up the "career ladder" is super stressful to me.
Anyway, I'm just ranting a little, but it was super encouraging to read other comments that parallel how I feel a bit. I never thought of this as an autism thing and definitely felt like I was the only one.