Yes, given my longstanding interest in self help and psychology, the only mystery is why I didn't come to it much sooner.  Most of the material for my degree was already in my head before I even started it!

I guess I was heavily invested in "playing the game".  And counselling certainly wouldn't have put in a strong position to pay the mortgage.  But these days (and thanks to a couple of redundancy packages as well as a frugal lifestyle) those concerns have fallen away.

It's a bit disconcerting, I think.  Previously people paid me a lot of money to go away.  But now I manage on much lower amounts which somehow feel more valuable because  I'm being sought out and chosen. And I'm playing my strengths, not my Joker.  

Oh yes, the chasm.  I somehow expected (was led to expect) that, given my education, i'd sail into a rewarding job.  I then found myself stricken with nerves, self doubt and outright fear when I found myself facing the Grand Canyon, with the overwhelming feeling that others were already on the other side!

Your experience, as you relate it mirrors my own, to a slightly disturbing degree J.B.

I've been noticing that for a while.

I agree with many of the others here.  I wasn't given a level, although I suspect I would be Level One as well.  But that doesn't mean I don't struggle with many things.  The best analogy I heard (I think it was in Sara Gibbs' autism memoir Drama Queen) is that for NTs, life is like walking on a treadmill going at a slow speed, but for those on the spectrum, it's like running on a treadmill that's going at a sprint -- but still being expected to keep up with the NTs, without showing any extra effort.  I wonder if the only difference between autism levels is just how fast that treadmill is going.

I totally agree.  No one ever really helped me with so many "soft skills."  I was very good at school, struggled with mental illness at university, but somehow got through it and even got a reasonable grade... and then discovered that life, and careers, need so many untaught skills and adherence to so many unwritten rules.  The difference between my book-learning and practical and social skills is not so much a gap as a chasm.

Jenny do you stiill/currently work as a counsellor? That's wonderful that you found such a great fit for your strengths and sensitivities. 

Yes, I am certainly sensitive.  But this has quite often been used as a criticism of me when really, like many qualities with both good and bad sides, it can also be a huge positive. 

My sensitivity did hinder me in a corporate environment and in striking up "friendships" with people who perhaps didn't want to get into meaningful discussions but just wanted someone to go to the pub with and get drunk (my experience in my teens, 20s and 30s).  That much is true.  I had difficulty finding friends who actually wanted those kinds of discussions too.   But once I reinvented myself as a counsellor, my sensitivity became a huge advantage, and I imagine it would in many caring professions too.  Likewise in many other roles and relationships because I find sensitivity can be linked to perceptiveness and a certain kind of intelligence and creativity.  Not knowing that I was autistic hindered me from really finding my niche, understanding my strengths (some of which, yes, probably would be considered to be deficits in certain situations) and working outwards from there.

What bothers me, though, is that, human nature being what it is, EVERYBODY will have some kind of deficit or other, some blind spots which hinder them, some weaknesses that they never manage to overcome.  But ours have found their way into that very big compendium of disorders, the DSM, and there's no reference to our strengths.  The diagnostic process took it out of me too, with a kind of hyperfocus on the things that are "wrong" with me.  Not a positive experience.    

Yes, in a workplace in which I find myself unable to deliver good performances, on time, reliably (I'm thinking of my accountancy years, from which I still bear the psychological scars) others will no doubt see that my "deficits" are brought out in sharp relief.  But here and now, working from home, at my own pace and with my immense sensitivity as more of a selling point, I bet they'd struggle to see them.  The "deficits" also retreat in line with my recovery from traumas incurred earlier in life so to that extent they're not inherent.  

I'm probably disabled, yes, but I'm not sure whether this isn't more to do with the environment rather than any impairment.  It's a difficult area though, and one I reflect on quite a bit.  I still have a lot to learn.     

I am sorry to say, but although there is much to castigate the normies for, (and I look forwards to the day of uprising) I've confirmed to my own satisfaction that I am in fact, carrying several deficits which weaken my ability to deliver good performances, on time, reliably.

I'm still sorting out which are actual facets of my neurodiversity, (and likely to be unchangeable), and which are artifacts of my brutal, harsh & extremely unpleasant upbringing, which since that is no longer a factor in my life is allowing me to root out the more neurotic behaviours daily now that I can identify and focus on them, which in turn is making me incrementally happier about my life..

Something a senior person said to me a whilr back, makes sense.

"Autism, that's what we used to call sensitive..."

Ah, understood. I appreciate the clarification and that looks like a really interesting - and helpfully free/open access- study. 

I was putting into words . the reaction that I've had from many mental health professionals. As for average 'support' experience  I think I'm something of an 'outlier due to having a comorbid sz/sz-a diagnosis and quite a  significant adaptive functioning < IQ gap. Adaptive functioning not being up to the level that can reasonably be expected given a person's IQ is far from uncommon with ASD. It's not applicable to all autistic people though.

See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aur.2081 '

Investigating the factors underlying adaptive functioning in autism in the EU-AIMS Longitudinal European Autism Project

Exactly.  The game (THEIR game!) is rigged!  So sometimes we need to invent our own or at least frame things very differently inside our own minds because much of this is about cultural/societal norms rather than any deficit lurking within ourselves.   

You are not alone, in my case with the added fillip that I'm also when I'm employed always the lowest paid person. Always.

The only way to win, is not to play.

But who specifically is it that's saying 'You've done x well, so...' ? - people formally assigned to help you, or just people you know like friends and family making casual commentary? If so, isn't that less support than abstract guidance and assumption/judgement? Sorry if I'm missing what should be obvious, but I'm genuinely struggling to understand what the average 'support' experience is for an 'aspererger's' person. I'm begining to relax a bit more that I still fit in here as I don't seem to be the only one not requiring an assigned professional or informal helper to do everyday things. And while I'm the first to admit I'm terrible about even beginning to organise things that arise as non-routine procedural necessities from time to time, I still ultimately am the one that overcomes the inertia and exec function challenges with effort to get there (occasionally after an advice-seeking  conversation with one of my parents, who shake their head at me lack of togetherness on these administrative/housekeeping/financial affair  things) That (being essentially independent, if inefficient and easily over-tired by clallenge) is not too uncommon an experience among people on here I hope?

As I get older I'm getting more skilled at the sharp and cutting reply.

I'd have snapped back with "and how would you be able to work that out?" or even teh old favourite, "At least I have some!"

To be honest, it seems to make me more employable, with NT's and not less....

Oh wow!  This sounds so familiar!  I am certainly "anomolous" too!  Plus I've been driven to similar strategies just to survive in the workplace.  And sometimes it's felt like an enormous last ditch effort just before the inevitable occurs anyway.   But the fact that I always felt as though I was trying to inflitrate an organisation full of judgemental others probably indicates that the issues predated all of that and began earlier in life.  That sense of being different and, although feeling secure and accepted in my family home (which i appreciate not everyone has), it all being knocked out of me from my first day at school onwards.

I've sometimes felt like a lab animal in a rather complicated learned helplessness experiment because, with repeated negative experiences and over time, I often came close to feeling like giving up.  And conventional approaches to my extreme anxiety didn't help much because, after all, I still knew deep down that I was different.  I'd sort of brainwashed myself with a top dressing of pop psychology and self help books, with the aim of being like others and freeing up a kind of "normal" version of me that I assumed lay inside.  But then, in one of the books (The Curse of the Self) the following statement leapt out:

"A round peg trying to fit in a square hole does not fit, even if the peg believes it is square."

So yes, minority stress.  It does really help to realise that, although we're in a minority, there are still rather a lot of us and we can support each other.  And I first came across ideas around minority stress from watching Youtube videos and webinars by Kieran Rose and Monique Botha.  They shift the emphasis onto society and workplaces doing better, instead of us constantly trying to find a way in and then, once we are in, struggling to remain included and accepted.     

I find it a really compelling subject and, if you're interested, here are a couple of links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijap1yOBVd0&t=17s

https://www.ne-as.org.uk/post-conference-services

In fact, I think I'll have another look at Monique's talk myself.  :)

Jenny Butterfly said:

Minority stress is a big issue.

You've just described a massive lifelong issue for me  in five words. That's so well put and it's really moved me. I have gotten very ill at times with the crushing sense of it all. At my worst (when the world tilted on its axis after a chance remark in 2018 caused me to see stuff I'd been - somehow! - always looking at in a distorted way) I was running and re-running the numbers to see if I'm anomalous, or scarce, or acceptably diffuse in society on a number of fronts. I don't even have a mathematical brain and I still put myself through intricate and endless calculations (cross-referencing research, and a measured charting of everyone I've ever known) until I made myself so nauseous of it all that the only thing to do was let go out of exhaustion. Sometimes I relapse. When I do, I know I'm going the scenic route to what should be a short-cut (the inescapable  conclusion that I am 100% of my own unique experience, just like everyone else), but I know no other way to be. It's my nature. Too individualistic to compromise on how I know I need to live, yet too self-consious and apologetic for existing that tortuous comparison, and waiting in vain for faster societal evolution,  are inevitable. 

For me it's help with daily practical tasks that the average NT takes in his/her stride. I've lost count of the number of times I've been seen in a bad light because I failed to live up to the expectation of 'You've done x well, so now you can do y well.' It's only been since moving in Sep 2017, to be near my stepdaughter and her family, that that long running boil on the butt has been lanced.

Employers, rather foolishly, tend to value soft skills of hard technical ones. This is because they are generally more emotionally invested in the status quo than developing and ensuring the long term success of their businesses (remembering that a manager for life isn't really a thing any more). Short termism tends to lead to prioritising short term gains by optimising the status quo. Easier to have a great marketing team today then spend a year developing and a year retooling to manufacture a truly great product down the line. Of course in the long term thats how big companies fail. By being out innovated by smaller companies with less invested in the status quo. Its why big companies are so desperate to buy out promising start ups. Not to gain access to their tech now but to make sure the tech doesn't come to market before their ready to compete with it.

Honestly, I think one of my main issues over the years has been precisely that - a feeling of lack of agency or autonomy in many of these situations. 

Our education and, for many, parenting too, is replete with such messages and in adulthood they just get repeated as self evident.  All about as useful and compassionate as someone (often in a position of relative power) telling another person (often in a one-down position and a great deal of distress) to "Pull yourself together", "Just don't think about it" or "Shape up or ship out!".  Combined with other statements often levelled at neurodivergent people (I'm thinking of "You're just too sensitive!", "Where's your common sense?" or "You're over-reacting!" etc etc) it can only serve to make us feel more alienated and outcast.   Minority stress is a big issue.    

Once, just before I was made compulsorily redundant in a role, a manager said to me, in front of others,  "I seriously doubt your thinking processes!"  Well, actually I doubted hers (and so did some of my colleagues), but she was in the position of power.  And if I'd actually been identified as autistic at that point I'll bet she wouldn't have dared.

Yes, all of these statements feel like just pat responses from non autistics who either can't or won't understand.  They often seem unable to extend themselves in this way and yet we're the ones who are labelled as "inflexible" in our thinking!  

When I look back, I can see quite clearly who they wanted in the post and it wasn't me, no matter how suitable and well qualified I looked on paper.  Actually, and long before I knew that I'm autistic, I could always tell who'd be wanted for the job and who'd be most successful.  And, again with hindsight, I now know that the person they generally wanted was the most neurotypical person they could find.  I mean, they say they encourage "thinking outside the box" but then they really seem to reward the most convergent thinking and it often just feels like a majority rule situation in which successful NTs select others in their image. 

So I sort of recognised the magic formula for employability and yes, I could pretend to be that person.  For a while.  But it was never sustainable and I could feel the people who'd interviewed me wondering what had happened.  I was often in a "dynamic, fast paced environment" with lots of deadlines in a noisy, open-plan office and I basically wilted then burnt out.  But kept showing up and doing my best anyway.  It wasn't enough but it kept me on the payroll for a bit longer.  And I felt bad about it but really the bad thing was that there was no support or accommodations and nobody, including myself, knew anything about neurodiversity.       

Of course, when I studied management I was encouraged to read about the need for divergent thinkers because I could see myself as such (and now, upon formal diagnosis, it feels as though I have a certificate to prove I'm divergent!).  But the message was very confusing to me because the demand was, "Think outside the box" or "Get out of your silo" but then also, "No!  Not like that!"  

Sigh...   Never going back into those kinds of toxic workplaces.