Not at all sure I fit in here

I really like the things this chap has to say about the societies we've been brought up in: https://autcollab.org/2020/09/02/pathologisation-of-life-and-neurodiversity-in-w-e-i-r-d-monocultures/

It's hard to work out how to filter out what is not important to look at for a proper evaluation, even if it's just to find a direction for growth. 

But doubtful anyone here has a high powered career. I've been fired so many times for my autistic traits and also have found I've been on the brink of homelessness too many times. I honestly have no idea how to sustain a future, just keep putting one foot in front of the next and have found grounding principles (sometimes mottos) to allow for certain variables or changes in life.

I've never had a career, indeed any paid employment at all. Soon after my 1st hospitalisation I did voluntary work going round  wards with the hospital library service. It was a disaster. I didn't know  how to approach the patients and what to say to them. I still find it very difficult to initiate conversations. I lasted about a week.

I've never found anything that ticks all the boxes re what would've made a paid job a viable option for me. In no particular order of importance- 1. Near home. I have a poor sense of direction 2. Non manual, but also not highly competitive and stress inducing.3.Difficulty initiating conversations with fellow workers wouldn't be a problem. 

Very few people openly admit they've never had a paid job. Perhaps I'm rather naive in doing so. The impression I get is that there are very few people like me,re never having a paid job, unless they have a severe intellectual and/ or physical disability.

Honesty is always the most healthy thing, and there's no reason you should feel any need to hide the fact that you exemplify a hopefully more commonly occurring scenario: the social support and health infrastructure detecting and assisting more hidden (but equally/more debilitating) factors that massively affect a person's life and ability to function (to NT normative standards) 'out there'

It's inevitably taken a while for things to begin to evolve adequately towards that kind of sophisticated detection, understanding, and support - and you were on the vanguard of its earliest (very far from adequate) tentative steps to giving you stability without paid employment. I think it's great that you tried voluntary work too for a time. I'd like to do something like that at some point but I'd have to choose something I can realistically audit my energy levels/spare time around.  As I seem to need way more rest/recovery time  than the average person. 

I'm like a zombie at work today after doing one thing after work last night (going to see my nephew in his end of primary school show - which I wouldn't have missed for the world) that extended/overbalanced the amount of continuous sensory input I can handle on any given work day. It gives me almost flu-like symptoms recuperating afterwards.

Jenny you’ve said exactly what I was thinking :) 

Also a human being has value independently of any of society’s inventions and conventions. And paid work isn’t automatically superior to other kinds of Labour just because it’s paid. Mothers aren’t paid but it’s recognised by most people as one of the most important ‘jobs’ in the world. Money is just a (rather trouble causing) invention - we should never judge ourselves or others on how much cash they have in the bank. 

My office work (now thankfully in the dim and distant) made me feel like that.  Fans and computers whirring in an open plan office and windows that would only open to a degree.  Plus lots of background noise generated by phones, others chatting and intermittent team meetings.  In the end I kept closing down or sort of freezing, unable to fully be there but feeling obliged to stay anyway and developing headaches, severe tiredness and the feeling of a heavy cold coming on.  Also my skin and hair started feeling full of static electricity.  A couple of people (otherwise very nice) just half jokingly told me to get over myself!

I couldn't go back there.  I think I'm like a rechargeable battery on the wane.  I can be recharged a few more times but each time the recharge takes longer and lasts for a shorter period.  I ended up feeling as though I just wasn't meant to be there.  And, surprise surprise, my boss agreed with me cos she made me redundant!   

My office work (now thankfully in the dim and distant) made me feel like that.  Fans and computers whirring in an open plan office and windows that would only open to a degree.  Plus lots of background noise generated by phones, others chatting and intermittent team meetings.  In the end I kept closing down or sort of freezing, unable to fully be there but feeling obliged to stay anyway and developing headaches, severe tiredness and the feeling of a heavy cold coming on.  Also my skin and hair started feeling full of static electricity.  A couple of people (otherwise very nice) just half jokingly told me to get over myself!

I couldn't go back there.  I think I'm like a rechargeable battery on the wane.  I can be recharged a few more times but each time the recharge takes longer and lasts for a shorter period.  I ended up feeling as though I just wasn't meant to be there.  And, surprise surprise, my boss agreed with me cos she made me redundant!