• Replies 10 replies
  • Subscribers 83 subscribers
  • Views 1681 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Can't work. How will a diagnosis help?

CharlieFreak

I've chosen not to work for the last 3 years. Ostensibly I've been following other avenues that could have made me validly self-employed if I'd truly applied myself. I'm just beginning to accept that the problem I have with 90% of the people I've had to work with is most likely a problem with me. I've been trying to dig deeper into the help autistic adults can get in the UK, and find myself looking at a 'needs assessment' from my local council, which focuses on people who can't turn taps or get out of a chair. Did I take a wrong turn?

I've put off getting a diagnosis because I'm not sure how it helps me to be officially autistic. I've read lots about ASD (initially because of my son) and have figured out that we're all different and we all relate to the world and all its situations differently. What I haven't figured out is how to get more neurotypical people to understand this, because that's what would help me and anyone who identifies as neurodivergent.

Background:

I have a tendency to stick with a job to the bitter end, so I've been fired from 3 jobs (out of 6 permanent roles). Each time I got fired was because I called out the boss - twice for dishonesty and the third time for unbelievable stupidity. My last job (#6), I quit within a year because I felt it heading south. It was a toxic workplace (another guy was negotiating his exit when I resigned and we agreed on this), where lying to the company owners was a daily occurrence. I had everything beautifully figured out in that job in terms of the day-to-day - even the routine lies were manageable - I'm an honest person, but the lies were temporary and in the right direction (I was an accountant). The real killer for me was that they wouldn't listen to ideas - I probably did a poor job of communicating them non-critically - and it drove me mad at the inefficiency and error they perpetuated.

Although my prior job lasted 13 years and only ended in redundancy, I often found myself on the brink of some kind of meltdown because of similar attitudes from colleagues. I survived because I was borderline indispensable, because of a deputy who understood and sympathised, and because for part of those 13 years I had a boss who recognised my value and did a half-decent job of protecting and mentoring me. I realised in this role that a lot of my pain came from caring about things to which others seemed indifferent (your 'jobsworth' type), so I tried not caring. Couldn't do it.

So my fear comes from a reasonable (I think) expectation that any job will have these human complications that make my life miserable. I'm tired of being labelled as rude or arrogant (I don't mind blunt, I'll take that one) when I'm only trying to help.

One other little thing I should mention is that I've got cancer, which I say not for sympathy but for the added dimension in a job interview of saying, "Oh and as well as being autistic, I've got cancer."

Parents
  • in reply to Stephen

    it can do depending on how much it effects your communication.

    you will be forever stuck in the lowest level worker drone position, you will never be promoted or given a higher position unless you are very outgoing, the outgoing chatty confident look is what they see and judge you by and think of you as the right fit for a promotion or higher role.... being socially awkward and not speaking much and only basically responding in a single word response will relegate you forever to the lowest level job, make you most likely to be fired, make everyone take credit for your work while you dont get any credit at all, but yet you take blame for when things going bad. you might not even get a job at all unless its no interviews straight to employment by a agency.

    furthermore the attached long term permanent depression that often comes with it often makes you not bother getting a job in the first place, which is why alot with autism stay in their parents house and do nothing well into their 40s before possibly becoming homeless or perhaps getting driven half mad, which is possibly enough to drive them towards change in their madness which may push them into work only later on after they have been driven half insane by doing nothing and being alone for 30 years. theres alot of factors why it could... in the end you have to fight yourself in your own mind before you can progress anywhere in the real world, and then in the real world you cant progress in society unless your social. 

    and also you will learn that it doesnt matter how good you are, its who the other people know that gets them their positions in life, and you know nobody, and no one cares for you, everyone else will have the advantage and the leg up all the time while you will have nothing, no help, no leg up, no having connections with a manager who elevates you above others and protects your position like most others seem to have. and your hard work someone else more sociable always will take the credit for and you wont dispute it as it will feel awkward and you will feel wrong and suspect others will think your jealous, despite it having been your work and your results that another person take the praise for lol

Reply
  • in reply to Stephen

    it can do depending on how much it effects your communication.

    you will be forever stuck in the lowest level worker drone position, you will never be promoted or given a higher position unless you are very outgoing, the outgoing chatty confident look is what they see and judge you by and think of you as the right fit for a promotion or higher role.... being socially awkward and not speaking much and only basically responding in a single word response will relegate you forever to the lowest level job, make you most likely to be fired, make everyone take credit for your work while you dont get any credit at all, but yet you take blame for when things going bad. you might not even get a job at all unless its no interviews straight to employment by a agency.

    furthermore the attached long term permanent depression that often comes with it often makes you not bother getting a job in the first place, which is why alot with autism stay in their parents house and do nothing well into their 40s before possibly becoming homeless or perhaps getting driven half mad, which is possibly enough to drive them towards change in their madness which may push them into work only later on after they have been driven half insane by doing nothing and being alone for 30 years. theres alot of factors why it could... in the end you have to fight yourself in your own mind before you can progress anywhere in the real world, and then in the real world you cant progress in society unless your social. 

    and also you will learn that it doesnt matter how good you are, its who the other people know that gets them their positions in life, and you know nobody, and no one cares for you, everyone else will have the advantage and the leg up all the time while you will have nothing, no help, no leg up, no having connections with a manager who elevates you above others and protects your position like most others seem to have. and your hard work someone else more sociable always will take the credit for and you wont dispute it as it will feel awkward and you will feel wrong and suspect others will think your jealous, despite it having been your work and your results that another person take the praise for lol

Children
No Data