Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello! New here, and newly diagnosed. I feel like I'm on a bit of a rollercoaster with the diagnosis. One minute fine; "well duh, it's obvious I'm autistic", the next just kinda sad or frustrated at things that have happened in the past that might have been different if I'd known.
One such thing is my career. I feel like I chose it in a very autistic way. It was strategic and made sense because I could see a neat row of dots which I could connect together to do "the right thing" for my family.. But I'd also dropped out of school at 12, so I had to complete five years of study to actually get to the job I had decided I was going to do. I hated every minute of my studies. Up to that point in my life I had always quit everything, and unfortunately for present-day-me this was the moment I decided I was going to change my ways. Eight years later, I am miserable.
In the last two years alone I've taken three extended periods of time off sick due to "mental health difficulties". I realise now it was likely burn out each time. I hit an all time low yesterday and nearly quit on the spot. I literally did no work all day, instead just talking myself down from acting impulsively. Today I have logged myself as absent and have already decided I won't work again this year. I have realised I need to change my job, and I need a bit of mental space to think about it. So I'm taking it.
I guess what I'm really curious to know is, is this... common? Or maybe just what are you experiences of the working world as autistic adults? How did you select your career path? Do you love your job? Did you get it "right" first time? If not, how did you go about switching? Is it possible that I'm always going to go through burnout cycles because finding jobs that carry any level of satisfaction is actually pretty unlikely? I do kind of feel like I'm just going to be miserable for the rest of my life no matter how hard or long I work to try and make things better.
Hi Moosticks
Totally get this. I've spent my whole working life running from one job to another trying to make things work. Every 2 years or so roughly. Mostly factory engineering work until I went into the care sector. Here I found my eyes opened and realised there were people who actually might understand. By that time I was about 35ish and starting to research ASD to make sense of things. I'm 49 now and on the list to be assessed and still making sense of things. I now work for the NHS.
I kind of have the opposite thing going on, where because I found something early on that remains the best fit for me. However, once in a while (like yesterday) a conversation will come up among the team I’m in about who started for the university library when, what they were doing then relative to now, who went somewhere else entirely and so on. And it makes me realise that I’m one of a fairly small number who’s been in the same type of post/grade for almost 20 years, and hoping to stay that wAy long term. Even though I’m harming nobody (and even though the chat isn’t brought up to make me feel inadequate) I can’t help but feel this paranoid panic rising in me (masked of course, and with days of rumination rendered inevitable even though they all stop thinking about it seconds later ) about ‘is it ok? Do people understand? Do they feel sorry for me? Do they understand I don’t want promotion? Or radical change? Do they truly accept my ‘lifer’ status with respect, or is it disguised pity? I get very confused and emotionally disregulated over it. I know that the key thing is to live life in my own terms, and not get drawn into comparison when even in libraries (where the neurodiverse staff presence is a little higher) there’s still a largely societally prescribed drive in the majority towards eventual restlessness. And I don’t have that. I want continuity, predictablility not change. And I don’t want to be displaced or made to feel like I’m living life wrongly by knowing I have the perfect job for for my long term needs and stress management. Sorry to sound so stressed and upset, I’m just trying to exorcise what I know to be unhelpful thinking. Or maybe I am just pathetic. I don’t know any more. The trick is to stop caring. Somehow!