Who I am

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Hi. I'm new here.

I'm 37 and biological female, though I would prefer if I had no gender... I'm also ACE.
My first language is German (Austrian) and I am from Vienna (Austria, Europe).
I got diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrom on Friday 30th of August 2024.

Diagnosis:
When my parents first noticed I was different is not that clear to me. Mom says something else everytime I ask her.
I know that they took me to therpy very early on (assumed 2 years or sooner?) and attended family therapy thereafter. I was in psychotherapy-sessions from the age of 7 on, as far as I remember.
Got taken to Diagnostics and was diagnosed with OCD at the age of about 12(?).
Since then I was treated for that... and it changed nothing for the better.
I started to doubt the diagnosis in my early tweens. Asked for a second opinion, another point of few, but all the therapists I had refused to do anything else but to treat the OCD.

Finally I decided to take the first steps towards becoming a pychotherapist myself. (In Austria there are two steps. First the Psychotherapeutical Propedeuticum, and then the Fachspezifikum. I only have the first.)
It was the first time in my life I heard anything about the variety of Autism and Asperger's Syndrom in particular. And it felt like it hit home. Like... WTH! THAT'S ME!
I started to research into Asperger's Syndrom and things started to make more and more sense to me. But I was scared. I had no job (here we go again, out of a job at the moment) and no idea what to do next, and there are still a lot of prejudices against Autism.
Soon later I started to become a teacher... And I spent 6 years teaching middle-school (ages 10-14 normally, up to 18/19 can happen)... All while suspecting being an Aspi.
Well, this summer I finally couldn't take any more of school and I quit... Hard step for me, for I hate to be out of a job.
But it gave me the freedom to finally go to get a new diagnosis. And here we are. I was right... Aspi it is...

Situation:
At the moment I am out of work which stresses me a lot. I hate to be dependent on others.
I am enrolled with "Amazing 15", an organization to help neurodivergent people to find suiting jobs and I will have a training course in early 2025 with them.
In Austria we have job-market-service which is there to help unemployed people to get a new job and you will get a certain amount of money during your unemployment depending on your former income from them. But most employees of this service (AMS) can be very rude and unwilling to really help and I am scared because of that. They denied me a course I wanted to take, that would have taken 3 months and would have had a job-guarantee of up to 95%, because they thought it "too expensive", but if I would have payed for it myself, then I wouldn't be deemed unemployed and thus not recived any monetary or insurance-related help.

Hobbies and Skills:
I don't think I have any special skills or "super powers". I have multiple fields of interest and I can do some things better than most neurotypical people, but I'm not what I would call outstanding.

• I like biology and every information to do with it. Biology is a very large field, so... yeah... a lot to learn.
• I like tinkering and solving riddles/problems. (Escape rooms and stuff like that are great!)
• I have a 3d-printer... So yeah...
• I love fantasy and I daydream about possible books I have yet to write a lot. I also daydream fanfics.
• I like DIY. Help appreciated.
• I crochet, I sew a little (more by hand that with the machine), I do papercrafts (origami, quilling, ...), I sometimes mold (with clay, fimo, ...), I like to write, but not do so very often, I am scared to start but would like to work with resin/epoxy, I would live to be able to draw, but I suck at it (in my opinion), ...
• I totally love to overthink and overanalyse things.
• I bake and like to make food-art (but I don't considder myself good at it).

Thank you for introducing yourself. Welcome to WP!

welcome, clever intro. Glad you found us!

Thank you

I hope you find WP to be a pleasing diversion.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome to WP!

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

You wrote that you are currently out of work and that you have been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.

I have Asperger's Syndrome, so perhaps I might give you some ideas. You mentioned that you have some interesting skills. So in general these are some of your unique skills. But many of these do not provide enough funds to make a living. So the first bit of advice is to select one of these unique skills that can pay enough money that you will be happy with. So you need to assess each of your interest and determine if there are jobs available in this career field and if they can provide for you.

So although you listed many hobbies. Find one that can pay the bills and then you can use all the rest to charge up your internal batteries during your off time.

Hi. Thanks for the advise.
I am not good enough in any of them to make real money out of them. I wouldn't even want to make a job out of them. I do them occasionally.
Also... I couldn't possibly make enough money from selling stuff I make. People are not paying such an ammount of money for such things.
I had a lot of people suggest to sell my crochet things... First... The patterns are not my design. Not all of them are allowed to be sold. Then it takes me hours to finish a project. Also I wouldn't want to make them on order, because most of the time I only make things I feel like doing... And the local stores are selling crochet-stuff for like 5-25€.... That's not even enough to pay for the material I use...

I would like to have a job associated with biology, but those are rare here, and I don't have the necessary degrees.
So, I most likely find some computer-job I can handle. I will have to attend courses for those. I hope I find some that I can do.

But don't worry. I will make my way.
Thanks for the concern.

Hi Miryl,
Welcome to WP

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Thank you

Welcome to Wrong Planet Miryl!

Hi, welcome to Wrong Planet, Miryl!
I also like to crochet!
I hope you find a job that works for you soon.

Thank you very much.

Oh, squeeker! Fellow crocheter? Nice! What do you like to crochet?