Before, I was considering going for a teaching credential because education is one of the few middle income careers that seems to be left in America, and I thought that working with kids would be fun because of the misconception that most of them are happy and innocent. Now I am working as a substitute teaching assistant for special ed and child development (preschool and daycare). A year before I was working as an assistant at a chess club. I liked my last job much more. During my last job, I got extra 1:1 assistance with my boss and finally learned to controll the kids at the chess club. At 1st, I thought that all it takes to control a classroom is rules, and consistant acknowledgment and consequences for good and bad behavior, but now that I've changed locations I've learned that children are not that simple to control and even experienced teachers can't control some of them sometimes. Sometimes working with them is fun, and sometimes they are brats. They tend to walk all over me. I'm just really glad that I didn't go into substitute teaching instead of assisting or straight into a credentialing program, like what my dad and the psychologist he referred to me were suggesting/asking me to do.
So now that I'm thinking of changing careers, I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I don't want to renew my permit when it expires on June 30th, but if I don't find any other jobs I'll probably be a pushover and end up renewing it due to pressure from my parents, so that my checking account won't run out. I want my old job at the chess club back even though it was only part time. My former boss told me that he could always hire me back if things don't work out. I hope he's right. I'm thinking of also taking some junior college courses in biology and computer art related stuff to explore further career options/interests.
However, I have one or 2 problems. One problem is that when I had my last job at the chess club, my mom was nagging me every single day to apply to full time work. I got the impression that she was in a hurry for me to move out. Though, honestly, the reason I'm thinking of moving back to the city where my parents live (Irvine) is that I'm afraid of how things will be once my sister (who travels) will move back to this city (Oakland). She is one of those people that's overly controlling and critical. She told me that in order to live independently in this city I need to hold 2 or 3 jobs. I don't mind having 2 jobs, but 3 is overwhelming because I don't want to be in the situation in which I'll be working overtime. My family has a lot of anxious and nervous energy. I'm afraid that they are going to push me into a full time career path that will make me unhappy.
Also, there is another issue which I hope isn't going to be another problem:
I went to a disability job placement agency that my aunt recommended. They almost didn't accept my case because they had a hard time getting a hold of my psychologist that diagnosed me with Asperger's. Finally, after phoning several times, they were able to get a hold of him. And when they got a hold of him I got a phone call from my representative saying that he knew that they were going to reject the request by considering me too disabled to work. He said that the psychologist said that I'm emotionally unstable and not socially up to par. Even before they called him, I had a feeling that he wouldn't want to help me out after I snapped at him. I rarely lose my temper but when I do I get pissed. What I did with my former psychologist wasn't right after all the years he was trying to help me, but I lashed out at him because I didn't like some of the advice he was giving me and I became scared when he kept on telling me over and over again to try antipsychotics or experiment with other medications to deal with an infatuation I had over someone, when in the past I've usually experienced bad side effects with even mild or "safe" medications.
On the one hand I wonder if my former psychologist exaggerated the severity of what I have. On the other hand it seems like my parents (especially my dad), have lived their lives in denial of what I have. My dad says that I simply just had a language learning delay when I was a baby, and when I had a rough time fitting in with the other kids in school after being taken out of special ed he would blame the former school psychologist for diagnosing me with autism or retardation for the sake of making money, and he would say that I picked up my strange behaviors from the kids from special ed. Even though I knew I didn't pick up my behaviors I went along with him at the time because I was so young.
So anyway, I surprisingly did get referred to another agency after my representative indicated that I had a willingness to work. Even though I ended up finding work on my own spare time, the feedback I got from my job developer seemed kind of scary. I kept on dwelling on a mistake I made at my former job (that I was lucky I wasn't fired on) and my job developer said that if I'm unable to let go I won't be able to work. Also, she said that my former boss said that I wasn't good at communication, which wasn't too much of a surprise to hear considering that his verbal directions needed to be very precise for me to understand him. (However, I did get a very good reference letter from him, saying that I have honesty, integrity and punctuality, and that I need 1:1 work for practical matters.) Another thing my job developer was told about was an incident during the summer when I was hospitalized over night.
Over the last summer I was both working at Laguna Beach and the summer chess camps. I drove home sick from work one day, and all of a sudden ended up throwing up and having other symptoms that seemed like a combination of food poisoning and an allergic reaction. I had a few episodes during that summer and broke my own personal record for the sickest I had ever been. What's kind of weird is that before starting my 2 summer jobs at once my former boss asked me, "are you sure that you can handle it?" I've told him that I started in special ed but I never told him specifically that I was diagnosed with Asperger's later in life. After all those episodes, before inviting me to work, he would ask me "will this stress you out?"
I was stressed out over the last summer, though it was over a lot of issues all at once. During the summer I tried these kabbalah exercises of thinking of every stressful situation that happened to me, then imagining myself sweeping them or washing them away, then imagining myself oberving them from a distance and being reborn again. When I tried this technique I actually gained new insights about the past and some reasons on why I was like the way I was in the present. (I was able to get over my infatuation this way.) However, after getting these realizations I then kept on playing in my head aggravating things over and over again. Additionally, I was stressing about not knowing where to go in life, I was stressing out over my romantic frustrations, and I kept on overworking myself with erands nonstop after I would get back from work.
Though, I'm not sure if what I had was a reaction to stress or bad food I ate. I had food allergy testing after that, but the doctor wasn't able to find anything I was allergic to. Though, I did have Trader Joe's pizza 2 of the 3 times before I became sick. (The 3rd time was more mild so I wonder if it involved simply getting the remaining junk out of my system.) During the time I was hospitalized I ate country fried steak from Denny's at 11:00 the night before. I have been told that if it was cooked in old oil that stuff can be very unhealthy. Also, I was told that sometimes a combination of ingredients, instead of just 1 ingredient, can cause allergic reactions.
Basically, I can't bear the fact of needing to stay in the same house with my immediate family for the rest of my life. Also, If I were to go on disability, I have the fear that my parents/family would continue to deny that I'm on the autistic spectrum and continue to look for any loopholes, and I'm afraid of the possibility of my family treating me like I'm being lazy and abusing the system. I'm thinking of going to an autism specialist for another opinion to go back into disability job placement services. Again, I'm afraid of the psychologist not contacting them, of my parents either being in denial or too overly nervous being diagnosed, of being considered too severe for services, or the other way around of not getting services due to appearing too normal (because my former psychologist took a few years to diagnose me).
I know that this is very long, but if you've read through this, are there any opinions or suggestions that any of you guys have?
P.S. my former boss once mentioned the idea of training me for being an appointment setter, I think, for his company. If I phone and ask to work back at my former job, should I mention that I have Asperger's? He is an open minded person, but I still fear that mentioning it might be a bit risky.
05 Jun 2009, 2:21 am
