Anybody Live Independently?

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I read a couple studies about ASD and independent living and it doesn’t look good. Only about 25% of young adults with ASD manage to live independently. 50% had never worked for pay. Does anyone here live independently? If so, how is it? What struggles do you face?

Personally, the thought of never leaving the nest(so to speak) scares the hell out of me. I want a small group of people to socialize with and I want independence.

I've been living independently since age 20.

The most important thing is to make sure your bills are paid every month.

And make sure they’re paid in this order:

Rent
Utilities
Groceries
Car (if you own one)
Loans (if you have them)

If you have anything left at the end of the week/2 weeks/month, consider yourself lucky. Put it in savings or whatever.

I moved all the way across the country when I was 22, after getting a degree and accepting a job offer. Since that time I've live by myself for half the time and the other half when I was married (she passed away from an incurable illness).

I started working at 13, moved out from my dad's at 16, to the neighbouring country at 19. Now I'm 23.
Although I am very independent, I've not been very successful at it. I've always been poor, sometimes homeless, I've been living in a caravan for longer than I have lived in a real house, jobs and educations have been really hard.
But I've always survived, and am very grateful for everything that I have.
I really prefer to live by myself. I get miserable when living with other people, because they interfere too much with my schedule.
Right now things are looking pretty good. I am lucky enough to only have to work every other weekend to get by (because of very low standards and almost no expenses). And the rest of the time I'm painting. I started selling my art and getting illustration jobs, and it seems like I will soon be able to afford to live in an apartment. I'm very much looking forward to running water and a real kitchen.

I think that if you leave home with a steady income and a place to stay from the start (possibly some help from relatives too?), it's very manageable to keep it that way. I have a friend who faced very similar struggles to mine, but since her parents always could help her out with buying apartments and paying the bills, she has done amazingly well, got into her dream job and are paying her own bills by now.

What happens to me easily is that I become isolated. When I get a place to stay, I don't want to leave. It's like my comfort zone shrinks drastically the very moment I set foot in a home. I'm trying to remember to stay in touch with my friends. I don't need much contact, but complete isolation is boring.
If you're not moving too far away from your family, they'll probably remind you to come visit.

It can also be hard to stay structured and stick to routines when there's no one else to remind you of it. I just make a daily schedule and it works fine. But if I didn't have it, I would never wash my clothes or clean up.


And yeah, what the others said about the bills. That's really the important part.

I started working when I was eleven, after school, setting up type for a printer and cutting paper to size with a guillotine, because it part of my plan to accumulate enough money to become independent as soon as I could leave school later on. I left home at 16 and lived independently until I married some years later. My husband died in tragic circumstances and I raised the children independently from that point (they were in their teens) as well as working, studying and teaching. I have lived independently since my children left home in their late teens, which was several decades ago, and am self sufficient. Now that I am in my 70s, ill health may eventually overtake my independence some day in the future, who can say, though I hope I die before such an occurrence.

The point is that my mindset from an early age is that there was no other way of living but independently, because that represented safety to me, and I made my own way because my trust in people was very much absent as a result of experience. Needs must. You do what you have to, and that was what I had to.

The only struggles I can think of are unwanted and unexpected people who knock on my door wanting to sell me their religion or something, and I struggle to contain my annoyance with their intrusions. And having to use the phone to make appointments (dentists and so on). It triggers anxiety in me and commonly takes a day or two before I can steel myself to make the call. I detest making phonecalls, it's not so bad receiving them, as I give my number to as few people as possible, so most calls are from loved family members. Thank goodness.

I live independently but struggle to hold jobs. Kind of sucks. Feels like it's not a question of will everyone at work get tired of me but when. It sucks. Seems like I only hold jobs long enough to find a new one to start over at. :/ I try so hard to please everyone but eventually run out of steam trying to put on the Neurotypical circus show for everyone.

I want to try but my parents keep on controlling my life and making me feel like I'm helpless without them (I'm not) then they bring up "what happens when you live on your own"...ldk but I won't find out if I'm not given the chance to try

In that situation you're going to have to leave without your parents permission. My husband was in a similar situation. Gonna have to learn to take the buss if you can't drive. Get an interview when they're at work and sneak off... I know these situations are always much more complicated than what is visible on the surface... but it's better to leave if you're capable of caring for yourself.

It is deeper than the surface...thete are so many variables to cover

Yeah I get it. Took forever to leave my parents house. Mom had no interest in helping me stand on my own two legs. Took months to get a job.

Do you have a kik by chance

I'm working on my lifeskills but going out independently remains a problem. I have issues with OCD which leads to inappropriate behaviour.

I've been attempting to live independently for the past 25 years and I haven't had a great deal of success with it. I've been fired 9 times and quit more than 30 jobs to avoid being fired. Because of that I've lived in MANY different places and been homeless several times.

I'm at the point now where I may have to consider a mental health facility because my anxiety only grows and my aggression only grows and my tolerance for NTs only weakens with each passing year. I can barely make my payments for bills and whatnot to say nothing of the fact that I can't afford the necessary pharmaceutical drugs to treat the many aspects of having Autism.

Getting money from the government to maintain my incontinence is also another issue. If the government sees you living independently than they assume that you can afford incontinence supplies on your own.

I'm locked in a weird catch-22 situation so something drastic will have to change here soon.

Last edited by xatrix26 on 26 Oct 2017, 7:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

I mean kind of, but I am getting an apartment with my boyfriend and we will be splitting the bills. If I didn't have my boyfriend it would be subsiziszed housing...but after I sent in my application I met him and he probably makes too much for us to qualify for subsidized housing. But either way we found an apartment for like 850 a month though we will still have to pay some utilities but it is still a pretty good deal considering the sliding door leading to a back yard only downside is a small and narrow living room but I am sure we can make it work.

But yeah I couldn't afford that on my own, the only reason is because me and my boyfriend will both pay for it.

I've been living independently since the age of 20 (nearly 48 at this moment), so for the latest 28 years.

Ultimately - I think - the possibility of living independently is related to individual circumstances. The research-outcomes include high functioning autists, as well as autists with a lower intelligence, huge V/p-differences and other comorbidities. Although we could predict the abilities of the 'average' autist, these results do not say anything about the abilities of any individual autist.