Dilemma

Post Reply New Topic

I'm sorry this happened to you. It seems like you really need a time out from employment and some intensive work on social skills with a therapist who understands autism, or participation in a support group for autistic adults. Can you collect unemployment after this job?

In your OP you mentioned your "solid professional" background. What field is that in? Would you be able to work for a temporary agency for a while?

It does appear that your interpersonal behavior on the job has been incompatible with sustained employment. This is something you can change. But you need some guidance as you try to change.

I am sorry to hear that you were fired. I experienced severe physical bullying when I was growing up and I still bear the invisible scars deep inside me. It doesn't ever go away. I am 70.

One can be fired from a job if one is caught sleeping on the job. That is why I asked the question about Narcolepsy. But you seem to say that the condition is caused by low blood pressure (hypotension). It also may due to stress that triggers a meltdown and your body goes into a tonic immobility state.

So it may be worth while to find a diagnosis for this condition and pin it down.

There are treatments for low blood pressure. Low Blood Pressure

There are treatment for narcolepsy. Narcolepsy

Freeze and Collapse (Tonic Immobility)
When any organism perceives overwhelming mortal danger with little or no chance for escape, the biological response is a global one of paralysis and shutdown. Ethologists call this innate response tonic immobility. Humans experience this frozen state as helpless terror and panic.

We commonly refer to individuals going through this state as having a meltdown.

According to the polyvagal theory, the tonic immobility is the most primitive system, and it spans probably over 500 million years. If we feel that we can't escape and are cornered by a predator—in other words, if there's no way to escape—then we'll fight back. Now, if none of those procedures are effective, and it looks like we're going to be killed and our bodies will be torn to pieces, we go into the shock state, the tonic immobility. One of the things that Bessel van der Kolk showed when he first started to do trauma research with functional MRIs is that when people are in the trauma state, they actually shut down the frontal parts of their brain and particularly the area on the left cortex called Broca's area, which is responsible for speech. When the person is in the traumatic state, those brain regions are literally shut down; they're taken offline. [In this state you are unable to talk, because that part of your brain has been shut down.]

Highly traumatized and chronically neglected or abused individuals are dominated by the immobilization/shutdown system. Chronically traumatized individuals tend to be plagued with dissociative symptoms, including frequent spaciness, unreality, depersonalization, and various somatic and health complaints. Somatic symptoms include gastrointestinal problems, migraines, some forms of asthma, persistent pain, chronic fatigue and general disengagement from life.

Tonic immobility (sensory overload and shutdown in Aspies) is driven by a state of primal fear. This is driven by the sensing of danger and the inability to avoid, escape and defend. It is a state of utter hopelessness.

If this is the problem, the main solution is to vent the stored stress energy in your body and learn techniques to shed stress in a socially acceptable manner in the future.

Jimmy gives some very comprehensive and excellent advice. Especially as to your health.

What I would add: do try to be at least superficially pleasant to your fellow employees. Say "hello," say "have a nice day" when you're leaving. Things like that. Don't put it in your mind that pleasantries are "superficial" and "unneeded." They certainly are "needed," even if they are "superficial."

And try not to monologue. Try to understand what's going on in a conversation with other people. Try to figure out a way to impart something into the conversation, without dominating the conversation.

These are the sorts of things I had to learn over the years. It didn't come naturally to me at first.

I'm so sorry you were fired. Were you given a particular reason for your firing? I was fired once when I was 19. I cried to my employment counselor then. I should have sent her a thank you and some flowers. My employment counselor was a woman; I should have appreciated her advice more. Her advice helped me keep my next job for 38 years.

Thanks for your tips, I do need it. I am pretty sure there's a medical condition behind my tiredness which probably began when I was 17 and had enrolled at the college. It lasts until today, causing and raising varying degrees of tension. So far I never addressed it because it never caused any greater consequences to my health, it was simply familiar to me.

I just learned about things like low blood pressure many years later, and I barely understand why it happens - it usually does whenever I'm under too hot climate, but it also does not happen sometimes, so it sounds like a foolish excuse to everyone who hears me, and I feel lost. But, what should I tell them instead - my brain is always under a TERRIBLE amount of stress every day in a way that lets me tired during the day, and restless, wakeful until late night, sometimes 5 a.m.?

Sure I do regret opening my mouth and telling some stories to my employers. In every moment I did it, I was either badly treated, taken as ret*d, or dismissed in 1 month or less. Anyway I think it's unfair to use my trust in my colleague and my outflows with him/her as reasons to dismiss me - if my boss tells me "you can trust me", I usually think I should. But not from now on.

People, especially bosses, always told me I could trust them, "hey, why you are so sad and isolated? Please tell me, I am here to help you!", and I believed them - just to be fired later, and I cannot believe these people think they'll help me overcome my sad stories by using my outflows as excuses to fire me and blame me. I don't think there would be much difference, though - I just thought I would be understood, and that it would help me to spend more time working at the same company, just like happened at least once when the board of directors and HR team knew about my ASD diagnosis and let me free.

From now on, I'll better keep my mouth shut.

I have solid professional background as a software developer and at this moment I'm considering options. Remote working (which would be ideal to me) and move to another country (not so good, but it's on the table anyway) are two.

According to brazilian laws, I have no right to be financially supported by the government after only 1 month working at that company. Sure I need help, but being fired doesn't fit it. Instead, it would be much better for me to have a job and be productive.

In my last job, I was told I should be hired for another role and this is why I was dismissed. But I doubt this is the reason.

More exactly, there was at least one boss who was very, very gentle and polite with me when she learned on my ASD diagnosis - she told me she understands the dilemma and would adapt herself so we could keep working together (yes, it was amazing).

However, being hired again by her seems unlikely. She is currently seeking another project, but at the same time I committed some failures because I was learning some things with her about the technology we were using. This is why I had to ask her to double check what I did, because I wanted her to be sure of what was done by me. I didn't want to cause any sort of embarassment between her and the client. Anyway, she told me in case things changes and she finds a suitable project, she'll let me know, and I have lots of reasons to believe her as we still have occasional contact which is something rare to me. Moreover, she didn't "fire" me, there were no new demands and I had to look elsewhere. And I always underline my respect and gratitude for her everytime we talk. Brazil was enduring the worst crisis ever and I was so lucky to count on her.

One question out of curiosity only: would you please tell me if you consider my english as fluent or how much flawed it is? I won't care about criticism, I just want to learn something from native english speakers. I usually tell employers my english is fluent but sometimes I feel unsure about it.

To be honest, your English is quite good for a person whose second language is English. I didn't notice too many "errors" per se. I'd have to really look closely to find any "errors."

I feel you should try to contact this woman again.

Your written English is fluent.

She's been very silent lately, sometimes I send her a message but I have no answer and I wonder if she's really fine or enduring anything more serious. But I'll contact her again soon, hoping everything is fine and asking if we can work together again. We sent each other some friendly messages a few weeks ago.

Actually I speak 5 languages beyond native brazilian portuguese - english where I usually classify myself as fluent, and my knowledge is basic in other languages: spanish which has many similarities with portuguese, italian, german and french, and I need to exercise them more in order to improve my fluency.