Chronically Unemployed Aspies...

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I don't know about anyone else, but to me, this thread is turning out to be a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. I think most of us share the feeling that simply being who we are in this world is enough work for each day as it is!

Actually I love your response......"Why,do I appear broken"...I think this is more profound then they might actually get in a conciouse way but perhaps it can open up an uncouncious window into their own(Culturally taught) bias...that only a certain type of work qualifies a human as being valuable....the kind that is paid by a salary or weekly paycheck.

From the perspective of social anthropology...this experiment of working for someone else(company)and both parents doing so and children not helping to support the family...this is all as new as the blink of the eye in time.It's just another experiment.We have always had to find a way to feed ourselves and our off-spring,but the way we did this has changed through out the human experiment.You are the only person that knows what works for you and your family.I dont think many of the people who respond to you with????Superiority?are actually confident that the way they are doing it is any improvement over the ways of a 1,000 years ago or even 50.Any superiority is actually a way that they can try and comfort the doubt they feel themselves about their own choices.If they are a working mother, who unconciously wishes they could be home with their own kids,they are probably also experiencing jelousy that it is not an option(even if it is and they just never realized it because they were brainwashed into believing their own value comes from their employment)

We are mre then our job titles and those who have lost this knowledge have lost their own humanity.Pity them.

Worked for my father when I was 19.
I worked in theatre stage management in London when I was 21 and it ended in my having some sort of breakdown, from stress presumably.
I worked in a care home for about 4-5 months in 2003 and was basically fired without reason...tho I get the idea it was because I spoke to other staff members about my suspicians some of the patients were being abused.

Wow. I'm completely new to this site, and I've never been able to talk to other people with Autism to any degree. I thought I was the only one who couldn't hold a job due to the condition!

I'm curious; isn't it discrimination? It IS a disability... Just because people can't see it doesn't mean it isn't just as hard to work through as being an amputee.

Hey, what ever it takes. The nice job I have now is because I hung out with people 12years ago that my supervisor was married to, although we have never met and I am "Applegate River Valley people" or "Applegators" She took a chance on me and can be the country gal she is around me, I do my job, but she is why I have made it through the rough place I was in when I first started the job and found out about my AS.

when you luck out, you luck out.
it can happen to anyone.

Merle

ive had about 50 jobs in my lifetime that all sucked, and lasted for about a month. i dont ever recall being fired, but i left the job while i was still working because it was so bad, kindof like running away, only it feels so good to not have to go back. i applied for disability two years ago and finally got accepted, if people ask me what i do for a living i usually tell them i recycle cans and plastic bottles. haha

For most Aspies, the job question is probably the most painful. I have been fired from every single job I have ever had, often without cause. I get hired because of my intellect and I get canned because I do not know how to deal with the politics. Nor do I just get fired, it is usually done in a way that maximizes the cruelty and with a clear statement that the work was great, but we do not want you here anyway. The intention was to crush and belittle. But the world of banking and consulting has never been filled with good well-meaning people. It is dog eat dog, and sharks that will bite off their own tail to get ahead.

Four years of unemployment has given me a lot of time to think about the things in life that are meaningful to me. Oddly enough, having a job does not make it to the priority list. There are other things to do, like studying classical Chinese or learning some new skills that enrich my life in ways money could never do. In a way, I am grateful for being forced out of the rat race for it was only then did I realize that I am not a rat. Money is important, but the mad pursuit of wealth is delusional.

Financially, I make do with my savings and investments. Being a full time investor is ideal for the Aspie as it reduces the social interaction I need to engage in down a bare minimum and only when I choose to do so. I am also able to harness my powers of analysis and ability to dig deep into the details to uncover good investment opportunities. I probably will not become rich, but I do get by. And if I should end up losing it all, investment skills are always relevant. It is however, a plain and simple life; one lived more in letters and spirit than the flesh.

Last edited by Zeno on 29 Jul 2007, 8:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Thank you for the positive feedback (I get plenty of negative ones as it is, so positive ones are a nice surprise). I never intended my response question to be malicious. It was the only way I could think to shock someone into paying attention to how she sounds and how she made me feel.

I kind of thought that there would be many other aspies who have had a horrible experience with trying to establish a career. I don't understand why so many NT people think there are a lot of nice people around (maybe for them it's that way, but it sure hasn't appeared to be like that from my experience). Its obvious that the priorities of the NT world (generally speaking) are different from the AS world.

I agree krex, we should pity those who think a person's worth is their job title.

I cringe whenever I hear the question: Do you work?.

My reply is so standard that even my close family members no longer need to ask that question.

That standard, broken-record response is always: Nah, Im still looking...

I wish people wouldnt ask me that.

I've only ever had three jobs, one of which I was fired on unfair terms (I have a minor physical disability that affected the speed at which I worked) the second I quit because it was so stressful I nearly had a nervous breakdown) ad the third I enjoyed but I recently quit because they cut down my shifts down to once a week and it was badly affecting my benefits, so I cut it loose (also my schizophrenia was getting pretty bad so I felt unable to function). I feel realyl guilty beucase I havn't told my family that I have a serious mental illness and so they frown on the fact that I didn't have a steady full-time job, and will probably frown even more about me being completely unemployed.

You are correct in thinking that there would be many aspies with horrible experiences career wise! My last job as an outside sales person (independent contractor) still required that I meet with all the other sales people and our boss every morning. It wasn't a lot of time, but enough for two other women to decide that they were jealous of me and to fabricate stories to make trouble for me. I seem to have this affect on people where ever I work.

The boss was amazed at how quickly I made sales, and may have been perceived by the others as showing favoritism. At the time, my physical health was becoming a challenge, and I was usually pushing myself to work, while suffering major health problems. At one point, I had to use special eye drops for an auto-immune condition. The condition was not contagious, but when one of my co-workers saw me using the drops, she complained that I had "pink-eye and was spreading it around the office. The other woman joined in the complaints. Luckily my boss was already in the know. The following day, one of these women showed up for work with swollen eyes, and using eye drops. She claimed that I had infected her. Even though I explained that you couldn't catch an auto-immune inflammation, she didn't believe me. NT delusion at its finest!

Ah, yes, the joys of trying to survive "professional" settings while on the spectrum ...

I've never had a job long enough to get fired because I've moved so many times, which in itself is extremely stressful. I've been unemployed now for over a year and it doesn't look like I'm going to get a job any time soon. I HATE being asked, "so what do you do?" I can't exactly answer, not because I don't do anything, but because my answer isn't the answer anyone is looking for.

Along the same lines as Krex's response; the concept of 'work' as we know it in industrial civilization is a (generally) dehumanizing experience. No wonder that those of us with enhanced sensitivities have such a hard time tolerating the concept. We lack the ability to ignore the reality of the situation, that we are being dominated and asked to function in a way that is way out of integrity with our values and perceptions. (My opinion.)
Do I work? Yes, I live in the forest, and my partner and I gather wild food and salvage food from people's gardens and from dumpsters. (Skips, you call them in the UK). We provide for ourselves directly, outside the dominant (dominating) industrial system. Currently our home is a protest camp, aimed at stopping an interchange from going through a patch of woods that we love (wild meat, garry oak acorns, medicinal herbs and other important things will be lost, along with the many unquantifiable things that are lost when forests are destroyed.
And guess what? Our diet, heavy in wild foods and often referred to as the Paleolithic diet, is also good for people with autism, tourettes, ADD and other differences!
So yes, I work, but if you mean wage-slaving for the dominating, destructive, hierchical, industrialized death machine, then hell no, why should any of us?

How I admire you! I really do.

oh and it is easy (i can say that I guess because i have support from my partner and friends) and I recommend everyone explore ways to be personally sovereign from the dominant culture. Stop worrying about work and think about how to live in ways that satisfy and support you.