Why I have to be honest and disagree with some on this board

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Life is harsh and people are selfish and we as a group are at a great disadvantage in this unfriendly world.

If I has known back when I was 17 that I had a form of Autism after my first experience in the world of work I would have most likely retreated into my shell.
I had another six years of setbacks and rejections.

What kept we going was the shame I had to keep on trying because I though I was the only person in the world like me back then.

I accept and understand my message seems harsh and downright useless to some however I think it would be a crying shame for somebody to spend a life unemployed if there is a chance of success at work.

Like others have said it will not be possible for many of the spectrum but I don't think people should be given out advice not to even try either.

That has nothing to do with kids being lazy, and has everything to do with you are not your diagnosis label, and different people with autism have different abilities when it comes to working.

If you assume you can't work because of your label, that's because of you assuming your label, not because of being a lazy kid, and not because kids these days are lazy. It's you choosing how you'd react in your situation, not anything to do with how other people react.

People have their own symptoms. We're autistic, but autism does not affect everyone the same. We say it frequently, if you've seen one person with autism, you've seen one person with autism.

So that comes to each person's ability to work as well, not comparing to autism, not comparing to being called "disabled", not any of that. What are YOUR abilities, what are your symptoms, what is your situation?

My ability to work is extremely limited (to the point where its effectively non-possible). I'll be applying for SSI as soon as I can. Is that because I'm a lazy millennial who won't try, or because I'm looking at my own situation?

"Life is harsh and people are selfish" is such a huge excuse to justify the way things are. And that's the problem, so many people just accept the way things are as the natural order, rather than society evolving that way because of the way people in power push things to be.

There are countless reasons why autistic people have so many difficulties finding and holding jobs, and my point was not to say that no one should ever try. My point was that it is profoundly ignorant to tell people who basically have to work 10x harder to get a job than NTs that they are lazy and aren't trying hard enough. Odds are many of us have tried harder than any NT has ever tried to do anything and still failed because it is hard to be autistic and self-sufficient. If you want to talk to people about trying and not giving up, you cannot simply brush this information aside. An optimistic attitude isn't going to get around it, generic instructions to "try harder" aren't going to get around it. It's a thing that is present because of the way society is structured. And it is not structured because it "just happened" that way, but because we live in a society that is built on not giving a damn about the most vulnerable people in that society. And you can look back and see how policies and laws have been implemented in ways that disadvantage said most vulnerable people, and how hard it has been to pass laws and enact policies to resist that.

Like at no point do I think you were saying that autistic people who don't work are all lazy, but I think that when trying to talk about this we need to really talk about this and not leave out the facts that are inconvenient to the points we want to make.

Thank you.

And your right I have done enough posting on this subject I don't have all the facts.

I will just say I am glad I got a push it helped me

It's great that a push helped you.

I'm not even telling you to stop, or that you're wrong to make the points you did. I just think there are facts that do need to be kept in mind on this topic. I think autistic people talking about how they can work is awesome and positive and I don't think no one should talk about that.

It's odd to me that seldom does anyone here wonder how Aspie and autistic people lived BEFORE these conditions were recognized?

My father was ALWAYS worried that I wouldn't have decent work. We never had a normal conversation, and he lived to be 92... and I took care of him for his last 5 years. He was an angry man, and terribly disappointed in me. He used to tell me that I was going to be a taxi-driver. He was very anxious I wouldn't be able to take care of myself. I was sent to military school when I was 18 (he believed I needed discipline), and I ran away a few months later. I hitchhiked across the country from Virginia to Denver (this was in 1960). I got a job putting on ski bindings in a sporting goods store in a tiny back room by myself, and I also worked in a warehouse stocking western shirts. After 8 months a worker there... a manager, Hy Freeman, took me aside and told me I should go to college. A few weeks later I went home to Virginia, and got into a good University in D.C.

Fifty years ago you HAD to work. I don't know what people did who couldn't work back then. There were asylums, but I always thought they were for psychotics, and catatonic people, and the criminally insane? I don't recall ever seeing beggars back then.

I worked as a museum guard while in college, at The Phillip's Collection. I also worked in an upstairs room by myself cutting mats and mounting art for framing in an Art supply and frame shop in Georgetown. I taught art for a year at a high school, and then I got a job in the advertising department at Giant Food doing newspaper ads. That was a good job with health coverage for my small family. But I lost my job in a downturn after six years, and that was a panic. I had a series of waiting table jobs, and then we made a carrot cake, and I took it to a very popular upscale restaurant in Washington, D.C. The chef said, "I like this, but you guys never work out. Bring me six of them tomorrow." I sold him cakes for 15+ years, and ended up with 80 restaurants, and half a dozen employees.

^^^
Based on the way I was as a child I have not a shred of doubt that I would have ended up in an asylum if I lived in the late 1800s. In earlier times I'd have been locked in a basement and left to languish or killed by my parents as a small child, or maybe by a priest trying to exorcise the demon from inside me.

Thats what they always do. They can't fire you for having some mental issues. They need a legal reason to fire you. But as soon as you have a meltdown, your job is over. It's just a matter of them coming up with a reason or reasons to fire you.

Thats why I usually quite my job after something like that happens. But sometimes I needed the job too bad, so I didn't quite. It never took long before they handed my my final paycheck.

My alarm clock didn't go off and I was two hours late to work. That's when he fired me.

I think that is a good point. If there was no disability anyone who could work would do anything to not be homeless. If you don't have parents to take care of you than you do what you have to. My husband was on his own even when he lived at home. He needed a bed in high school and had to buy one himself. He worked throughout high school and paid his way through college with grants and his income. His mom had no idea he was on the spectrum and is probably on it herself. When one has to make ends meet he will unless he is actually unable. I would work a minimum wage job and share a room in a crappy area if I had to. It would motivate me to do my best and attempt to move up to a higher paying job. Getting a college degree is a great way to get ahead if it is possible. Not everyone can do this and my own kids will be have a hard time accomplishing this without a lot of assistance.

You know who was actually in the institutions when they started? It wasn't the psychotics, catatonic people and criminally insane.

It was those who were just a little different. It was the people who had teenage pregnancies. It was the people who didn't fit in. It was the people who were not good enough to reproduce.

The institutions were America's eugenics program.

You know where the "high functioning" autistic people that we don't know of were? They were in those institutions. They weren't missing, they were institutionalized.

Institutions changed over time. We went through the deinstitutionalization period even. But it didn't start as for who we think of them for now. It started as for those who were just different.


But back then, you couldn't work, yeah, you'd probably be institutionalized.

I guess I see the ultimate goal in life as happiness, and that getting a job is not necessarily the Holy Grail of self-worth.

If a young person (let's say they're NT, and have no disabilities) prefers for whatever reason to live with their parents, and their parents are willing to support them financially, and everyone is happy with this arrangement... I really don't see how it's anyone's business to judge how they live their lives.

Especially since our current economy is one of rampant unemployment – so by not working, they're leaving a job open for someone who desperately needs it. Looking at it that way, they're actually doing society a favor by not working.

I don't condone young adults mooching off their parents for no good reason, especially if the parents want them to move out and get a job. But in the case where someone has legitimate difficulties working, and their parents are willing to help them out financially, and it's a decision they all agree upon, as a family... I honestly don't see a problem with that, and would respect their choice.

I agree that it's important for people to make the most of their lives. But there are many ways to find meaning and happiness in life, and proving one's competence at a job is not the only way.

Thats easy. back then there was lots of jobs, you know before machines took all the jobs and because of automation.

Granted i dont know other countries. But here in Denmark, pretty much the only jobs left are social jobs, as in where you have human interaction, have to work as a team, meet deadlines. Does that sound like jobs any aspergers or autism can handle?. It doesnt to me.

Now back in the old days like 20-30 years ago, so many jobs you could have, that would require zero human interaction, not to mention the pace of society is faster than ever. Back then everything was more slow, calm and relaxed.

I mean jesus even to be a garbage man here, you need a few different driving licenses. You need to actually interact with 2-3 people on the same route and you need to engage in social talks with people as well, to coordinate where garbage is picked up in apartment blocks and such.

And this is gonna get worse in the future, when 3d printing really takes hold, like computers have done. There will be no jobs anything with any manual production labour. They will be able to even print food out, as crazy as that sounds. Not to mention there is more and more people for fewer and fewer jobs each year, All those jobs that are lost to machines and such, isnt replaced by anything else.

Not to mention 20-30 years ago you didn expect everyone to be highly educated, you have to have like a minimum a university degree or phd at least. Fact of the matter is, not everyone is super smart, not to mention trouble with autism or aspergers.

For some of us, its a nightmare taking a phone call, being talked to be a random stranger, or just going shopping. To say nothing about keeping a job. and all the other things, that more important than a job, actually living for one self, not living home with mommy and daddy, because they will die, and what then ?.

Life for normal people is uphill.
Life for many aspergers / autism is up hill with a boulder.
Life for other aspergers / autism like myself is uphill with a boulder wearing rollerskates.

You can only take so many failures, before you brain and personality is permanently damaged, I know the 8 years i spend trying to work, doing nothing but work, lived at home, got up went to work, home ate, then to bed, i lost part of my self in that long nightmare. no interaction no nothing for 8 solid years. That can never be undone, and definitely hurt me more by trying, than just giving up.

Moral of the story is, sometimes its good to know your limitations and when to say stop, before you ruin more of yourself.

I agree 100%.

The $10.10 wage is a joke. It will have no effect what so ever here in California. Many places in California already have a minimum wage higher then that, and most workers here start at least $1 above the minimum wage, and work their way up from there. Even with that, it still isn't enough to live on, considering the cost of living in California.

My advice to anyone with ASD, get on disability as soon as possible. Minimum wage is no way of living. Even if you get less on disability, at least you don't have to deal with the stress of working at a crappy job for nothing.

Yeah, I'd say it should be $21 or so.

Interesting tidbit: The minimum wage was originally set at a level people could live on, which was approximately half what the typical pay for a production job was. For service industries to offer competitive wages, they still had to pay above minimum wage. With the departure of most production (or in the case of say meat processing, shifting to migrant workers) the pressure to be competitive was gone and service job wages dropped.