"You'll never get a job".

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That's what someone said to me. When I said I just want to finish my uni degree and get a job, but that I would need a lot of help due to my autism.

How do I respond?

And what support can I get? At uni I cannot function without a full time support worker and I get selective mutism with the other students. Also my meltdowns are easily set off and rather frightening to others and dangerous to self and others.

That's simply not true. It might be statistically more work to find but to say it's never going to happen? This is not true.

I would not say anything- they don't really want to know what you think. They just want to hear what they think- but out loud. I would repeat in my head 'Their opinion is not my fact'. I say it repeatedly and it helps. Then change the topic since they dont really care about what you think anyway.

What kind of job do you want to have after you graduate?

If I'm not mistaken, I think she wants to be a pharmacist.

Work can be a difficult thing, having known people who work in the pharmacy sector I know that there is a level of mental fitness which is needed to act as a dispensing pharmacist. If you need a lot of support and can not cope on a regular basis (so called meltdowns) then working behind a counter in somewhere like boots is not a good idea for you.

However a job where you are not dealing with the public or sick people directly might be more suitable, have you considered working in either a drug company as a pharmacist or trying to get a job in the public sector in the national body which regulates drugs and medicine. Also consider would you knowlege and skills in pharmacy be of use in other areas such as the bodies which create advice and policy for the misuse of drugs, herbal medicine and other things which are related to drugs.

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Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man !

Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.

I'll never get a job.

Perhaps you might not too.

It's just one coin flip. Lots of others out there.

My dad told be that there were lots of jobs that other people can do that I would never be able to do, and part of it was because I have a learning disability. He said that to me the summer that I was going into Grade 10. I believed what he said, gave up on my dreams and became a hippie because he said that ableist sentence to me. I was stupid when I was 15 going on 16. I was stupid enough to allow myself get down to the bottom of the bucket.

I'm a pharmacology student, not a pharmacy student. I am either going to go through the research route or just forget academia and ask the NAS for suggestions of employment.

Teachers at school said to me "you're so clever, you'll get PhD and do groundbreaking research" etc. Now this person says that complete opposite so I'm confused.

I am getting a bit fed up of academia tbh. An online friend of mine is starting her PhD in pharmacology and what she is doing does not appeal to me.

I am a bit stuck but I believe I am capable of working, with the right support. It hurts when someone tells me I have no future.

Any advice on what support I can get into employment? My autism is not mild.

Don't put too much importance on what people tell you, whether they tell you that you'll do nothing with your life or you'll do groundbreaking research. How you live your life is not based on what other people tell you that you are.

If you want to work, you can use diagnosis to get accommodations, but you should probably think about what kind of work you could do with your disabling issues. I suggest something that doesn't involve being at an office or lab much, and you can do on the computer, something computational + science might work for you.

Also, getting a job and having a career will require figuring out how to improve areas of weakness, like how to provide structure like you said you need to have in another thread about uni.

The only employed job I ever had in my entire life was working at a McDonnalds, and that only lasted for about 6 months. I won't candy coat this. Being on the spectrum can make getting a job next to imposable. And with today's job market being competitive. That only make things worst. When someone on the spectrum applies for a job. They have to consider a few things that NT's don't. How are my social/human relation skill? (can I do a resume and a interview?) And once you get the job, can you get along with your coworkers? Is there anything in the work environment that can cause a sensory overload?

Thanka for the advice.

A computation-based job sounds better.

I am slowly working on my difficulties with my autism support worker.

I don't care for fame and being known for discovering something amazing in "groundbreaking research". I just want to be calm, relatively content and earning money (as opposed to relying on income support for the rest of my life).

I accept that life is hard though, and that people don't always get what they want.

Another thing about getting a job/career with the disadvantages from autism is that you can also use your autistic traits and talents plus high intelligence to become really good at something like computational/biological topics and really leave others behind, which may give you advantage to get a good position based on more unusual abilities.

I'd suggest talking to people who do the work you can imagine doing to get a better idea what it's really like. E.g. for staying in academia whether you need to network a lot, whether there is a lot of pressure to get 3rd party funding or whether that's relatively easy in your field. I think if there's a way to focus on the science, the academic world might be a lot nicer than the corporate world where you often have to live with very shortsighted decisions, politics, money-saving strategies and so on. It would probably help to ask professors and other people who know your current performance for advice and opinions.

Ok. I have 2 years to think about this so I won't make any immediate decisions.

There is always the option of doing a Master's degree in some other subject to further my skills.

I prefer computers to humans.

I do have skills. I'm just hoping there's an employer out there who sees beyond disability.