Feeling like any pursuit is seen only as a special interest

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I fully relate to others' experiences of special interests sometimes being a problem, and I've had problems with ADHD and other things that have gotten in the way of school, college classes, and unfortunately jobs and finding work, in addition to my physical disability getting in the way of things at times.

Where I've gotten really depressed and frustrated though is that it seems like when that energy, zeal, and passion that I've had for my favorite things gets redirected into something more tangible and productive, but that I still really enjoy, like college classes I've taken, I do get quite a bit of encouragement and support, but at some point, my family starts seeing it the same way they've seen the special interests, and they start seeing the things that interfere with what might be a very real pursuit as a life lesson or the cost of having bigger plans, like a reality check about having goals rather than a step to further those bigger plans, like getting one's comeuppance for having aspirations. It's not that they oppose success, but when it's something really exciting to me *and* something real and not just fun, the attitude is the same.

Jobs in the past seemed to be more about learning about burnout and never a break from daily stress and sensory overload than actually making money and being an adult wanting the job to be a step towards adult plans, and with college classes I was taking after I was disabled, my parents felt that I had no right to object to having to follow insane paratransit schedules and limited sleep because hey, got to learn to be on time. More recently, I've been working on a project that takes my interests in space and aviation and expands into other areas of technology, and I'm researching various unrealized technology projects for a blog and podcast with the goal of having ads and making money that way. It's not a get rich quick scheme, nor is it some scheme to pass off reading about things I like as "real work". I've already spent the past several months getting things going, and work has been slow but steady, and despite my focusing problems and having to type slow because of minor joint pain, I've gotten work done on several articles, and I'm on track to research more topics for even more articles that will become blog entries and podcast episodes. I've gotten a lot of encouragement, and I've met people who podcast who make decent money, so while I know what I'm doing will take a while to really build up, I'm confident that I'm on to something really viable, and finally I can think about being financially independent from my parents. I have my own apartment but they're currently helping me pay for it.

However, their support for what I'm doing is mixed with increased conflict about my refusal to follow their "orders" to do chores in the apartment to their satisfaction. Doesn't matter who pays for the apartment, for some reason they feel entitled to be involved and expressing disapproval of my personal life, but when they get really "aggressive" about the housework and coming up with scenarios where I have their ideas of routine imposed, suddenly my project is one more geeky thing I'm blowing off work to indulge in, as if I'm holed up in the apartment watching TV all day.

Even with my Asperger's situation, they're glad I'm getting tested, and that I'll finally get real treatment for that and the ADHD and other issues, but they also seem to want someone to "diagnose" me as lazy and needing supervision to keep me on track with things everyone else thinks is important and not spending so much time doing things important to me, even when it's real work. It's like the "real work" part is invalidated by it being something I'm enthusiastic about, or like it's dishonest to possibly make money doing something that's not a menial job.

People living independently have to do household chores--whether they are working or not, whether it's their special interest or not, whether it is paying or not. The order and hygiene of your immediate living space is a higher priority, because it is more basic to your survival. That is why your parents have strong opinions about it. Executive dysfunction due to ASD can make it hard to organize and perform chores on your own; maybe your family could hire a helper to come do housework once you've gotten a diagnosis, instead of berating you.

Doing housecleaning in of itself is not a problem, I've just figured out my own work-arounds and strategies so I can take care of laundry or cleaning without feeling like I'm wasting time I could be doing something more important. The worst it gets in my apartment is that there's always a bit of dust or clutter but nowhere near being a health or safety issue.

The conflict with my parents isn't about doing or not doing housework, it's about the time spent, or not spent on it. I see housework as just things that need to be done and I just take care of things as needed with minimal hassle and not really obsessing with how much time should be spent. They on the other hand think the effort wasn't "real" because I just did it to get it done, and not as something important in its own right, and making the time spent matter more than the cleaning actually being done. That's always been a problem- when I was younger, I'd plan on having some work to do on Saturday morning and looking forward to enjoying the rest of the weekend after the work was done, only to have my parents find some way to waste the whole weekend on what should have been a few hours work- making up extra work to do until I had no time left for whatever I had planned. I always resenting giving up a weekend for chores only to hear about how I sat on my a** all weekend watching TV, or else getting that same argument when I was trying to get schoolwork done.

Long before I knew what executive dysfunction was I knew I processed things differently and figured out ways to not feel overwhelmed by whatever mundane or boring task had to be done, and the fights with my parents were over me trying not to waste time and them making the work more about hanging out with them and making things much more unpleasant than necessary. I've said it in other postings- they seem to have read about ASD a long time ago and fixated on the concept of executive dysfunction and not getting it that whatever I'm doing to get things done despite the challenges for me in trying to stay organized should count for something, and trying to follow someone else's ideas about routine and organizing shouldn't be a complicated task beyond the things it's supposed to make easier.

The overall problem though always seemed to be having to endure being called lazy no matter how much housework I took part in, as if doing it reluctantly was the same as not helping out. As an adult living on my own, they've complained about me not doing housework, but they've also complained louder about my supposed laziness when they seen that I've actually been keeping things clean and organized. I just don't see how the apartment isn't really clean unless a minimum amount of time is spent/wasted and I've spent a required amount of time not doing something more important.

I actually have had home aides in the past but I had to fire the last one a couple of years ago because she was trying to get more hours working by having just myself and another client instead of several clients and she had gotten the home health agency to impose a stricter schedule on me requiring me to be home all the time and not doing anything when she came by for the 5 hours per day during the week she had managed to get herself assigned. She really was helping, but I couldn't deal with the time restriction- only having a little time in the morning and not being able to leave until she left, so no leaving late in the afternoon for an evening outing or going to appointments in the afternoon, as well as my activities at home restricted. I'm planning on seeing about arranging for a new aide but being adamant about having someone come by once a week at times that are good for me, plus just seeing about having friends come by and help with things sometimes.

So your parents come over to your house, which is clean, and say it is not clean? You are getting it clean really fast, and they say you should spend longer doing it? I don't understand.

It's never made any sense to me either. A lot of it I think is simply my past lack of focus or laziness being too easy to not bring up, sort of a ready made excuse to complain about things- I clean the apartment today but let's not forget when I didn't clean my room when I was 15. There also seems to be a need to make a big dramatic deal out of boring and mundane things, inflating the importance of something to give the appearance of being responsible taking precedence over actually getting said task completed, or being more interested in how many steps a task should require to complete that comes across as deliberately complicating things, busy work instead of a task with a beginning and an end. I just want to get the task done, but my parents and I have always fought about housecleaning when they would decide on how much time it was "supposed" to take and then try to keep adding extra work until that pre-arranged block of time had been filled up. So when they come around and see that I had been cleaning earlier but at the moment they arrive, they see obvious signs I was doing something else, that to them gives the impression that I wasn't really cleaning, just trying to make it look like I hadn't been doing something I was interested longer than I had been.

I hope I'm not giving the impression that I'm using my physical disability and Asperger's as an excuse to be lazy. I know I have to work a little harder mentally to focus on things that seem boring but needing to get done. I simply get really frustrated that my own work-around solutions and not getting excited about laundry or washing dishes the way I get excited about a special interest makes the effort less real. The other part of the problem is that when the enthusiasm is for something productive making time for that ends up being seen as no different than ignoring housecleaning to watch TV or read all day.

Whenever you are expecting them to visit, you should wait with a cleaning cloth in hand while doing something you can turn off quickly (like TV), then open the door saying "Whew, just barely finished before you got here!"

With regards to your blog, I'll bet they'll show more respect after your first bank deposit from clicks and advertising comes through. That'll show 'em!

Very tempting.

I really do hope they'll be genuinely impressed when I start making money. And besides the blog and podcast, there's a real possibility that in the next few months, once the upcoming testing happens and I have a real diagnosis, I can get a regular job knowing what kind of work situation would be best suited for me that would pay well enough to keep the current apartment and not needing disability assistance. Honestly I think a lot of my parent's attitudes are more about *not* seeing the possibility of me being more independent rather than actually being opposed to what I'm doing to further that. When I talk about making money doing something I like, I mean it as having a job or working independently that might not necessarily be related to an interest I have *but* I can still feel good about doing and being able to enjoy the money and other things that come with it, but I think they just hear "getting paid to do something fun".