Aspergers and unemployment

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80% plus people with Aspergers are unemployed is this number close to the truth?

Yes, it can be truth. Since I graduated school, I´ve had huge problems to get employed. I´ve had only part-time jobs so far and now I´m trying to get disability pension.

Yep. That's what I read.

I work but its been an awful struggle to get and tolerate full time work. It takes exceptional social skills to get the job and nerves of steel to keep it. Since I hav neither it takes me an enormous amount of work and some luck here and there. Working in civil service helps some since I hav a union. I would never last in corporate america.

I was 14 years in one job and I am 8 months in my current one.

I never even understood about Aspergers until less then a year ago.

My working life like my school life has been a total nightmare.

The job I was in for 14 years made me want to kill myself the only thing that kept me going was I knew it was closing down and I got paid off.

This new job is showing the first signs of turning sour for me I think I will quit as I can not live through that ordeal again.

I often worked too slow and never made any social connections. This did not go well for me and my employment was often terminated. My slow pace came from getting lost in thought, not being able to follow verbal instructions, and loosing focus by getting absorbed in the details. I blamed myself for a long time and I tried very hard to work quickly and focus but I was still terminated from a lot of jobs.

Now I'm at a job that does not require most of these things and it is such a relief and I feel secure. It is all about finding the right work environment that can work with your disability.

It's possible but how can it be worked out? Most people will be undiagnosed. So at the moment I am treating it as an assumption.

Before that job of 14 years I kept getting fired from every other job the longest I lasted was 5 months.

I´m sorry. Hope you are now satisfied with your current job.

Yes, 80% of DIAGNOSED Aspies might be unemployed but that's only because the two "experts" I spoke with told me you basically need to be unemployed to get diagnosed. Never mind the fact I have been chronically unemployed since I turned 21!

That's high but I wouldn't be surprised. My biggest problem at work (in the past; been unemployed for years) is usually my inability to comprehend instructions. If I'm sent off to do something, I often have to come back, confused, and ask for more clarification. This happens repeatedly until everyone's relatively frustrated. I also stand by my reasoning that some Aspies perceive time slower than most NTs...at all of my jobs, the immense boredom and long work hours bothered me substantially more than anyone else. An eight hour workday is almost enough to drive me insane and knowing that I have to do it the next day and the next after that, puts me over the edge. No one loves 40hr work weeks at a crappy job, but they all seem to get through it and recover within an hour after getting off.

I think I want to quit my current job.

Now I feel a lot better knowing that I am not the only one.

So very, very true. I could hardly tolerate part-time work in retail even though it was much easier to get, full-time work was the hardest to acquire and by far the hardest to keep over the duration (granted being a medical technician and flight attendant are not easy, management positions were far harder to "stay patient"). The game face does wear off, the patience wears off, the exhaustion kicks in, and the political theater of the workplace can get explosive. The question is who cracks first and who has just cause?

I have yet to survive this and come out on top, self employment and freelance work has been the only way I can function within working culture with Dyslexia/Dyspraxia, ADHD, Anxiety, Chronic Insomnia, and Celiacs with severe allergies. The standard work environment does more harm and costs more money (especially for the health effects) and the demands have caused dangerous eating and driving conditions so I am my boss.

I understand the need to be a productive member of society, but if the traditional way is at the cost of my life and my health I absolutely refuse and have no regrets at all!

Last edited by epitome81 on 13 Feb 2013, 5:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It doesn't surprise me that so many are unemployed.

I had a mental breakdown from working with the public so much and quit my job.

One thing which prevents us from successfully holding down jobs is the unreasonable expectation that everyone should have absolutely perfect social skills. Of course, there are jobs which really do require exceptional social skills, especially those which involve working with the public, but many employers put far too much emphesis on social skills for jobs which don't even require them.

That's what I found too. My two previous jobs had a 45 hr work week and it was absolute torture. Granted, nobody went home smiling but I never understood how everyone else could do it without complaint: I was almost unable to walk by the end of the day. I now do 35 hr weeks and it's MUCH easier to deal with! Glad to see other Aspies having the same issues.

I also found cashier work to be INCREDIBLY exhausting. Even part time I used to collapse on the floor after my shift (at home that is). I now understand that I'm just very introverted but didn't know it at the time.