I feel stuck and like things are getting worse.

[Athyrium]

I was told about five years ago in an autism support group that your 30s are when things really start to go downhill, and at 30 years old I'm really starting to see it and it's terrifying. I have read and think that people see you in your 20s as weird and needing to grow up a little bit, but your 30s are when they start to think there is something seriously wrong with and really start to stay away from you.

This is all really eating away at me because. I had a conservation job, I collect really good data but people always think I'm "weird" so when the companies select one or two people out of the ten or so to more from seasonal to full time, I'm never one of those and let go. This most recently happened a month ago. I have been applying to jobs all of this year knowing this would happen, but I've only gotten two interviews (both ended very early) and I'm getting rejection emails without interview or just silence to jobs I would have easily have gotten pre-pandemic. I feel so hopeless.

I'm really lucky my wife is our primary earner and our finances are good (even if we are poor, we're not in debt). She thinks I should just not work and continue to do housework and write and get more books published, and says I don't cost very much but I feel awful about that. I feel like a burden.

Also, because my past positions were mostly seasonal, or part time, etc, I've always done volunteer work a couple days a week to do more nature/conservation work. But I've started to be repeatedly ignored when I show up to volunteer, or sent on the most menial tasks away from everyone else. I'm used to the jokes and harassment, but being told to weed alone in a field far away from everyone else doing planting together really hurts, especially when it's so common. They're usually labeled as safe spaces but I regularly face misogyny, harassment related to my autism, and even in the "progressive" place I live, people get really weirded out that I'm a lesbian. (I think the lesbian thing is similar to autism, where it's okay if you're "experimenting" when young, but you should still settle down with a man when you get older), (also some local stereotypes about lesbians that aren't true).

I've had my two only friends become super distant from me the past two years too. One started when I went with them to one of their outdoors events and everyone just made fun of me and my friend even joined in. The other one I worked really hard on communicating with them that their inappropriate touching and stuff was inappropriate and then things went distant from there. I've been trying to make other friends the past two years and the only people that seem to want to spend time with me, want something from me. Usually either my plant knowledge or my body. I feel like people see me as a thing.

I just feel like more and more of my interactions people are shifting from seeing me as "quirky, weird or immature" (which was annoying, but not depressing) to "strange, distant and alien". Especially in day to day interactions with people.

This is so painful because I was originally diagnosed with (what would become) ASD-2 and through a lot of hard work and really pushing myself I could pass as ASD-1 and could live a semi-normal life. I spent so long getting there and I just feel it slipping away each passing day.

I feel treated less and less human the more things go on.

I don't know what to do.

 

[Tom]

I know it feels like things shouldn't be this way, and they shouldn't but the reality is they are and will probably always be. It's part of that human nature you wish (understandably) to be treated as having.

I tend to avoid complicated solutions and instead get a lot of simple ideas from nature, which has been at this jungle thing for a very long time. Think like stick insects mimicing form and chameleons changing colors, catapillers brightly colored to advertize danger. All strategies to avoid being someone's next meal.

 

[Thozuf]

I was told about five years ago in an autism support group that your 30s are when things really start to go downhill

I was going to type someting that I thought was supportive and helpful but honestly I am none of these things probably why I have no friends anyway and I get it wrong and I just come across as creepy and weird and easy to dismiss. But this thing you typed made much sense to me.

You have a loving supportive wife and you are in a notsobad for LGBTQ+ rights state. Maybe start from there.
I do not know if it helps, but I gave up trying to relate to humanity and I believe I *am* alien. You do not seem to be from my planet, so love you and support you, but I think you are mostly human. Hugz!

 

[Bolletje]

I feel for you. I’m in my late 30’s and while I’m getting better at loving myself and figuring out who I am, I’m also stuck in a world that doesn’t want to grow with me.

 

[Outdated]

Hi Athyrium, I really feel for you. When I was in my mid 30's was when I had my big burn out and my life changed for ever. But I didn't know anything about autism back than and I had no idea of what was happening to me, you have an advantage over me there.

It also sounds like you have a loving, understanding, and very supportive partner, something I have never experienced in my life. I hope you treasure her as much as she deserves.

I don't have any real answers for you but I hope you find the understanding to be able to cope with life's changes better than I did. I believe one of the key issues is to do with hierarchal social structures:

https://www.autismforums.com/threads/hierarchal-social-structures.44380/

 

[Storm Hess]

I tend to get caught in my own head and suffer greatly for it. Get out of the house, take a walk, go somewhere, help someone else, exercise, work on a hobby that demands focus, create art, music...something that you always wanted to try. These are some of the things I do when I feel like I'm sinking under.

 

[All-Rounder]

How can you tell the place you live in is actually progressive?

Also I'll have to mention people of political progressive views don't always have the best intentions towards others. Progressiveness affiliation is also linked to narcissism, so I don't expect the politics of an area to guide behaviour.

Many people are ignorant and insensitive I have found, in the area I live in but I have a feeling the majority of people and younger people or older unedcated act like that.

If you suffer from PTSD or are on the spectrum we might perceive their NT behaviour differently too, but my psychologist usually calls it mean when people say insulting things, so idk, people are mean.

I often hear commonly things that people impose on others, it's part of chit chat, I don't know why people do it but expectations to be liking the opposite sex, to have children, to be living life certain ways is expected from others. I think with close ones communication and explanation might be possible, and might open eyes unless they're narcissists like my mother, which will never accept opposing views and lifestyles, regardless of the proof brought.

 

[All-Rounder]

If you don't mind me asking, why did your interviews end so quickly? Do you present your political affiliation, or the necessities of having a certain wear at work, or th needs for being accepted? Most of the jobs might not be suited for such necessities, you see such people get hired for jobs such as hairdresser, animal work, beauty industry, motorbike/car industry where such looks are more accepted. I think some jobs in US are very tight about what you might look like at work, some people asking for beard trims to look professional and not out of the ordinary. They might also wish to prevent workplace conflict and lawsuits.

You might want to ask them for feedback on rejection.

I normally am very different, people notice constantly, by what I wear, if I don't wear certain "required" items, by how I act and the little ways I care about some things that I'm supposed to, posture and clothes arrangement sometimes.

 

[All-Rounder]

You say "I feel like people see me as a thing." I often feel like people's comments are very superficial, and I wonder if people are more than that. Experience says a lot of people have superficial relationships and think superficially about life. They might not know what it means to truly be, and think like an individual, and are deeply affected by social pressures and expectations that they carry within their relationships and lifestyle dedication, dedicated to a cause which belongs not, to them.