If I had money I would be able to live on my own quite nicely! Unfortunately, I'm on SSDI because trying to work made me sick and I was in great pain all the time! When I'm stressed out, I cry (my primary meltdown mode) and it annoys Me
, never mind an employer. When you're in pain all the time, but no one else can see a reason why, it's extremely stressful!
I was working with my State's Rehab office, but they are still unfamiliar with Asperger's and our traits! (Like not wanting to Lie on a job application!
) They were extremely unhelpful, so when I was accepted for SSDI I stopped dealing with them.
Unfortunately there's still a long way to go in order for us to gain full acceptance, understanding and equality in the work place. Obviously some workplaces are a lot better than others however.
When I first worked in an office from the early 1990s, I started in a fairly low position providing first line computer support over the phone as well doing various menial office tasks. Firstly I really struggled using the phone because for a start I greatly feared using it (I still find it really difficult), I did my absolute best to overcome it, but the fear was always there and complaints started coming in because I was apparently rude to people and to this day I still don't know what I did wrong. Added to this, soon virtually everyone hated me in the office, again I couldn't understand what I was doing wrong and I was trying my absolute best.
After a few weeks things got so bad that a close work college who was also on 1st line support started instructing to me to do specific tasks that unbeknown to me were against procedure so he could later complain about my conduct to the supervisor, denying that he'd told me to do it in the first place and the boss wouldn't believe me when I explained that he was setting me up on purpose, in fact he went totally nuts at me for even suggesting it, shouting me out of the office saying that I was acting like a child (this is also relevant to the original thread because I was often accused of being childish too, I was in my early 20s at the time). It was extremely difficult because even though he was in the same position as myself I was specifically told by my manager to follow his instructions on request because he was a lot more experienced after being in the position for a number of years, he could also get away with what he did because I was at a desk of just 3 people including my supervisor, him and myself, but often my supervisor would need to complete other tasks leaving just the 2 of us. After being set up on a couple of occasions I started becoming really suspicious of his instructions and this got me into even more trouble when I started questioning them to check he wasn't setting me up again, I even remember refusing to do one task that he'd set for me because I knew it was wrong and he then complained to the supervisor stating that I was refusing to follow his instructions, but he blatantly lied saying that he was telling me to do something completely different that was reasonable and again no-one believed me. I couldn't win and I grew to fear and hate the guy so much that every day I was hoping he would have the day off work and not turn up because luckily for me he would take a lot of sick leave giving me a welcome break, but some days he would turn up after me at the very last minute and I'd feel almost terror when he showed up. Of course he was doing everything to severely bully me and make my life a living misery while getting away with it, he would often even laugh and mock me when he was alone with me, but I couldn't even answer back because he'd use it against me to the supervisor stating that I was starting an argument again which he'd also done in the past (in fact one such argument even got the attention of my boss who came over).
On another occasion a senior office supervisor was leaving and on his last day I was really surprised to be invited to a leaving do at a local pub at lunchtime on his last day. I didn't really want to go to a social event, but I felt I ought to nevertheless and that it could improve relations with the other staff. Unfortunately when I turned up no-one was there and I later discovered that he'd purposely told me the wrong venue for his amusement and he made jokes at me on my return to the office in front of numerous other staff (some of them laughed with him too). His horrid stunt however really backfired in his face because not only did I receive an apology from my manager on his behalf who was shocked and utterly disgusted by his behaviour, but the senior supervisor was reprimanded and told never to expect a good reference. This also started to change my boss's attitude from being totally against me to being more sympathetic because I think he then started feeling guilty for not believing me and after that things very gradually got better.
In the past when I kept getting into trouble the manager couldn't understand why I'd apparently said or done certain things in the office upsetting other people and I was repeatedly said to be childish, the problem was I never knew what I'd done wrong and even when I asked I was never told because he didn't believe that I truly didn't realise, I'd get, "you must know" and with all the other issues my job was hanging on by a thread with final threats of being dismissed if things didn't quickly improve. Instead of losing my job and I believe thanks to the leaving do incident, I was given another chance. I was put into a side office on my own where I was given computer related tasks to complete and I was told to keep interaction with other staff to an absolute minimum. I was actually in my element and I was soon praised for my really good work. Gradually over the next year I was integrated back into the main office and people started accepting me as eccentric. The guy who I used to work with on 1st line support that would purposely set me up had also lost his job in extremely bad circumstances, in fact he was sent to prison for stabbing someone outside work and they even later found another knife in his top work draw! On top of this his girlfriend was fraudulently claiming he was just sick for as long as she could get away with it to claim paid sick leave which I understand got them both into even more trouble when they discovered he was really in prison. After he'd gone everyone went on about how horrid he was asking me how I coped working with him and I even learnt that my predecessor in the same position left entirely because he couldn't cope working with him, but it was totally different when he was still working there when everyone seemed to support him against me (I still can't fully understand this, but I suspect people were frightened of him). Things slowly got a lot better and after a couple of years I even got promoted to a computer officer which included various additional responsibilities including sometimes working on 2nd line technical support (fixing the more in depth and often more difficult computer faults that are too time consuming for 1st line support) and even my pay was pretty good.
Sadly however after quite a number of years I lost my job entirely due to ill health and despite fighting it, occupational health in the UK stated that I wasn't fit for work and wouldn't be for the forseeable future. I remember being very tired and extremely fatigued all the time to the extent that I couldn't concentrate on anything or do my work properly despite even often going to bed at 6.30pm in the evening when I got back from work for over 12 hours of sleep, I would struggle to put on a brave face, but kept getting sent home against my will. Unfortunately not long after losing my job it was discovered that I had both an underactive thyroid and sleep apnea that were both left untreated for ages and each one causes severe fatigue. Well in fact much worse I was also wrongfully given antidepressants when the doctor incorrectly diagnosed depression as the only cause and these particular antidepressants are now banned with numerous law suits. Unfortunately I found out why they were banned, they completely screwed my up head and I basically had no chance what-so-ever. To cut a long story short after that my life went severely downhill, especially since I'd not long started struggling to live alone without any support and while still under the influence of these antidepressants I ended up in a very destructive relationship.
PS: Now I have a long list of health concerns and it feels like my 48 year old body is falling to bits.
