What Now?

[Spotty01]

I graduated from high school in June of last year. I couldn't tell you how much I had longed for that day, for when I finally entered the "real world", when I would no longer have to wake up at 4am every weekday to catch the bus for school, when I could finally have some freedom, all the time in the world, for the first time in thirteen years.

Of course, I knew that couldn't last forever, and I had originally planned to enjoy some of that freedom until sometime this Summer and start looking at moving out of my parents' home, getting a (hopefully well-paying) job, and start making a life for myself.

However, I've been out of high school for eleven months now and I only have about two-and-a-half months before Summer comes around. And it's beginning to seem like my whole life has hit a dead end.

I've heard it all before: I'm only eighteen (nineteen next month, but who's counting?) and I still have a whole life ahead of me to do anything I want and make of my life whatever I want it to be, but so far, even though I want to, it feels like I'm getting nowhere and I'm fearing that that isn't going to change.

I have an almost complete inability to work with other people and a near inability to function at all in social and/or crowded situations, the former mostly being a lack of communication (I'm almost always the "only speak when spoken to" type when I'm around people I'm not familiar with) and the fact that I've always been a very individual person and have had trouble working with other people, ever since I was in middle school I think. So, as you can well imagine, it's been a pretty harrowing ordeal to find a job that I'm fit for, and that I'd be in a comfortable environment in, and that I'd actually enjoy.

I've tried a couple of times to get a job and have tried on multiple occasions to try out some new hobbies, but it seems like everything I want to try is always shot down due to the fact that I'm autistic and have generalized anxiety disorder (though I've had it under control with medication over the past few months), or that me and my family aren't the richest people in the world The farthest as possible from it actually.

On top of that, while I can stay at home alone for several hours with no problem, the aforementioned GAD will worsen a little at night (significantly so around a full Moon), in which I always have to have someone sleeping in the same room as me at bedtime. It sounds immature/childish, I know, but that's just how it is. Because of this, while I want to move out of my parents' house sometime, I fear how that would work out in the long run.

I wouldn't want to be calling up my parents a thousand times a day or at almost midnight because of a bunch of trivial reasons that my autism/anxiety cocktail makes seem 10x worse in my eyes. That would quickly become a burden on both ends. And, if I only spent the daylight hours in my apartment but the night at my parents' house then it'd be nothing but a huge waste of gas money (getting to and fro every day) and money in general (for paying the full rent on an apartment I'd only be half-using).

See what I mean here? I have yet to try moving out, mostly since we don’t really have the money for it yet nor have I found a decent apartment complex in the local area, but the aforementioned problems are still something I think could very well happen if I were to try moving out.

The reason I’m so worried about this is because most of my classmates in high school have had jobs since their freshman years and my peers, as well as a couple of my teachers, wouldn’t hesitate to start repeatedly berating me over not having a job and being a deadbeat. One of the teacher even tried to rub it in my face that one of my classmates (same age, same grade) had a job and I didn’t because I struggled so much in the workplace. Any sort of workplace, really.

That, and the possibility of living in my parents’ home until I’m in my thirties/forties and being a so-called “jobless deadbeat” for the rest of my life scares me to death; I often wonder what’s going to become of my life after my parents I gone since I rely on them and them alone for everything.

What I’m trying to ask is: does anyone have any good ideas for a job that someone like me could have where I wouldn’t end up being completely useless due to the social situations or being unable to do what’s expected of me? Those of you who do have jobs and also suffer from HFA/Asperger’s, feel free to tell me about your experiences if you’re comfortable with doing so. That, and what with my aforementioned autism/anxiety cocktail (as I like to call it), do you think it would be a bad idea to try and move out? Maybe it would actually benefit my condition(s) somehow?

Like I said, feel free to respond, I’m willing to listen to any advice that you guys and gals are willing to give me, since I’m kind of at a loss here.

 

[MrSpock]

I don't know what kind of work you might be able to do, but there is probably something. I notice that you hope to "...find a job that I'm fit for, and that I'd be in a comfortable environment in, and that I'd actually enjoy." If you restrict yourself to finding a job you're fit for this would make it much more likely. You may have to hold that job while looking for one that you're fit for and puts you in a comfortable environment. I'm under the impression that relatively few people with or without autism find jobs that they actually enjoy. It's possible that you have unrealistic expectations.

It's also possible that you have a talent (or several talents) which would place you in a job that would give you all that you hope for and a sense of fulfilment as well. That could take quite some time to find, and may require further education. A year is not really such a long time when speaking of these matters. It seems to me that you must decide how much of a hurry you're in, and be willing to compromise if you want things to go more quickly.

I wish you luck whichever way you choose to go about this. You do have your whole life ahead of you, and good reason to look at things positively.

 

[NeoPhile]

Do you have the opportunity to go to college? You could better yourself with more education. It's hard to get a good job with just a high school diploma.

 

[Streetwise]

TRY CHARITY WORK FOR INSTANCE FOR AUTISM DO IT GRADUALLY
IF YOU DO ALL AT ONCE YOULL EXPERIENCE WHAT PSYCHOLOGISTS CALL FLOODING REALLY I IMAGINE A PANIC ATTACK ACCOMPANIED BY THE MEMORIES THAT INITIATED GAD.
IF YOU WANT TO MOVE GO TO SOCIAL SERVICES ASK ABOUT A GROUP HOME
OR ASSISTED LIVING ALSO DISABILITY BENEFITS IF YOU DONT HAVE THEM
SO YOUR NOT STRESSING ABOUT FINANCE
IM ALMOST A COPY OF YOU (30 YEARS OLDER -LIVING ALONE FOR ME IS A )STRUGGLE

 

[Spotty01]

Do you have the opportunity to go to college? You could better yourself with more education. It's hard to get a good job with just a high school diploma.

While I've considered going to college a time or two, I think I've decided I'm not going to, at least not actually going out and attending one in person.

The thing is, I was bullied relentlessly, by students and teachers alike, in both middle school and my later years of high school which is still taking a toll on me, even years later, and I'm terrified of college or a university being no different. Not to mention, in middle and high schools, there were programs there to assist people with learning disabilities, like autism/Asperger's, that helped me a lot in classes and all, but I've been told before that colleges don't have that sort of thing (at least not local ones).

I don't want anyone to think I'm making an excuse not to go to college; trust me, I would if I didn't fear that I would end up struggling a lot and make it where it wasn't worth going at all (at least to me).

 

[SpaceCadet]

The thing is, I was bullied relentlessly, by students and teachers alike, in both middle school and my later years of high school which is still taking a toll on me, even years later, and I'm terrified of college or a university being no different.

College is NOTHING like high school and even less like middle school (where I was bullied too and didn't learn much of anything). So I think you're under a misimpression there. I assume you'd most likely be a commuter student, living with your parents and not in a dorm. In college, the other students will just ignore you, pretty much. This was my experience. The instructors may call on you and this might be a little embarrassing if you haven't studied enough. And that's it!

My story is somewhat similar to yours, except that my parents bullied me too and they made clear they wouldn't have let me hang around after 18. Maybe for that reason I've always enjoyed having my own place, gardening, having pets etc.

Have you considered accounting or bookkeeping? Always in demand, and you can make decent money without a lot of personal interaction, or office chit-chat, or stress. You may be expecting too much to want a job that you "enjoy." Hardly anyone has that! (I don't know what your parents & their friends do, but I'm willing to bet they don't actually "enjoy" their jobs either, they just find them tolerable.) It's enough to find a job that's not too stressful where you can support yourself, save up for vacations and the like. Good luck!

 

[EstimatedProphet]

I graduated from high school in June of last year. I couldn't tell you how much I had longed for that day, for when I finally entered the "real world", when I would no longer have to wake up at 4am every weekday to catch the bus for school, when I could finally have some freedom, all the time in the world, for the first time in thirteen years.

Of course, I knew that couldn't last forever, and I had originally planned to enjoy some of that freedom until sometime this Summer and start looking at moving out of my parents' home, getting a (hopefully well-paying) job, and start making a life for myself.

However, I've been out of high school for eleven months now and I only have about two-and-a-half months before Summer comes around. And it's beginning to seem like my whole life has hit a dead end.

I've heard it all before: I'm only eighteen (nineteen next month, but who's counting?) and I still have a whole life ahead of me to do anything I want and make of my life whatever I want it to be, but so far, even though I want to, it feels like I'm getting nowhere and I'm fearing that that isn't going to change.

I have an almost complete inability to work with other people and a near inability to function at all in social and/or crowded situations, the former mostly being a lack of communication (I'm almost always the "only speak when spoken to" type when I'm around people I'm not familiar with) and the fact that I've always been a very individual person and have had trouble working with other people, ever since I was in middle school I think. So, as you can well imagine, it's been a pretty harrowing ordeal to find a job that I'm fit for, and that I'd be in a comfortable environment in, and that I'd actually enjoy.

I've tried a couple of times to get a job and have tried on multiple occasions to try out some new hobbies, but it seems like everything I want to try is always shot down due to the fact that I'm autistic and have generalized anxiety disorder (though I've had it under control with medication over the past few months), or that me and my family aren't the richest people in the world The farthest as possible from it actually.

On top of that, while I can stay at home alone for several hours with no problem, the aforementioned GAD will worsen a little at night (significantly so around a full Moon), in which I always have to have someone sleeping in the same room as me at bedtime. It sounds immature/childish, I know, but that's just how it is. Because of this, while I want to move out of my parents' house sometime, I fear how that would work out in the long run.

I wouldn't want to be calling up my parents a thousand times a day or at almost midnight because of a bunch of trivial reasons that my autism/anxiety cocktail makes seem 10x worse in my eyes. That would quickly become a burden on both ends. And, if I only spent the daylight hours in my apartment but the night at my parents' house then it'd be nothing but a huge waste of gas money (getting to and fro every day) and money in general (for paying the full rent on an apartment I'd only be half-using).

See what I mean here? I have yet to try moving out, mostly since we don’t really have the money for it yet nor have I found a decent apartment complex in the local area, but the aforementioned problems are still something I think could very well happen if I were to try moving out.

The reason I’m so worried about this is because most of my classmates in high school have had jobs since their freshman years and my peers, as well as a couple of my teachers, wouldn’t hesitate to start repeatedly berating me over not having a job and being a deadbeat. One of the teacher even tried to rub it in my face that one of my classmates (same age, same grade) had a job and I didn’t because I struggled so much in the workplace. Any sort of workplace, really.

That, and the possibility of living in my parents’ home until I’m in my thirties/forties and being a so-called “jobless deadbeat” for the rest of my life scares me to death; I often wonder what’s going to become of my life after my parents I gone since I rely on them and them alone for everything.

What I’m trying to ask is: does anyone have any good ideas for a job that someone like me could have where I wouldn’t end up being completely useless due to the social situations or being unable to do what’s expected of me? Those of you who do have jobs and also suffer from HFA/Asperger’s, feel free to tell me about your experiences if you’re comfortable with doing so. That, and what with my aforementioned autism/anxiety cocktail (as I like to call it), do you think it would be a bad idea to try and move out? Maybe it would actually benefit my condition(s) somehow?

Like I said, feel free to respond, I’m willing to listen to any advice that you guys and gals are willing to give me, since I’m kind of at a loss here.

How is your relationship with your parents, and how's your financial situation? Taking the Johnson O'Connor aptitude tests could do you a world of good insofar as finding a career that's the right "fit", but it costs several hundred dollars and involves travel unless you live near a testing location.

Also @SpaceCadet is 100% correct, college isn't anything like high school socially (unless the college is really small), so don't let that deter you.

Also transitions as big as this are very stressful, even for NTs, escpecially for us! So try to cut yourself some slack and wait on the right opportunity. Best of luck.

 

[Larisa]

Hi, I want to say some words of support to you.
I needed a year to myself after I graduated as well. I had well grounded fears to live alone. My parents were poor and desparate people, but I held onto them because I dreaded the real world.
My first job was with petty wage, but I started to watch general people and their behavior. I started to work with psychologist to understand myself: my fears, my hopes, analize my own expectations and past losses.
I noticed that a human being can only survive the hard times by building expectations on his/her future. It's a natural defensive mechanism.
But these expectations - 'promises to myself' - they don't speak of my real interests in present or future, they are about COMPENSATIONS for my past struggles and losses.
So they can be rather misleading instead of being supportive.

Do you really want to move out from your parents' home? Do you really have to?
I came to realisation that I can only work on changes in one aspect of my life in time (the others should be stable and unchanging) be it: place of living/job/education.
Try to change two things at once - and I go down breaking apart in confusion and panick. I loose track of things around me.
So I come to understand my own inner workings and I try to live my life in my own approach - and, yes, I get criticized a lot and I get upset and disapointed in myself in times.
I go to my psychologist when I need the outer support, I go to my friends who keep telling me that they still want to see me despite my constant struggles and problems.
So I'm holding on.

I was terrified of people in general, but after 10 years of working I learned to more or less understand their actions and words.
I got used to the real world - but it's an experience that should be taken personally, there are no general rules and universal advises.
I can only say that to risk going into the outer world - a person have to have a safe haven to fall back to if things go wrong. And to have several people who support you: telling you you're sane, you're reasonable, you are right to feel the way you feel about things going on.
Conselling a psychologist on self-acceptance proved big help for myself.
In my own experience - I react MUCH worse to other people's thoughts, words and behaviour if I struggle with my own feelings and sensations and doubt my own mind.

I came to realize that I can know for sure my reaction ONLY AFTER I really tried something.
It was very confusing for me to discover how much I miscalculated my reaction on something I planned for a long time.
For example - I'm still a bit afraid to live alone: I rented a room so I lived in a flat with someone else. I never earned enough to rent a whole flat to myself, but my friends puzzled why I'm not particulary upset about it
The last room I rent - I lived in the landlady's flat. And she lived several monthes in her cottage out of the city.
I discovered that I like having that place all to myself.
BUT I'm still terrified to be alone in my parents' flat (where I grew up).

I'm 35 now and I made peace with the real world on the point that I live to discover myself: in known places, in new places, with people I like and feel close to, with people I only met in passing, learning about myself while watching nature...I think that every person has to find their own sense of living - because the people arond make the world constantly change, so I keep struggling to adjust and survive. There is no stability and serenity.
So I'm finding my own inner interests to go on.

 

[EstimatedProphet]

Hi, I want to say some words of support to you.
I needed a year to myself after I graduated as well. I had well grounded fears to live alone. My parents were poor and desparate people, but I held onto them because I dreaded the real world.
My first job was with petty wage, but I started to watch general people and their behavior. I started to work with psychologist to understand myself: my fears, my hopes, analize my own expectations and past losses.
I noticed that a human being can only survive the hard times by building expectations on his/her future. It's a natural defensive mechanism.
But these expectations - 'promises to myself' - they don't speak of my real interests in present or future, they are about COMPENSATIONS for my past struggles and losses.
So they can be rather misleading instead of being supportive.

Do you really want to move out from your parents' home? Do you really have to?
I came to realisation that I can only work on changes in one aspect of my life in time (the others should be stable and unchanging) be it: place of living/job/education.
Try to change two things at once - and I go down breaking apart in confusion and panick. I loose track of things around me.
So I come to understand my own inner workings and I try to live my life in my own approach - and, yes, I get criticized a lot and I get upset and disapointed in myself in times.
I go to my psychologist when I need the outer support, I go to my friends who keep telling me that they still want to see me despite my constant struggles and problems.
So I'm holding on.

I was terrified of people in general, but after 10 years of working I learned to more or less understand their actions and words.
I got used to the real world - but it's an experience that should be taken personally, there are no general rules and universal advises.
I can only say that to risk going into the outer world - a person have to have a safe haven to fall back to if things go wrong. And to have several people who support you: telling you you're sane, you're reasonable, you are right to feel the way you feel about things going on.
Conselling a psychologist on self-acceptance proved big help for myself.
In my own experience - I react MUCH worse to other people's thoughts, words and behaviour if I struggle with my own feelings and sensations and doubt my own mind.

I came to realize that I can know for sure my reaction ONLY AFTER I really tried something.
It was very confusing for me to discover how much I miscalculated my reaction on something I planned for a long time.
For example - I'm still a bit afraid to live alone: I rented a room so I lived in a flat with someone else. I never earned enough to rent a whole flat to myself, but my friends puzzled why I'm not particulary upset about it
The last room I rent - I lived in the landlady's flat. And she lived several monthes in her cottage out of the city.
I discovered that I like having that place all to myself.
BUT I'm still terrified to be alone in my parents' flat (where I grew up).

I'm 35 now and I made peace with the real world on the point that I live to discover myself: in known places, in new places, with people I like and feel close to, with people I only met in passing, learning about myself while watching nature...I think that every person has to find their own sense of living - because the people arond make the world constantly change, so I keep struggling to adjust and survive. There is no stability and serenity.
So I'm finding my own inner interests to go on.

Great post. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Nick12]

FIRST OF ALL YOU ARE NOT USELESS I WANT YOU HAVE THE BEST BEST DAY EVERY