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@D0nt45k

"It's unfortunately common among neurotypical people.  They just don't have the necessary frame of reference to understand, unless they've lived around people with certain conditions from a young age.  An example would be my sister, since she's had to live with me and my idiosyncrasies from birth until she went off to college."

My dad has lived around me since I was a very young child and always just regarded me as extremely weird and constantly saying why can't you just act normal? People increasingly have realized that I most likely on the spectrum but he still thinks I belong on disability or in a mental hospital in general, as I don't think he really wants to deal with me as I am a burden to him, since I can't really function independently on my own. Once again because I'm of high intelligence he thinks I should just magically be able to get it together and just sees me as being lazy and selfish.

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...And also exceptional research scientists who can't take care of themselves.

This thread is primarily for autistic people to write about their experiences.  The experiences may involve, but are not limited to, online autistic trait sites, difficulty recognizing people, difficu

@Stanley79 "How are family gatherings for you?" I am comfortable around family because I know them and my family are pretty much the only people I ever see really as I have no social life, a

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On 11/14/2021 at 7:09 AM, DesperateJill said:

@D0nt45k

"It's unfortunately common among neurotypical people.  They just don't have the necessary frame of reference to understand, unless they've lived around people with certain conditions from a young age.  An example would be my sister, since she's had to live with me and my idiosyncrasies from birth until she went off to college."

My dad has lived around me since I was a very young child and always just regarded me as extremely weird and constantly saying why can't you just act normal? People increasingly have realized that I most likely on the spectrum but he still thinks I belong on disability or in a mental hospital in general, as I don't think he really wants to deal with me as I am a burden to him, since I can't really function independently on my own. Once again because I'm of high intelligence he thinks I should just magically be able to get it together and just sees me as being lazy and selfish.

I think my dad knows a little better, because I think his older brother had Asperger's or some form of autism, even if he was never diagnosed (unfortunately, my uncle passed away a few years ago, had a brain aneurysm).  It would explain a lot of his eccentricities.  Bright as hell, worked a bunch of highly technical jobs including, among other things, maintaining SR-71s for the USAF...but he completely lacked any sort of common sense (he once traded away a pickup truck for an XBox...and the truck wasn't even his to begin with) and he was a terrible judge of character when it came to the opposite sex (only one of his three wives ever treated him right, and she died of cancer, the other two marriages ended in bitter divorces).

Of course the fact that he spent most of my childhood being a corporate drone instead of taking the time to actually get invested in any of my interests other than a couple of token efforts didn't help him understand me either.

Edited by D0nt45k (see edit history)
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@D0nt45k

My dad never got into any of my interests, he always thought that my interests were weird or that they were just another sign of what was wrong with me, and is always putting them down, and always complains about how all I do is read and watch and write stuff and never go out and socialize. I think as soon as he realized that I was an introverted nerd and not an extroverted sports fan like him he pretty much lost interest in me.

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I'm autistic myself. It's been difficult. According to the government, I can work at 50% capacity. Somehow they're expecting me to find a job for that 50%... Not going to happen. I don't qualify for disability income, for that the capacity should be 30% or lower. So, I'm stuck with the standard unemployment funds whilst doing unpaid work (like volunteer work). Not ideal, but it could be worse. I'm thankfully in a situation where I can easily get by with the standard unemployment funds (I live on my own).

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15 hours ago, EmeraldAvalon said:

Somehow they're expecting me to find a job for that 50%...

I was fortunate in that respect.  During a major cut-back by local industries, a union found me a TV station job working 9 or 10 hours each on Saturday and Sunday.  Most people didn't have the license required back then.  Three or four hours Saturday studio employees and "talent" came in for a live show or two.  Otherwise, I ran the film video tape and transmitter by myself.  Pay was pushing three times minimum wage.  Therefore, my take home pay was about 1.5 times that of my 40 hour per week minimum-wage friends.

But that was dumb luck.  I wanted the federal license for ego boost.  So I took a vocational class.  I had some background knowledge from amateur radio plus I was not taking the DJ classes.  Mostly the technical parts being a special interest (obsession) of mine I passed my federal exams in early spring.  Being the only licensed student, an instructor sent me to interview at a TV that had lost a key employee to a big California operation.  The license has been replaced by the SBE (Society of Broadcast Engineers) certifications.

See the problem between the lines?  There must be ten thousand autistic people who have stumbled into nearly ideal loner jobs (movie projectionist, water treatment plant, etc).  Some of these require around six months study and testing to have the credentials.  But no one comes looking to interview us and compile an autistic person's guide to employment. 

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On 11/8/2021 at 5:10 AM, DesperateJill said:

I'm well functioning academically, there's nothing wrong with me intellectually, I am of above average intelligence, but functionally speaking I am basically feeling like I am retarded when it comes to doing a lot of basic things that people who are much less intelligent than me can do very easily,

On 11/16/2021 at 8:10 AM, EmeraldAvalon said:

I'm autistic myself. It's been difficult. According to the government, I can work at 50% capacity. Somehow they're expecting me to find a job for that 50%... Not going to happen. I don't qualify for disability income, for that the capacity should be 30% or lower. So, I'm stuck with the standard unemployment funds whilst doing unpaid work (like volunteer work). Not ideal, but it could be worse.

 

On 11/14/2021 at 12:37 AM, silvermoon said:

I was able to get a job, though not one I particularly enjoy.

Here is a item form Wrong Planet's school and work page.

https://wrongplanet.net/look-work-four-things-absolutely-know/

In my thinking this article should have a part 1B -- know your skills.  For instance:

A.  Did you enjoy and get good marks writing library research?  A museum I worked at could have used those skills in 1975-1776 when planning an exhibit about the Mars probes reaching their destination in 1976.  The museum set out to produce an integrated exhibit including myths, fiction, telescopic observations, the probe's instruments/purposes, full-scale probe models and a traveling in-school program.  The staff did a good job.  But they also wasted significant time (salary expenses) on miscommunications between departments, creating a coherent presentation after the sub-units were completed and company politics over who managed what and who received how many gold stars.   A coherent overview paper identifying sources and linking concepts would have produced an even better result.

Today locally this city plans an airport expansion.  Let us imagine a local TV station wants to do a special on the history the land concerned plus economic benefits.  Again who has the ability to trace the history back to Native Americans, pioneer usage, current usage, economic forecast, local environmental impact and state atmospheric carbon budget?  Presumably a library research specialist.

B.  Companies I worked for from about 1995 through 2009 often needed a proof-of-concept and hard-model (popularly called "prototypes") builder with medical-materials skills.  The foundation skills correspond to those applied by HO and N-scale model-railroad "kit bashers."  Of course people with autism acquire these manual dexterity skills in spite of autism (as I unwittingly did age 10 to 14).  They would need maybe a year polishing epoxy heat curing, polymer materials testing, and bring their basic electrical and electronic skills to Associate Level  ETA or ISCET level.  This sort of electronics requires about the same intelligence as a middle-school general science class.

https://certifiedelectronicstechnician.org/associate-level-cet-exams/

https://www.etai.org/electronics.html

Not terribly hard for a person who has added three or four home-made electronics accessories to a model railroad.  (The technology industry needs ETA and ISCET to develop a certification for the BOK (body of knowledge) underlying these skills.)  An ambitious person can work up through the higher (journeyman, but not in the union sense) certifications and continue on to the AAMI (Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation) certification -- each at their own pace

https://www.aami.org/training.

** Here's the point.  If you wish better employment but suspect your special interests have no employment potential, try breaking the big picture down to the basic skills involved.  Of course mine is just one opinion.  Wrong Planet's school and work page give other view points.

https://wrongplanet.net/forums/

As I've not yet joined, I can't speak to their forums.  I'll remain causally optimistic.  A local "Square Pegs" meetup may provide more news about local employment.  Currently, the one here meets via zoom.

Your experiences?

Best wishes

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@Stanley79

"How are family gatherings for you?"

I am comfortable around family because I know them and my family are pretty much the only people I ever see really as I have no social life, and I look forward to seeing everyone this Thanksgiving because it's been nearly 2 years now since Covid since I have seen my family, since everybody in my family is old or else health conditions making them high risk, so it just hasn't been possible until recently.


With all of my family gathered there usually about eight or nine people there so it's not really a huge gathering, so it's not very intimidating luckily.

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6 hours ago, Stanley79 said:

How are family gatherings for you?

In my childhood Thanksgiving and Christmas brought 9 to 12 family members in to one or another aunts house.  That was too many for me.  I'd get anxious in the extreme.  This year we'll only gather 4.  Hopefully it will be OK.

Depends on the size, but I can usually manage if it's just family. I get more and more nonfunctional the more people and/or strangers are present.

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5 hours ago, LizJWetting said:

For me it really depends on how many people are there and who is there. But at most family meetups I'll just chat to a couple of people, mostly those who I know/like the most, and spend the rest of the time hanging around somewhat awkwarldy not talking to people much

That's familiar here.  One of the aunts and two uncles visited about twice per year.  Of course, they mostly chatted adult to adult.  They felt like almost strangers to me.  The uncles and my father were very loud which also upset me.

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@LizJWetting

"But at most family meetups I'll just chat to a couple of people, mostly those who I know/like the most, and spend the rest of the time hanging around somewhat awkwarldy not talking to people much unless they talk to me first."

That's the way I tend to be, I socialize a lot with my cousins since they are about the same age as me, but the rest of my family I feel kind of awkward being around and I've asked them specifically not to discuss politics or world events around me because their personal views make me feel violent and want to vomit. So yeah other than my cousins I don't really socialize much with anyone as I feel I have little in common with most people.


Of course now I feel like I might be getting sick again, so who knows if I will even make Thanksgiving now.

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@silvermoon

"I remember at one of our first gatherings when I was 11, I was getting along with my male cousins, and one of mt grandmothers kept dragging me away to talk with the female relatives and to complain I wasn't sitting very ladylike while wearing a dress."

Growing up I primarily socialized with my male cousins and my family always thought it was inappropriate for a girl like me to be always talking about bathroom related matters!

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20 minutes ago, DesperateJill said:

Growing up I primarily socialized with my male cousins and my family always thought it was inappropriate for a girl like me to be always talking about bathroom related matters!

Whenever we were away from adults, my next older cousin encouraged me to hydrate as she did herself.  She reported her bladder status.  If I had any bladder signal at all, I'd report needing to pee to keep the topic going.  She also talked about ways to pee outdoors and sometimes in public.  We usually talked about peeing during neighborhood walks, woods picnics and beach picnics where we could easily get out of adult hearing.

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1 hour ago, DesperateJill said:

@silvermoon

"I remember at one of our first gatherings when I was 11, I was getting along with my male cousins, and one of mt grandmothers kept dragging me away to talk with the female relatives and to complain I wasn't sitting very ladylike while wearing a dress."

Growing up I primarily socialized with my male cousins and my family always thought it was inappropriate for a girl like me to be always talking about bathroom related matters!

My grandmother thought it was inappropriate for a girl to be talking about "masculine pursuits" (video games and computers).

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On 11/23/2021 at 10:54 AM, Stanley79 said:

How are family gatherings for you?

In my childhood Thanksgiving and Christmas brought 9 to 12 family members in to one or another aunts house.  That was too many for me.  I'd get anxious in the extreme.  This year we'll only gather 4.  Hopefully it will be OK.

They're fine to me. It's always nice seeing my family again, as we live quite far away. They're very draining, though... I can't plan in anything at all after one.

Edited by EmeraldAvalon (see edit history)
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50 minutes ago, LizJWetting said:

I don't think I've ever been, or really wanted to be "ladylike". I've often found it easier to get along with guys, boyish stuff seemed more fun, and I never felt particularly feminine. But I've talked about this stuff here already, so don't get me started on it again.

The thing she was complaining about was fhat I was wearing a short dress and sitting with my legs wide open or crossed, and she could look over and see my panties from across the room. I've always dressed feminine, but I guess my mannerisms are more masculine from always hanging out with boys.

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25 minutes ago, silvermoon said:

The thing she was complaining about was fhat I was wearing a short dress and sitting with my legs wide open or crossed, and she could look over and see my panties from across the room. I've always dressed feminine, but I guess my mannerisms are more masculine from always hanging out with boys.

Maybe it wasn't that your mannerisms were masculine, but that you just weren't aware or didn't care.

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