In short, I'm miserable, lonely, and broke. I need to get the fuck out of California and into someplace with rent less than $1000 a month. I also need to find a job that gets me like $25 an hour. I'm good at data entry and formwork and I have a really great voice I have no idea what to do with. I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing and I suck ass at all the important parts of being a person, and all the people who try to help me can't help me or I don't get it because I got the full power of the spectrum radiating inside of my forebrain and it's fucking me up.
I've tried budgeting with spreadsheets and it doesn't work for me. I've tried looking for work but it's a brand new hell every time I open the browser. I hate this. I fucking hate that mental illness fucked me up when I was supposed to figure out my life and now that I'm finding a bit of peace within myself I still have to contend with all the things everyone else has to do and recognizes as shitty but somehow get done while I just suck ass at everything.
Help me.
I'm in a similar situation and I don't think I can mentally handle work, so I'm trying to convince my family to let me be a kind of house spouse or something (which I will also probably kinda suck at but at least I will be somewhat useful instead of just doing nothing and endlessly failing at being a wage slave?)
It's really amazing, I was "fine" (looking back:not really) all throughout school because I got such good grades, all the adults hyping me up making it sound like I'm gonna "go places". I literally cannot function lol. I am perpetually burnt out all the time just from existing.
If not for the pity and generosity of my mother, I would likely be homeless. I'm sorry, I wish I had advice. I read somewhere that 80% of autistic people are unemployed. Idk how accurate that is, but given how hard it is for us to keep up with the NTs, I wouldn't be surprised.
I read somewhere that 80% of autistic people are unemployed
I’ve read this many times, and I kinda believe it but also like, how the fuck are y’all surviving? It’s not like this is a country where you can be alive without a job.
Homeless, living in supportive housing, living with parents, inheritance, or staying in constant burnout turning over job after job til the very end
I feel this in my bones. 4 jobs in the past 4 years. Make it through the first few months feeling like it will be different. Eventually burnout and function poorly until I am laid off or it's so overwhelming I quit. Rinse and repeat.
Trying to work and finish my degree now, but my job is so soul sucking I counterintuitively stay up way too late at night trying to disassociate from my current existence through videos and weed
For me every job starts out okay but after a few years working conditions deteriorate to the point I am falling apart and crying daily. I came to my current job to escape stress and of course it took just two years to ramp up to psyche-breaking levels.
I just mentioned this in another comment to MattsAlt; I have never lasted at a job for more than 3 years in the past 20 of my working life. I get so extremely hostile to the idea of work, or feel just absolutely bored to tears. In the past few years though, the burnout has reached the levels you're describing. It seems that's the case for MattsAlt as well, I guess it must be common to job hop like this?
No it's really not me, because every time, all of my coworkers agree. Workplaces just seem to go to shit s couple years after I arrive. Maybe I am the bearer of a curse.
lol, maybe. Or mayyyyyybe you just have a heightened awareness of worker exploitation and recognize that, objectively, the huge majority of jobs that we are forced to do are garbage. And that rubs off on your coworkers as you slowly, subtly radicalize them.
I assure you I am entirely incapable of convincing people of things even on accident
Oof. Yep. Currently (luckily) in a job with a ton of hybrid flexibility and I am currently burning out hard. Idk if it's better or worse that I have this freedom as opposed to the structure of a normal 9-5, actually. But I am so mentally checked out from my work it's insane. I'll just nap after appointments. I still get essentially the same amount of work done as other people, but yeah I am hanging by a thread here. I haven't been riding my bike, hanging out with people, going to shows, none of my normal things. Just sitting scrolling for weeks. I took a whole month off of work not that long ago, either. Started to get a bit of good mood/motivation for hobbies back but as soon as work started again, it all crumbled.
This could be a copy paste of conversations I had with friends while I was at my last job.
I thought an in person role would help keep me working but instead I just doomscroll at my desk while doing the bare minimum.
Does your burnout really get going around the time you start to feel the job is bullshit? I can't tell if that is a symptom of or the inspiring event to mine, but it's a constant fixture I've noticed looking back at all my experiences with burnout.
I've read that it takes about 3 weeks to start fully recovering from work via vacation. I don't think I'll ever be able to take one that long, at least voluntarily. Last layoff I was out of work for about a month and was the most stressed I've ever been. I hate this country
Tbh I think that is part of it. I've been working regularly for like 20 years and I've never had a job last more than 3 years, which I'm assuming is not long at all. Usually I think I get really restless and bored of the job if there isn't a lot of creative control/variation in it. after a time I start to self sabotage. It's baffling to me how people can keep the same work for decades, I don't think I could do that if I tried. Can I ask what you're doing now?
This particular job is extremely stressful as I work with unhoused folks with SPMI/substance use issues who are often in the middle of crisis when they come to us. I could tell I was burning out after the first year, and switched to more of a case management position which is chiller and more flexible but I dint think I've recovered. My autistic symptoms seem to have just gotten worse and worse over the years and seem to get better in spats, but then gets worse. I CANNOT keep a routine as hard as I try to. So I've finally just said fuck it.
I totally have heard that 3 week thing before. IMO, 3 weeks is the BARE MINIMUM for a neurodivergent person to just start to gain enough energy to function again if they are in autistic burnout. Probably great for NT folks though. I feel like there isn't space for actual recovery in the way that we are expected to function in the world. It's fucked.
Usually I think I get really restless and bored of the job if there isn't a lot of creative control/variation in it. after a time I start to self sabotage. It's baffling to me how people can keep the same work for decades, I don't think I could do that if I tried.
Are you me haha? Seeing some people who have stayed at one company for decades is baffling, I don't know how anyone can do it.
I work in a relatively cushy office job doing sales which adds a lot of dissonance on top of the burnout. It should be, and is, an easy job, especially for the money, and hearing the struggles of others making significantly less makes me wish I could just give them my job. I know other people would be able to do it just as well with no prior experience, appreciate the income more than I do, and keep up with the work. You pretty much hit the nail on the head for me. Most of these places are very specific about how you go about your job, or at least where I've been, and you'd think the constant variation in new customers would be a nice variation, but it ends up being the same scripts, cycles, and products day in and out and at the end of every month, you've done nothing beneficial for the world and have created nothing. It's made me realize my privilege in not being motivated by money more than anything.
My partner used to do something similar and it took a pretty hefty toll on them. I'm always amazed at how people are able to keep up working in jobs like those in our society. The pay disparity alone between them and me is a clear indication of how sick we are as a society.
I went to try and find that study now and the search results are now a combination of "it's actually good to take short vacations" and "bosses, don't let your employees take too long of a vacation"
I mean I can definitely see how your job would feel excruciating at times lol. If only we could have the long term hyperfocus flavor of neurodivergence....sigh
Also of course that's what your search engine spits out lol. I don't know if it's just me, but I definitely feel like my searches have definitely been more insidious and boot-licky lately, no matter how specific my search query gets
If only we could have the long term hyperfocus flavor of neurodivergence
It'd certainly make things easier!
Yeah I have noticed a lot of the same. Trying to find any left or anti-corporate source has become a significant effort if you don't know exactly the title of the page. At this point I've had better luck searching my browsing history if I know I've read it
This is my experience right on down to the time off from work. The one thing that has been moderately helpful (besides therapy) is learning to stop scrolling. You eventually get bored if you don't let yourself reach for the phone and then you're sort of forced to confront that boredom by doing literally anything else.
For a while that anything else was mostly naps for me, but eventually that got boring, too, and now I'm interested in my hobbies again. It's hard because the phone makes burnout easier to deal with, but the constant sensory input also prolongs your recovery.
Yeah, I think the scrolling is definitely my worst fixation. How do you keep yourself from doing it? I started to turn my phone off at home for chunks of time but I keep forgetting. Lol and once I'm done with my chunk of time I just start scrolling immediately ad a treat and I don't know that that's helping my situation
What I try to do is recognize the behavior when it's happening without judging it. Instead of getting annoyed with myself when I realize I somehow ended up scrolling again, I just remind myself that this isn't what I want to be doing and put the phone down. I'll probably pick it up again in five minutes, but everytime I put it down the habit becomes just a tiny bit more ingrained.
I'm still here in the middle of a work day so it obviously isn't a perfect system, but I'm trying to focus on the process instead of getting frustrated on the days when I don't get results.
I think a lot of the "NEET" (that might be a 4chan term sry) and "living in mom's basement" types are this, and if you don't have that sort of privilege, probably a lot of homelessness :/
Like most terms it started out as a real term and got muddled over time. Like, did you know fool was originally a medical diagnosis? People enjoyed misusing it so much we forgot its original use. Neet was a government clarification for people Not in Education Emploument or Training. The 4chan core audience to be sure
I still have to contend with all the things everyone else has to do and recognizes as shitty but somehow get done while I just suck ass at everything.
I don't have any advice, but I want to say that this really resonated with me.
I feel this deep in my bones. I'm so burnt out that I've just given up on trying for anything, even the things that make me happy. So now I just feel like I am actually a lazy fuck. Self fulfilling prophecy. I'm sorry you're struggling with this, it's awful.
I have a suggestion for work, maybe, if you'd like it
This probably won't work for everybody, but looking at county jobs doing reception/intake work for things like your state's developmental disability services could be doable. In my county it's a union job with good wages, flexible schedule, hybrid, etc. Plus if you actually get in to that particular program, I'd think that they would be more flexible/welcoming to people with autism......I hope. Lol.
Most people who fit that description I know do skilled call center work. I don't know how poorly that pays in the US but you can get an above poverty level wage here in Australia thanks to unions. It's good for neurodiverse people bcs you can work from home and have subway surfer going at the same time. You're constantly switching tasks due to calls so ADHD is an advantage
constantly switching tasks
That's one of the things stressing me out at my current job
I can emphasize with that. If my boss just gave me work and fucked off for the week I'd be much better off than my current situation of stop start jolts on 5 different projects along with random 1 minute calls throughout the day about things that are in emails he hasn't read yet.
Have you thought about work that you know will be traumatic going in? I work in Healthcare and there are alot of otherwise marginal people doing reasonably well in it. Me for example. One of the doctors I work with is a masters degree doctor. So doable for a working class person, and she has a poorly managed skitzotypal condition. Like, she will be wiritng orders and doing procedures fine. Then in the breakroom she will just talk about paranoid delusions and everyone is polite but uninterested.
Right now I am basically an orderly. I walk around the hospital all day assisting with thing and emergencies. It suits my adhd brain well as I am walking about all day and I rarely have to work at a task for longer than it takes for me to get irritated at it. Pay is okay, there are several diffrent kinds of certifican you cna get do to this level of work.
I don't have as much experience but plenty of thr people I have worked in construction and security with have been the same. So those are also options worth considering. You like coloring? Welding is just high stakes coloring.
