How come people with Aspergers can't work ?

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I can relate.....it's probably what everybody wants, to spend their life doing exactly what they feel like doing. And Aspies have a particular problem in resisting the temptation to do just that.

Problem is, it's not going to happen. When I told my teacher that I wished I was at home playing with my mice, he just lectured me in front of the whole class about what would happen to me if my wish was granted - I'd not be equipped for life in the real world and the only thing I would have learned would be a few interesting but useless facts about mice.

So unless you've got a stash of money somewhere, or a secure welfare income (fat chance of that in today's political climate where the disabled are being thrown back into the non-disabled jobs market!), there will probably have to be a compromise. My greatest help has been to live frugally and save the extra cash so that I won't need to go to work for such a long time. Watch out for voluntary severance deals - one of those could finance you for a year or two. Also, try to work locally so that you don't waste a couple of hours a day commuting (though commuting by public transport might suit some Aspies if their special interest involves working at a laptop etc.). Try to find a job like the one Einstein had - he achieved his employer's targets (accountancy?) very quickly and sat there quietly working on his special interest in the time he'd saved.

The other thing that's helped me a lot is that I discovered I could sometimes turn their work demands into some kind of a special interest. It's hard to believe when they first give you a role, that you could ever enjoy it, but I've often found that once my initial rage has subsided, I then begin to co-opt the role, to make it my own. This involves taking as much control over the process as possible.....employers usually don't like this but they'll probably tolerate it if you can show them it gets results. I make de facto changes in the methodology where I see fit, and I don't necessarily run my changes past the bosses, in case they don't like my ideas. Of course it's down to me to make sure my changes won't harm the results or I'll be wide open for a justifiable carpeting. So ultimately I'm working more like a self-employed person, with my own ways of doing things, and that suits my Aspie brain a lot better than prostituting my executive faculty ever could.

But if you do manage to lig your way out of employment heartache, please don't forget that the world is in rather a mess and is crying out for people to help set it straight. So if you possibly can, find some kind of philanthropy that you can do (on your own terms of course), and try to leave the world a better place than it was when you arrived in it.

I think everyone should try their hardest to be as independant as possible, for their own good. Because otherwise you won't be treated like a human being, as long as others have leverage against you.

I plan to, but I wouldn't really bother if I didn't think it could help me access services that might help me get better employment or employment that I enjoy more. Hell, even just full time employment of a tolerable nature.

I agree with you 100%. You have some serious balls posting this here, given how others who had similar sentiments were bashed. I have AS, RA and a broken leg that's never healed properly, causing constant pain and I work. It's not an excuse for me not to work. My grandfather was badly injured in WWII and he never whined about not being able to do something because of his mangled leg. Therefore, I have no right to. There are people with far more problems than me working, ergo I have no right to be anything less than self-supporting. Disability is for those who are too disabled to work (yes, that goes for those with ASDs as well-so don't for one second think I'm not including them as being possibly too disabled to work; just not all of them), not for those who can work, but choose to use the label of a minor disability.

I think I can work pretty well in most jobs, more or less. BUT my main problem is, that I don't want! I want to spend most of my time with my special interest (science, philosophy) and few as possible time with dull work. That is really a problem, because I have fears that I can't spend as much time as I want with my special interest... this really causes me much stress

Can anyone relate?

anton

People with aspergers can work. I suspect the author of the original article was not an aspie. Really, aspies are great employees---but they/we need to find work that is a good fit for our talents/ strengths/weaknesses. The best job I ever had was a drafting job in the rural town of a sparsley populated rural county in Arizona. Just a quiet office, me and the other drafter (we were both females!). Loved that job. (drafting maps for the county highway dept.)

Yeah, previous generations used to "get out there" and do what they had to do to support themselves and their families.

Here it's finding a crutch so we have play time for special interests.

Yeah, previous generations used to "get out there" and do what they had to do to support themselves and their families.
The "do what you gotta do" mentality of previous generations sure is lacking today, replaced with a desire to "do what you love" and allow disorders or disabilities to prevent you from being self-sustaining.

What's worse, some are finding a crutch in their issues to have special interests for play time. It's refreshing when they come out and say it.

Yeah, previous generations used to "get out there" and do what they had to do to support themselves and their families.
The "do what you gotta do" mentality of previous generations sure is lacking today, replaced with a desire to "do what you love" and allow disorders or disabilities to prevent you from being self-sustaining.

What's worse, some are finding a crutch in their issues to have special interests for play time. It's refreshing when they come out and say it.

I "got out there" and tried to do what I had to do to support myself. What I got for it was 20 years of stress, four failed attempts to get through college (burning out so badly on three of those occasions I was not able to function properly for months afterward), and approximately 18 months of actual employment.
(...)
No one should have to push themselves to the point of multiple burnouts, to the point of aggravating existing conditions and actually developing new conditions (as I did). No one should have to go through what I have to determine that they're unable to function in the workplace, but people like you saying the things you say at all levels of society pushes people into thinking they can function in the workplace just as well as anyone else if only they try hard enough.

The issue is not that you "dare to speak your minds" but that you appear to impose standards you apply to yourself to others who may have difficulties you are not aware of or do not understand. For example, you present yourself as having "AS, RA, and a broken leg that's never healed properly" and that you work despite being in pain all the time. This is not a virtuous stance. It's your right to have that stance, but others may find that work is exhausting and leaves them more debilitated, whatever their diagnoses, and that in order to keep their peace of mind and avoid periods of decompensation, they can't work, or at least can't work in a more traditional line of work.

You do not and cannot know other people's circumstances to determine for them whether or not they can work. ooo at least is quite intrusive in the way he imposes his standards on other posters (such as Sweetleaf, whom he was berating yesterday for saying she does not think she can hold down a job). I often encounter attitudes similar to yours directed at me, as if I just gave up on the idea of working for no reason and never really tried, but I spent my entire adult life trying and it left me exhausted, in worse pain, and caused periods of decompensation during which I lost functioning and capability to take care of myself. Given the choice, I won't go back into the workforce because doing so has been harmful to me every single time. But that history doesn't matter when someone goes off about how people should be more willing to work.

Your comparison to your grandfather's situation is also meaningless. His situation was his, and he chose to deal with it as he did. My maternal grandfather also had injuries that never properly healed and left him unable to work a regular job. Instead of just staying at home, he found ways to keep busy on his farm, and he didn't complain about being in pain. But he also accepted his monthly disability payments because he accepted that he was in no shape to work.

I think if people who made the arguments that you and ooo and cavendish make were less inclined to intruding into other people's business and telling others that they should be more willing to work because disability is for people who are "really unable to work" that y'all would generate significantly less strife.

Personally, I find the perspective you three espouse to be actively harmful, and it sometimes leads to browbeating or outright bullying.

It's harmful in the sense that it pushes people to work harder than they can sustain to prove they're not lazy or otherwise morally flawed and leaves them in even worse shape when they overdo it. This is something I have personally experienced.

I would like to point out the portion of my first response saying that I know some on the Spectrum ARE too disabled to work, but like a few members said on this post, there are some who choose not to work. Please read all my comments and not "cherry-pick." Here's the exact words I typed in regards to this in my original response (that you chose to only include a small portion of):

"Disability is for those who are too disabled to work (yes, that goes for those with ASDs as well-so don't for one second think I'm not including them as being possibly too disabled to work; just not all of them), not for those who can work, but choose to use the label of a minor disability."
I also know many a neurotypical that's exhausted, stressed or dealing with "burn-out" on a daily basis, but should they now qualify for disability?

So, let me get this right; because what I type differs from what you WANT me to type, I am a vicious, lying, conniving "bully?!" Quite fascinating indeed.

I hear ya!

Over a period of 12 years, I spent 4 years racking up debt getting a bachelor degree that should have taken 3 years, at the end of my studies I had the equivalent of 100 months of the cheapest available monthly rent in debt. I worked for a total of 4 years with social anxiety and AS, what it has gotten me thus far is 4 years of severe depression and a worse case of social anxiety(wouldn't go out to the mailbox at its worst).

I guess I am one of the luckier ones, 4 years of school, 4 years of work and 4 years of depression and anxiety. I still hope I can get back out there though, my social anxiety is slowly getting better, which also helps my depression somewhat. Oh, and the education is just rotting away and never gotten used.