Page 1 of 2 [ 22 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next

Sweetleaf
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Jan 2011
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Posts: 34,487
Location: Somewhere in Colorado

13 Oct 2017, 2:14 am

fifasy wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
fifasy wrote:
I live in apartments for poor people and it is hard sometimes. Neighbours can be loud. Lots of banging. I didn't get that from the neighbours where my middle class parents lived.

Motorbikes loudly coming and going. Strange people visiting, laughing loudly as they walk along the outside hall near my front door.

When I go in and out of the apartment there is a long car park and my neighbours can see it through their windows and I feel scared knowing sometimes they are looking out at me. I just put my head down because I am hopeless at making asppropriatfe facial expressions.

Taking the trash out makers me nervous. I have to go through two gates past a lot of a apartments and one time I saw two youngish guys in hoodies loitering near a gate and they looked mischievous.

I think better housing should be built for aspies, I am becoming more mentally I'll because of these issues. I also don't feel I trust my neighbours. They all have a world weary look about them, and I am just a fresh faced effeminate man who isn't streetwise.

I sometimes think of having all my food delivered by the supermarket so I don't have to go out any more. But then staying inside all the time can get sad too. I don't feel I will be able to live like this in the long term. I just feel like I need more personal space or privacy. Anyone know what I mean?


Things may not be quite so sinister as you think, I mean if you're not streetwise at all I could see being in a larger town or city being rather scary and stressful. I mean I grew up living in a lot of smaller towns and such and a few years back moved close to the biggest city in my state Colorado which is Denver and I was certainly more nervous about it at first but so far it hasn't been so bad at all. But yeah the trouble is there is a lot more people walking around or hanging out and if you're nervous about people they can certainly seem more menacing with so many being around but a lot of times they're not. I mean maybe the two guys in hoodies where just smoking a cigarette, I mean I have like 10 of those things and it can be hard not to loiter a bit in a city type area, if you get weary of walking.

I certainly get what you mean but I have just kind of come to accept that if you live in a larger town or city, you're going to be interrupted from time to time, more often than if you live in the mountains or something.

I would not recommend having all your food delivered and not going out at all, if anything that can make it more stressful when you do have to go out, which could just increase your anxiety about going out in the first place and lets just say you probably do not want to develop agoraphobia( I think spellcheck told me to spell it like that, but yeah I mean the disorder where people are afraid to go outside).


I think you are more cool than me, you handle it better. ;)

I am fortunate in one way. My social worker has someone visit me, usually 3 times a week at the moment to go shopping or take the trash out, or go to a social group or coffee with me. I don't know how long it will last and sometimes I struggle to get on with the person because they aren't trains in understanding autism but it is something.


Well it is difficult for sure, and I certainly worry about if I seem rude a lot of times. I mean I tend to wear headphones when I go out but I still try to be aware if someone tries to get my attention....and IKD things can just feel awkward sometimes but at least headphones kind of give you an excuse to be aloof and what not. Sometimes I keep them in even if I am not listening to anything. I also find for me at least smoking cannabis helps me relax after dealing with all that stress of going out and about into the public...but that is not the only way I think any kind of thing you do when you get home as a calming sort of ritual can help with handling the stress even a cup of tea.


_________________
We won't go back.


Daniel89
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 5 Oct 2017
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,592

13 Oct 2017, 6:00 am

fifasy wrote:
Daniel89 wrote:
I was in a very similar situation until a few months ago living in a council flat in a building mostly occupied with drug addicts, it was hell they would blast music so loud that you could actually feel the vibrations, they would scream and should in the hall way and smoke weed their too it was awful thankfully I finally moved into a bungalow in a nicer area, its a council house and it took me years to get it but was worth it. I suggest you relentlessly try to find similar housing.


It's a good thing you got away. Where you were must have been a nightmare. I am looking for a swap for my home. There is a website (HomeSwapper.co.UK) I am on.


I Used property pool which I believe is only in the merseyside area, there will be a similar website for council property in your area but you have to register, it can take ages to actually get something but once you get a decent council property you know you can stay there in the long term.



Enceladus
Snowy Owl
Snowy Owl

User avatar

Joined: 12 Nov 2011
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Posts: 171
Location: Norway

13 Oct 2017, 6:36 am

fifasy wrote:
Enceladus wrote:
If I lived anywhere else in the world I would probably be in the same situation, even a modern western society like the UK. But I'm lucky, I live in one of the filthiest rich places in the world. I'm on disability benefits and it is generous. I have issues for sure, but not issues related to money.

If I where living in another country I would move here. Learn the language and get all the benefits. But it's not as simple as that I suspect.


I think you are lucky in some ways. I wouldn't want to live in Norway myself though. I have read online from expats living there that your vegetables in stores there are poorer quality than most countries. Also that you have less choice of foods to buy. I love cooking so I wouldn't like that. I do like the houses there, the space and the low crime rate though.

Yeah you're right about the food. At least that is what everybody says. When my countrymen travels outside they come back in awe of the great variety of foods in other countries. I'd rather be safe economically and live in a peaceful and safe society than having a big variety of foods I can buy. But maybe I don't know what I'm missing out on :p I hate travelling so I don't know what it's like outside. Except I once (I had no choice) went on a school trip to china and that was scary and crazy. I'll never do that again. I can confirm they had lots of strange food there :lol:



byakuugan
Raven
Raven

User avatar

Joined: 13 Apr 2011
Age: 32
Gender: Male
Posts: 104
Location: Bakersfield, California

13 Oct 2017, 10:20 am

I knew two aspies who lived in low-income apartments in Bakersfield, CA; which is where most of the meth dealers live. They started a YouTube channel called "Meth Busters" where they would film meth dealers in their neighborhood and sometimes harass them. https://youtu.be/h8297yTf3wY They haven't posted a video in awhile, so I am not sure if they still live there.



Sweetleaf
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Jan 2011
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Posts: 34,487
Location: Somewhere in Colorado

13 Oct 2017, 1:05 pm

byakuugan wrote:
I knew two aspies who lived in low-income apartments in Bakersfield, CA; which is where most of the meth dealers live. They started a YouTube channel called "Meth Busters" where they would film meth dealers in their neighborhood and sometimes harass them. https://youtu.be/h8297yTf3wY They haven't posted a video in awhile, so I am not sure if they still live there.


Wow do they have a death wish? just doesn't sound like a very smart thing to do at all, unless you have some kind of training handling potentially violent criminals...they might not even be alive anymore let alone live in the same place.


_________________
We won't go back.


ToughDiamond
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 15 Sep 2008
Age: 71
Gender: Male
Posts: 11,504

13 Oct 2017, 2:52 pm

Is poverty harder for Aspies? I suppose an otherwise healthy NT would be able to tolerate the problems of poverty better than an Aspie, but maybe not by much, depending on how severe the condition is and how the environment happens to be in the individual case. Poverty sucks bigtime for pretty much anybody who has to suffer it, Aspie or not, I think.

I'm pretty dissatisfied about only being able to afford to live in a relatively cramped-up poor area with noise and vulgar / potentially violent people. I cope by having strong locks on my doors etc., I don't walk around the area at night very often. I don't answer my door if I don't know it's safe to do so. I'm lucky that I don't have to live an apartment in a sleazy tenement block. I drown out my neighbours with pink noise when I need to. I report them when they get so noisy as to break the bye-laws, and the council noise team have fixed it for me, though they refuse to see my hyperhearing as a special case because the rules are the rules.

I had a (roughly) modal-wage job all my life because I passed enough exams at school to do that, so I guess overall I didn't do especially badly or well, just not so well as my cleverish brain might have done without the disability part of my autism. My sister didn't pass many but she got herself a husband who did well economically. I had a tough time at secondary school as an undiagnosed Aspie but I got enough results to protect me from abject poverty. There were probably more jobs to be had in my day, and it was probably easier to get something reasonably Aspie-friendly. I was luckily born early enough to qualify for a pension that's roughly the same as my wage used to be (defined-benefit scheme), I caught the tail-end of the baby-boomers' thing. I don't feel smug about having got where I am today, I was just lucky that I wasn't more autistic than I was, that the environment wasn't harsher to me than it was. I don't believe there are many folks who really deserve to be poor. I rather doubt that anybody deserves it. We just live in a competitive society that fosters inequality. Deserve doesn't come into it.

I like socialism. I don't believe that clever-brained people deserve to be richer than "idiots." I'd like it if Aspies got a decent disability living allowance to help them close the gap. Same for any other disabled or disadvantaged group, and I'd like the whole rich-poor divide to be levelled. I just wish I knew how. Corby talks the talk, and if / when he takes over from the Tories, we'll see if he can walk the walk, we'll see if fewer people get declared fit for work when they're actually dying, etc. I won't be holding my breath though. I've heard fine words from Labour before, but nothing much ever got better.



League_Girl
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 27,205
Location: Pacific Northwest

13 Oct 2017, 3:36 pm

Being poor sucks but I think it's harder for those with a disability. What sucks about being poor is you can't do much stuff so you are stuck at home and you get depressed because you can't afford to do any activities or hobbies or even go out. The only fun you can do is watch TV or read or browse online. I know being poor would sure stress the hell out of me out if I was going paycheck to paycheck and was one paycheck away from being homeless and if I had to juggle my bills and always worry about s**t happening like car breaking down or if something breaks or if my kid outgrows their shoes or their outfits or if we can afford to buy food or picking between electric or phone and the late fees and not being able to keep a bank account because you can't afford to keep enough in there to make the checking account free. I have no idea how NTs deal with it without an anxiety disorder.


_________________
Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed.

Daughter: NT, no diagnoses.