How many of us here are self sufficient?
teamnoir
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: 30 Jun 2012
Age: 61
Gender: Male
Posts: 56
Location: Menlo Park, CA 94025
I am in pretty much all of the standard metrics. I work, I pay rent, cover my own health insurance, drive, etc, etc.
About the only place I have trouble is in social groups. Work has been becoming an issue. As I age, people have less and less tolerance for my missing social graces. And I have less and less patience for theirs. so much so that I had to hire a lawyer about it a few years back which is what led to my formal diagnosis. In that sense, I'm interdependent.
I'm also not entirely happy with my relationship situation and it's becoming increasingly difficult to find and meet people.
I'm completely self-sufficient and I support my two children, too. I lack in the friends and emotional aspects of life, though, BIG TIME. I can easily find people to date but rarely am I attracted to them so it's all a big mess and I decided to give up on that aspect of life for a while. I think most men require more than I can give, either gender-role-wise or emotionally. I can lose respect for people very quickly, which makes for unsustainable intimate relationships.
Well,U answered yes, but no I depend on all sorts of people ad systems just to stay afloat. Yes, I've a job that brings in adequate income to meet my needs but that's a terribly fragile situation. My health - sixty plus now, and type 1 diabetic for nearly thirty years - isn't going to stay good forever, and there's nothing of assets, cash or property left of how I've spent those decades. It's a drag. I have to pull a one in a thousand chance out of the barrel and make it work for me, or else there's astonishingly little hope.
I used to think so, before getting diagnosed.
I worked fulltime when I lived with my parents, but after I bought my own house I started working so much I tried to commit suicide after 9 months...
I could afford the house for another 9 months with all the money I had made in those nine months, but eventually I got disability money.
After two years of 3-4 days each week spent at the psychiatrist or psychologist I was bled dry financially and started to do my old job again (disability is not enough to cover mortgage and other bare minimum living expenses like mandatory healthcare, food, water, gas etc...).
So now I do one assignment per month (I'm a freelancer). REEEEALLY had to work superhard to say "No" to more work all the time, but after six months of taking all the work I was near to completely imploding again.
Been doing the once a month thing now for 18 months or so.
Basically it's two weeks of hard work, then two to recover from the first two...
It's a cycle I can survive.
I'll be super happy when I get into the assisted living/housing I'm on the waiting list for though!! !!
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Empathy quotient: 14
Your Aspie score: 185 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 14 of 200
The Broad Autism Phenotype Test: You scored 132 aloof, 126 rigid and 132 pragmatic. IQ: 139. AQ: 45/50
I answered yes. I support myself and my partner financially. I also pay the bills. He's NT, but has an anxiety disorder that made it hard for him to keep a steady job. He does most of the household chores, drives when necessary, and takes care of the things that I really can't cope with, like shopping at COSTCO or the mall (crazy sensory overloads there).
I tried so very hard to be self-sufficient, which is something I have attached a lot of pride to. However, I have not been successful and am going back to live with my father. I was married for a few years and after my divorce, lived on my own for three years and finished Uni, but I needed financial help the entire time. AS is not the ONLY reason, though a large factor. I also have an auto immune disease which, coupled with As, makes it hard for me to function at all on some days and makes perfect attendance at work an impossibility. Part of my situation is due to majoring in Business, which I don't like but was pressured into doing by my father. I am going back to Uni in the spring to do what I originally wanted to do - biology and mathematics. Having a lab job will be MUCH better and comfortable for me.
Having to move in with my father is like a nightmare. Not only is it a blow to my ego - I will lose my own personal place and doing everything my way, which is VERY important for me psychologically. My father also has a bad temper. I just try and focus on the end goal, otherwise I will be miserable. I don't show it, but I am quite upset that I didn't succeed at living on my own. It has been a downright failure. I will miss it a lot, though...
G.
I'm self-sufficient, I run a house and look after three kids, a dog, and a husband believe it or not. I run the finances and everything, but I do find I have to do a lot of planning, and also tend to end up with very large stacks of washing until someone mentions they have no clean trousers left.
I left home at 18, but again I have a lot of pride and didn't want anyone to interfere with my parenting as I was convinced I could do it on my own, which I have. I guess you could say children are my "special interest", and I think that's probably why I've coped so well with being a Mother. Though I do still struggle with the social aspects of being a parent, having to go into school and talk to the teacher, play dates etc, but again, my interest in relationships, children and family I think has helped me at least emulate a normal family, even if I can't be the same as everyone else.
I do rely on my husband a lot, for things like driving us around, I got anxiety overload when I tried learning to drive and gave up eventually. But I figure that's what you do when you're in a relationship anyway, you rely on the other person for some things.
I manage my day-to-day activities independently, but I'm not financially self-sufficient. I was an elementary school teacher throughout my thirties. It paid well enough to pay my bills and buy a house, but I was miserable as a teacher. I can think of few work situations -- being surrounded by screaming children, their vengeful parents, deceitful co-workers, and power-hungry administrators -- to which I am less suited. I left teaching for other lines of work with the assistance of my generous parents, but five years later, at 41 years old, I'm still relying very heavily on parental support. I'm not comfortable with it but I'm not comfortable with any of the alternatives either.
Having to move in with my father is like a nightmare. Not only is it a blow to my ego - I will lose my own personal place and doing everything my way, which is VERY important for me psychologically. My father also has a bad temper. I just try and focus on the end goal, otherwise I will be miserable. I don't show it, but I am quite upset that I didn't succeed at living on my own. It has been a downright failure. I will miss it a lot, though...
G.
I also had to return to my parents' home after a divorce. One way I dealt with the lack of privacy was to volunteer to house sit for people in my church when they went on vacations.
I finally really got out on my own at the age of 29. I've been financially independent, although far from well off, for nearly 30 years now. The need for a great deal of privacy has been a powerful motivator.
I'd say so. I went from a highschool drop-out, criminal to a home-owner, care taker by age 18. I taught myself how to function without the aid or teaching of the public school system. I belive the way the school system is run is backwards. Children mustn't be punished for mistakes, mustn't be coddled like they are. They need to learn from the mistakes on their own and learn how to do things their own way. F' democracy, this world needs pseudo-anarchy. People against that don't give each other enough credit. Do you really think we'd be killing and stealing the moment it was announced that rules weren't in place? Policing, governments... People need to be self sufficient in order to function as a community. I look around and no one helps or cares about their fellow man. It's pitiful that everyone is in their own world as a result of being reliant on the corruption federation. Not to say I'm right, everything is subjective. Simply my opinion on the world today. Especially the US of ass.
I fought becoming autonomous through my 20s. I am 44 at present. I feared the load on my shoulders that would come with independence. However, what ultimately pushed me forward was the misery of my life at each given stage. Desperately wanting a safe haven but not having the means to create one was the driver for me. There was also the disapproval of society in general; society generally gave me a very unpleasant kick in the crack at specific milestones of my life. I headed out of the home at a late stage (24 yrs approximately). I feared getting married because of the marriage ceremonials. Yes, fear of a one-day ceremony put me off marriage for years. I stayed in student-hood till the age of 27 because I was scared of entering the working world. Basically, I feared change all the way through. As a result I have been dragged into new things in life. My wife drags me out regularly. My kids drag me out every day.
I think what has made me self sufficient is that I always threw myself with all my AS idiosyncrasies into work. I am a workaholic. Whenever I had a relationship problem, I generally chucked myself into study or work to blot out the pain. As a result I have had a number of work-related burnout collapses. However, employers forgive a lot if you work very hard and produce tangible results. So yes, I am self sufficient. Ironically, now that I am comfortable (sort of) in the working world, I don't think I will ever retire. They will have to drag me out of the workplace kicking and screaming. The office is my institution. I wonder sometimes if I am insane, and that what I imagine as the workplace is in fact an institution for mad people. I guess I'll never know for sure.
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On a clear day you can see forever
auntblabby
Veteran
Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,750
Location: the island of defective toy santas