Anyone still living at home?
Take it from a 29 year old who is year 1 alone that it gets easier as you get used to it. Yes, it is a daunting step but looking back it wasn't that difficult. Yes, renting is insanely expensive here too. I live in a lower income area in one of Canada's poorer provinces in a 50 year old building and still pay $815 a month in rent alone.
I assumed I would have been married with 2 kids by this point. I know it's frustrating but remember even someone hopeless like me managed to pull it off. Let's just say there are MANY people here in Canada that are in the exact same situation.
Yeah, I'm living with the parents. I'm 26, I have a GED and I have a disability check coming in every month and I have a small part time job. I've had other jobs that I was fired quickly from for various reasons and I've had a temp job that didn't even seem to care if I showed up or not. I think I'm lucky that my boss has a Masters in Special Education, recognized my status but saw it as an asset and took a risk on me. I've had this job for about a year. I still take some time to review what else is out there and currently I am being trained at my job for other purposes pertaining to the job and for skills to develop to bring to the rest of the world. I have friends I've developed over a habit of going to concerts.
At the current moment, I am working on my Associates in Econ, as well as working on an online site and staying with my parents. Still 18 though. If I play my cards right, I my be able to have a side income and be able to be more financially independent. So for at least another 3 years I will be living with them.
I stayed at home with my parents until both of them died and I ended up buying their old house from my 2 sisters and staying on, now alone. Why did I stay? First I like the area I'm in and secondly I never either got a good enough job to afford my own place at an earlier age or get married. My response was to just say "maybe someday" and keep sending out the resumes. I have 2 MS degrees, one in water quality and one in computer science but no applicable experience so I have worked a succession of low level clerical and call center jobs. It was stay home, throw the folks some board money and be able to live OK or move out and be broke. Now that they're gone, I'm still underemployed (now 55 but discovered I was Aspie only about 7 years ago) and my standard of living is just base survival. Should I have moved out earlier or more aggressively looked to get married, perhaps, but I was too risk averse to do it without a secure (think state govt type) job that was enough to be family supporting money. So I stayed put thinking the wonderful days on the 1960's would come back and I would get a good job. But except for the late 90's when I got into IBM for a few years, it never happened. So what should you do if you are 25 and home? I would say be less risk averse and more open to relocation. Be less inclined to say "maybe someday" because when you get to middle age "maybe someday" can turn into probably never.
My husband was 34 when we got engaged. So, by age 37, he was a parent of 2. I'm pretty sure his mother and sister were beginning to despair of ever getting him married off.
We'd met online through a professional site when he was 31 (I was 21), so that made it easier to get to know one another without awkwardness. It wasn't until we met in person for the first time that I saw how shy he was around me. It was really cute.
My ex was a real arrogant guy who constantly made me feel like I should be grateful just because he was with me and how everything I did was wrong, etc... so, seeing my shy guy insanely grateful and telling me what an awesome person I am pretty much sealed the deal.
It took a couple of months of effort for us to get past that initial bump of awkwardness, but, we knew that we just fit together and that was that for us.
His Mum doesn't always know what to make of me, though. lol. I can't stand loud noises or tons of people talking or shopping... and those are pretty much her main interests.
I'm 27 and living at home with my mother and younger brother (he's 24 and not on the spectrum, but has had his own issues). I've lived with a previous girlfriend in a shared apartment, in our own apartment, with her at her mother's apartment, on my own, and even on campus at college. At the end of the day, living outside my mother's house became too expensive because I'm putting all my effort towards college and being well (in multiple areas) so I don't have anything left of myself to put towards working at this point -- it's just where I am with things right now.
When I look at where other people are (especially NTs my age), it makes me feel like somehow I've done something wrong that I'm still at home. But when I think about it further, I've had so many things to deal with (not just being on the spectrum) that I was forced to spend my time on that rather than something else. Some of us are held back because of illness, others because of family situations, life situations, etc. It sometimes puts us in a different place than where we expect to be and it's invalidating because we didn't necessarily do anything wrong. We've just had more to do. After all, you can't expect someone to run 5k just as fast as someone else runs 1k...right? Having it take longer is sometimes more about the journey itself than how hard the person on the journey was working.
As for living at home, it can be difficult. I think that since my mother and I have learned to communicate better, things have been much, much better for both of us (she's NT, by the way). I try to voice my needs and tell her what is important to my progress and health. Likewise, she tells me what things are important to her that I do. We do our best and, most importantly, show that our needs are important to each other so we don't get resentful or angry or hurt. I know that she'd rather have her house to herself (not just because of me but my brother, too), but she also recognizes that I work very hard and this is where I need to be right now to get where we both want me to be -- self-sufficient, independent, happy, and with a college education.
It can be a difficult thing to be at home for any adult -- whether you're on the spectrum or not. I think, at least for me, keeping the lines of communication open was what helped things the most.
_________________
~~Beauty is trust and understanding and safety and love...
Yes - moved back into my mom's house almost two years ago. And this was mainly due to financial issues beyond my control........I'd been working two part-time jobs, but got a pay cut and limit in hours at one, and was laid off at the other. (meanwhile, rent on my apartment kept going up, and it was getting really trashy after the new management company had taken over)
Similar Topics | |
---|---|
Autism and living alone |
29 Apr 2024, 6:45 pm |
Creature Trying to Manage Working and Living ʕ´•ᴥ•`ʔ |
08 May 2024, 3:56 pm |
Mother Who Left Toddler Home Alone for 10 Days to Go on Vaca |
Yesterday, 12:39 am |