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My son was diagnoses with Asperger's at age 28. He applied for and was awarded disability. He promptly quit his job. Now is is living independently and he has nothing to occupy his time. The days get very long for him. I've made suggestions but he doesn't like any of them. Any of you out there in similar situation and what can I do to get him to do something.

What are his special interests? (hobbies) Why did he quit his job?

Maybe he needs to go through this first, the boredom, to find his road, a way to live his life that he will find meaningful. I'm not sure anyone can really hand it to him, or even lead him to it; it may be the sort of thing he really needs to figure out on his own.

I will say that I am sorry for it. I know others with disabilities who have used that as an excuse to continue flailing, instead of advancing their talents in one way or another. It has to be really difficult to watch. But as much as I've seen others try to help in those situations, I can't say I've seen much success. Unfortunately. Except for the times it has come from within.

But ... you probably should keep planting seeds. Very gently, so that he doesn't feel you are selling something, and so he has the opportunity to develop it as his own idea.

So the question in the last post is a great place to start: what are his interests?

I have also seen people with various "disabilities" give up and decide that they are content to sit around and collect disability. I think it's sad, and I really hope I don't end up there. It REALLY bothers me when I see psychiatrists and therapists and other people who are supposed to be helping actually encourage people to do it. I think that's kind of sick-- if you need disability, you need it, and if you don't then you should leave it for people who do.

Maybe he does need it. I don't know the young man. Maybe he's burned out from trying and failing and trying and failing, and he needs some time to collect himself and figure out who he is and what he's going to do now. I'd find that understandable. It's too bad, but it's understandable. Maybe it would help to talk to him about that.

If that's what he needs to do, he's the only one who can do it. It sounds really trite to use terms like "finding yourself," but I remember a time when I had to do it. I had a baby and quit college, and spent a couple of years just messing with my kid and hanging out with my husband and friends. I ended up deciding that "myself" was a housewife. I had a bunch more kids and I don't get to be lazy any more (! !!) but I do like what I do. Maybe I'm even kind of good at it.

I'll have to start looking for my next self soon. I can't stay home after I send the last kid to school. I'll have too much time on my hands, and brood and go crazy. Is that maybe what you're really worried about your son doing????

I won't be surprised if I end up picking some kind of low-stress, low-skill, low-prestige job. Like garbage collector, or survival farmer, or shade-tree carpenter. Consider trying really hard not to be upset if your son goes this way, too. It seems like a lot of Aspies end up being engineers and computer programmers and other assorted geeks, but a lot of us end up as some less-flowery version of hippie free spirits, too.

My dad was a coal miner for thirty years. He never advanced even though he was really smart, but he was happy. I have a cousin who is a shade-tree carpenter, small-scale sawmill operator, and self-reliant survival farmer. He's always broke, but he's never cold or wet or hungry and he's usually happy. I have a friend who flunked out of law school for sticking too tightly to his point of view, washed out of the police force because he couldn't emotionally cope with the corruption and cognitive dissonance, and now changes entry-level jobs very regularly, and at 33 still lives with his parents (though he does contribute to cooking and cleaning and laundry and general expenses, and will probably end up sticking around to help them out in their later years like his aunt did with his grandparents). I guess he's what you'd call a failure-- 33, still a virgin, living at home-- but it might just end up being to the good one of these days.

I would like to say something on this. I tried to become a computer programmer but even with a bachelors in Information Technology I could not figure out what I was supposed to do. This was my experience but almost I saw had multi-skill requirements. Each skill required x amount of experience. This was just one problem I encountered. One day I decided to see what other people had to say. Guess what I found? IT is not a viable career.

http://techtalk.dice.com/t5/IT-CS-Stude ... d-p/198233

http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/ ... /?cs=42143 For this, look through the previous hyperlinked postings in the previous articles.

If I am wrong and other aspies were able to get into it I do not know nor understand what their methods were. If these postings are true then all we're getting is a whole bunch of hype which is not true at all.

I applied for garbage man, bagger at Publix and cashier at Wal-Mart amongst other things and I did not receive a phone call back. In fact, I even tried applying at the geek squad and I received the exact same result. I even called the places back to see what was going on. I received the exact, same canned message from all of them and this was from managers. They said that if we need you, we would select you from the pool of the candidates from the application you filled out online. In addition, they said it depends upon your personality test results as well.

I got a job that only lasted a week and a half. They said it was because I was going to slow. This is from my point of view. The job was to set up computers in different schools around the county. The computers, monitors and perphials were still in their boxes. They would be taken out of the boxes and set up at the schools. One of the things we had to do was put the computers and monitors on the carts. They would stack the computers way past the handle on the cart.

This is an approximation of what the cart looked like. http://www.lkgoodwin.com/more_info/fold ... ucks.shtml

It was about 4-5 boxes past the handle. We had to roll it on a steep incline to get on the sidewalk.

Here was another issue that I encountered. In each of the classrooms, we had to set up 5-6 computers on small tables which was not designed to accommodate them. They wanted me to make it neat as well.

Here is another juicy one. After I was fired after a week and a half I went to put forth a complaint at EEOC. It was completely useless. I told them they did not tell me that there was a pace at all and I did not know at all. I tried to tell them all of this and filed a discrimination complaint. They would not listen. They told me the most lamest and bullshittest answer I have ever received. They told me that since our state is a right to work state, I am not entitled to knowing the rules of the workplace including what the pace is and if there is a pace. I can't follow rules I am ignorant of contrary to what this positivity nonsense in America says.

If this is the truth then there is no possible way I can make it in employment at all and I have no qualms about collecting SSDI. SSDI is not a welfare program nor an entitlement program. Money was taking out of the previous jobs I was able to work at. I feel that I earned my SSDI fair and square from my own money that I put in. I feel that I am entitled to every penny of my SSDI check. I feel I worked hard at trying and failing to get this check.

Princess BeeBee, I really believe we live in a dysfunctional and dying culture.

I just wish he would try a few things. If he doesn't think he will like it, end of discussion. He admits he gets bored and lonely but he doesn't make any effort to change his routine. I am just letting him make his own decisions and hoping he will decide he is sick of his life as it is and finally make some changes. I have to keep reminding myselfe that with Asperger's he will not do things the way I would, so I have to let him do his own thing. I just keep giving him love and not putting pressure on him like I used to. I don't expect him to be a rocket scientist. He just couldn't handle the stress of a job. I am rambling.....sorry.

CubeDemon, I will definitely agree that we live in a dysfunctional and dying culture.

I try not to think about it, because the picture is just miserable, but it slaps me in the face on something like a daily basis.

It still might turn around, but yes, I do believe that we live in a dysfunctional and dying culture.

My oldest kid is reading a fantasy/romance series about two tribes of trolls that are dying out, basically, because they became too affluent. They focused too much on material niceties, and social poise, and petty competition and power struggles. And now their children are disaffected and disenfranchised, they're losing their magical troll powers, inbreeding to keep bloodlines pure has produced the expected result, and they are generally screwed.

It's quite a stretch, but I find myself wondering if these silly pulp teen fantasy/romance novels aren't every bit as allegorical as, say, The Giver.

Don't be hard on yourself. You have worked, you are looking for work, you will do what you can. Don't give in to the train wreck. I have the same thoughts.

"Survival farmer" is looking better and better all the time.

No, you are not rambling. In fact, more information would be helpful. It is very hard to get someone with AS out of a routine, and it helps if he is motivated. Home and routine has a very strong gravitational pull as it is safe for him.

I totally get that work can be stressful. Was there anything in particular that set him off about it? --there can be multiple reasons, is why I ask. If we know specifically what stressed him out it might help us. (It can just be all of it, or it can be particular things like navigating unspoken rules, sensory issues, time constraints, executive function issues, socialization et al)

Special interests can sometimes have enough gravitational pull to get someone with AS out of his safe zone for a little bit. Is there a club or group he can join, or at least some place he can go browse special interest objects so he is not hibernating as much? If the place/group is not compelling enough, it won't be enough to draw him out so pointing out generic places, won't be effective.

Edited to add: If he is depressed which can both cause hibernating and be facilitated by hibernating, it will be that much harder to address this, and depression ought to be addressed separately, if he is willing.

What is the name of this series? Honestly, I don't think things can be turned around and I've had to quit trying to look for a job. Read the books that Dr. Morris Berman wrote like The Twilight of American Culture, Dark Ages America and Why America Failed. We live in a culture in which the business of the culture is business itself. We are very much a hustling based culture. This is how we started out since colonial times. The beliefs that we have that made us great is what is screwing us up.

Here is his blog in which I have commented under cubeangel. http://morrisberman.blogspot.com/

Read what he has to say right here. http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID ... 5257467468

His recommendations are this

1. Hit the Road meaning leave the country
2. Become a New Monastic Individual (This is explained in The Twilight of American culture.)

Yes, at a glance, I would tend to suggest that, in my opinion anyway, joining the New Monastic movement would be the way to go. You would, I think, find yourself in good company among expats and survivalists.

However. However much I believe it's true, I can't very well give that advice to a worried mom who wants advice on figuring out how to get her kid to succeed/survive in the American Nightmare, now can I??

The best I can do is hint that there might be some other way.

Use the SSDI for as long as you have to. As far as entitlements go-- well, the debate is misplaced. Just don't don't quit turning over stones (or looking under some very unconventional rocks indeed) until you find a better plan. Because you are correct-- American culture (Western culture, maybe) is BROKEN. And dear one, it's going to get much, much worse. If we were to use European history as a somewhat clumsy metaphor, we're hanging out around the Fall of Rome. We have yet to enter the Dark Ages.

The books are Switched, Torn, and Ascend. I think they're referred to as the Trylle Trilogy. The author is Amanda Hocking. Don't waste your time-- I really don't think there's any intentional political commentary or social criticism in there. I think it's a coincidence; the author is just trying to have fun and make a buck writing PG-13 rated fantasy bodice-rippers for pubescent girls. It's Twilight, with trolls. Any social commentary contained in the work is almost certainly a product of the reader's imagination.

Any advice on how to get my lovely, lazy 12-year-old to bend her tastes perhaps a little more to literature of some quality and substance?? I've tried making it available. We are SWIMMING in books around here. To absolutely NO AVAIL.

You're right. People would have to conclude it on their own. Imagine that everything you were taught about society had fundamental flaws to their roots. A lot of people obtain their identity from their cultural. You strip away the culture; you strip away the identity? What is left in a person when all of this is stripped down? The answer is Emptiness.

Please read this as well by Dr. Berman. http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID ... 4921670084

He talks about what is called the existential strain. I can tell you it is a very horrible thing once you realize the truth. Your whole identity is questioned and you don't even know what is what anymore. This existential strain has been horrible for me as well.

Think about the movie, The Matrix. This was why Morpheus outside of the Matrix was very careful about who he pulled out. They had to be under a certain age. There are so many people who are so entrenched into the system they will fight tooth and nail to protect it no matter how dysfunctional.

Princess BeeBee, you're right. You have to be very careful with what you tell people.



Unfortunately, this is true.



Someway, somehow I will find this plan.




I won't waste my time.



The truth is you can't. She would have to choose on her own.

He really needs to find something to do.

Doing nothing all day is not an autistic person's natural thing to do.

He worked at a Dollar General as a cashier and stockman, everything about it caused him anxiety. Meeting the public and having to talk to strangers was one source but interacting with coworkers was another source of stress and then getting the stock on the shelves in the time the management thought he should do it caused more stress. So pretty much the whole job. He tried to work full time, 40 hours a week, and the stress got so bad he dissociated and had a psychotic break. He is being treated for major depression with psychosis which is his secondary diagnosis. We live in a small town in NE nebraska, there is not any suppport services within 50 miles of our town. He is interested in computers, he likes to build computers. But he can't afford that and he doesn't want to sell them after he builds them and his dad and I have decided we won't keep giving him money for this very expensive hobby. He gets fixated on doing something and he just is obsessed with getting it done. He paces and fidgets until it's done. Sigh. Don't know........

Would it be any different (re: not wanting to sell them) if he was building computers specifically for other people? i.e. If he took custom orders from people who wanted a computer built for them, charged money upfront so he could get all the parts for the job, and throughout the whole process knew the computer was not something he could keep once he was done?

Or would he like building computers using old parts that other people just throw away?

Building and repairing computers can be a great job that he could even do from home. Not a lot of human contact either.

Isolation causes a lot of problems.

I did pretty well at a menial-level job-- fast-food waitressing. I had a few advantages: I had known about the condition beforehand, and had had about 3 years of working on social skills in a less-threatening setting (a college campus with tens of thousands of strangers I could "practice" on) and a smart therapist to help me decipher the practice. I had also picked out this job ahead of time, and developed a rubric or algorithm or scaffold or whatever for how to handle it. I also had a boss who was semi-understanding: there is no such thing as a "nice" fast-food manager, but this lady was at least quirky herself.

I still ran into occasional problems: Usually issues with co-workers disliking me or trying to take advantage of me (two separate incidents where another waitress was pocketing money out of the till and trying to blame me, an issue with another manager who was having plenty of issues of her own and took it out on me). It was, at least, managable.

I'm looking for something, now, that involves less contact with the general public.

Sounds like Dollar General was a pretty traumatic experience for him. Give him time (a lot of time) to get over that first. Then talk about work.

It makes it harder when you're in an isolated area where opportunities are limited. If I were still in my old hometown-- rural West Virginia-- I would be either self-reliant (and probably completely off the grid, in every sense of the term), in the medical field (as a CNA-- I've got the script memorized), or on disability myself. Around there, it's not uncommon for people to be pushed onto disability over relatively minor things-- physical as well as mental-- because the unemployment rate is so high. I don't know if it's an attempted kindness or something sinister, but I know a lot of "dif-abled" end up "dis-abled" instead, because there are several times as many applicants as there are jobs.

I can't imagine someone who loves building computers being really happy as a self-reliant survival farmer-- the two just don't seem to go together. I don't suppose he'd have any interest in small-engine or equipment repair?? Good and cheap does not necessarily have to be fast. "Slow" and "socially awkward" are traits I LOOK for in a mechanic...