Things About to Crash Down - Some Things I Need to Know...!

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Hi all, I'm newly registered here but I've been reading the fora for a long time.

Things are pretty bad right now; I'll explain a little about myself and then about the problem. The Problem, rather.

I'm late thirties, male, fat and working as a Programmer/Database Admin/IT-type person. I blagged my way into the job (because I'm good at that) and actually made a real success of it. I work for a large anonymous company who seem to like the "thinking outside the box" that I, apparently, do.

Since I was told I seemed to be a classic Asperger's sufferer I've read many many documents on the subject and learned a lot about myself... and nothing at all. I always thought I was just weird and useless, now I know I'm not useless at all. Just weird. A lot of the time I feel like I'm battling myself. I live away from home during the week and, while I LOVE the quiet time, sometimes the introspection goes on too long.

The problem is the depression - I've hardly made it into work in the last five days. I've resolved to be there early on Monday, the only person I have to fight for that is myself. I've had a telling-off from my boss, if I were in his position I'd probably have sacked me... but knowing that stuff doesn't help to change me. Once again I feel like I'm at the beginning of one of those life-episodes where it all goes terribly wrong, and it's all my own fault - but I feel powerless against it all. Some people might say that's just an excuse for being a lazy slack-ass but it really really isn't.

Anyway, without boring you any further I've got a few questions that I'd like to ask Asperger's sufferers if that's okay?

Do other Asperger's sufferers struggle with feeling extremely sad/depressed/demotivated or are the darkest days there anyway, NT, Asperger's or otherwise? Have you told your employer - is there any benefit in doing that? Is having a proper diagnosis essential in some way?

Thank you for the time you took to read this.

Hi, TEO, and welcome!

Sorry for what you are going through.

Sure, depression is a common co-traveler with AS. It is also very common generally.

Well, it sounds like you have to take some kind of action to keep up with work right now and to give yourself the quality of life you deserve. You've obviously got a lot of positives that the company values and as you said - you made a success of it.

Is there a human resources officer at work, do they offer counseling benefits and such? I can't tell you, but I would consider being honest with my boss about depression - but have an action plan, such as that you will talk to a doctor, or some other supportive outside help. So, you could say: look, this is what is going on, but I am getting some help and working on it. You know your boss, I don't - so it is up to how you feel about the relationship. Depression is common, generally, and I think people are more understanding these days. Any which way, I hope you go talk to someone at the least - you are not lazy, you are depressed, so please do not add beating yourself up to the problem. It is a very hard thing to go through - and it can get better.

As far as a diagnosis for yourself, I received mine mid-life and, for me, it was a good thing. It's not essential - it is up to you. The depression can be treated separately. If you want an affirmative answer for AS, it might help you with self-acceptance. This page will give you some considerations of the benefits of a diagnosis and it acknowledges the comorbidity of depression as well:

http://www.tonyattwood.com.au/index.php ... Itemid=719

I'm NT and have life long low grade depressive tendancies. I also have a marked tendency to self isolate; which is a comfort zone for me. When alone, I don't feel responsible to anyone to do anything at any given time such as; clean up, converse, eat healthy meals, etc.

But....eventually things start slipping too much and crises occur; as they are right now. Usually that triggers me to clean up my act and start living a healthier more disciplined life and honestly, it's a lot of work to maintain that. I'm pretty sure that I am exactly at such a point in my life; I start therapy (again) on Monday. This time it's physical therapy, but I know it will open the flood dam of sad emotion and remorse I've spent the last seven years palliating to keep at bay. However, just anticipating it makes me feel a bit more vivid.

I think depression is depression, no matter what the neurology.

I think when employees let the workplace down, employers want to hear that the malefactor knows what mistakes he made, understands what led to the mistakes and that he has a reasonably effective plan in place to prevent ongoing malfeasance. An example of that would be:

I have allowed depression to go unchallenged for too long, resulting in truancy here at work. I understand that my recent unreliability is unacceptable going forward. I like this job and want very much to keep it. I start therapy tomorrow evening.

That example assumed depression to be the root cause of the problem.

If your aspergers is the root cause of dysfunction at work; it may be useful to disclose it; but only if the disclosure frees you to seek advise from your boss on how to navigate problematic work issues that are elusive to you, specifically because of aspergers.

Hi Teo.
I've found it to be helpful to share what's up with my immediate supervisors when stuff like that came up for me. I also work in IT (Linux/Networking) and in my case I've sometimes been able to work wth my manager to offshift or telecommute when that was helpful, since IT stuff only rarely requires onsite, as an example. It's also let me be really honest with them of just "hey I'm having a really crappy day because $X I could use $ACCOMODATION right now". If they're a big place they probably have an employee assistance program and guidelines for accomodations or at least some sort of CYA under the ADA so it's not just up to your boss' whims to decide what to do or not do. And if you don't have a good enough relationship with your boss to have that conversation, HR should be able to facilitate that too. That should cover despression or AS usually, though they might need a Drs note for any programs they have. I'm not sure how that part works exactly, I usually end up starting that conversation with "hey by the way, you need to know I have epilepsy and some other things" so I've never actually been asked for documentation past the point of "seizures, got it, what else?", but I've heard of other people having to do a bunch of paperwork for the same type of allowance.

Thanks, some good advice from you all - thank you!

I'm lucky that my boss is a really good guy, in all honesty I think it would make sense for me to talk to him about it. The situation probably can't get any worse... so this is a last-ditch attempt I guess.

The company I work for is a massive top-ten organisation, I suspect that they must have seen this before - maybe they'll actually be understanding? I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow