How come people with Aspergers can't work ?

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I don't know anyone, either. I know people who are on disability or trying to get on it who want to work. I actually like working, but I don't like the burnout that follows. I would much rather at this point in my life have a degree related to one or more of my interests and a related career than spend most of my time at home trying to find ways to use my copious free time.

Its funny because I don't think anyone has said they cannot do any job ever in their life if they have AS.

I once had a job I could do, but it was handed to me by a friend of my mum's because she was warm and motherly and took pity on me. She owned a shop selling crystals and jewellery. My job was to clean the jewellery and also sort out her tax stuff on her laptop. I did this once a week and she paid me $7 an hour. I was never left in the shop on my own cos I could not deal with the customers, and on the rare occasion I had to I was so awkward and did not know what I was supposed to say or do. By the end of the day I was utterly exhausted even though I had only interacted with 1 or 2 people the whole day. My job ended when the shop closed down. It would be wiser to leave a 10 year old in charge of the shop instead of me...

I would be eager to try work in a factory but all the factories around here need driving to and I can't drive nor can I afford to pay for lessons or a car. Stocking boxes sounds good to me, as long as I don't have to drive out anywhere remote. It would be way less exhausting then social interaction even though I'm a 21 year old female weighing 44kg / 98 pounds. I'll look into that, thanks. I also did try going into painting (walls) / decorating but I came across an obstacle and I can't remember what it was. Probably to do with government training or experience or driving... I'll look into it again though.

I desperately wanted to be a helicopter pilot especially after doing the trial lesson, but it's so freaking expensive and my mum thinks it's a stupid idea to waste $50k on training that won't even guarantee me a stable job. I also really wanted to be a heavy vehicle or forklift operator (might be a good idea for some of you), or a train driver but I don't have a normal driver's license so I wouldn't be able to start getting a license for any of those (need to have held a driver's license for 12 months). Actually for trains you don't but that one is a government-related and distance issue. Others I have looked into are veterinary nursing, welding, mining jobs, bookkeeping, air traffic control, other airport jobs and more I forgot about, all of which I can't do because of my visa (long story: it means I can work but not be able to get any training from the government, and all courses are about 10 times the normal price). I also thought about being a cashier or a cleaner: very bad ideas, due to my meat/dead insects phobia and difficulties dealing with grime and related smells. My mum choked on her tea when I told her I wanted to try a cleaning job, and told me I wouldn't last 5 minutes... I'm thankful that she talked me out of the idea.

One of my worst fears is working in an office because I get distracted very easily at a desk but it looks like that's where I'm going to end up with a master's degree in mathematics and statistics which I can't even start until 2014... provided I can get hired, that is, without having done any proper previous work at the age of 28. There is no way I will be able to study and work at the same time.

Now I feel depressed.

I wouldn't consider this much of a reason because I couldn't find jobs even when I had one but I don't even have an id. Even if I went out now and applied to loads of places and found one that wanted to hire me it's likely they would want to see my id before I start. I don't have enough documentation to get an id. My state requires a lot to get one.

Sure, it can be difficult to find a suitable job. However, isn't disability for those who can't work at all? My sense is that so many people here have the ability to work ,and should go out there, and make a contribution to society.

That is what lot of people think but if that was the case, then why does Social Security allow people to work and have ticket to work programs? Why do they not take it away from them when they do get a job? They have rules about them working like how much they can earn each month or else they lose their disability benefits.

Cavendish - Autism a spectrum, as you should know. Some people have no problems at all working and others can't hold down a job. Either because their Autism makes it difficult or because they have other disabilities.

In part, (from experience) it's ignorance from others that prevents some from working. That is the situation (in part, anyway) I'm in. I was on a programme to help me get back to work. As soon as I said "I have just been diagnosed with Autism and hearing trouble", (which turned out to be hyperacusis) I was accused of lying and was told it can't be that bad. Why would I be back and forwards to the doctors about my ears and why would I even ask for an Autism diagnosis if it wasn't that bad? I then had to get my GP and local Autism branch officer involved because this adviser still wouldn't budge.

"You read alot into my post that wasn't there." Quite fascinating, Verdandi.
Here's some of the points you made and the conclusions that can be quite easily drawn. This isn't cherry-picking either; it encomapsses everything your post said, not just one small portion (like you neglecting to include where I said some persons with ASDs do qualify as being too disabled to work, instead only focusing on the part where I said not all persons with ASDs should be on disability).

you present yourself as having "AS, RA, and a broken leg that's never healed properly" and that you work despite being in pain all the time. Again, an attempt to call me a liar by saying I claim to have these conditions. When you use the word "claim" or "present(oneself)," the implicit meaning of the words are to convey a sense of disbelief. What purpose would it serve for me to lie about something like that? If I wanted to lie, I'd pretend I was an NT.

This is not a virtuous stance. Where did I ever come out saying it was "virtuous?" Now you're reading things into my post that weren't there.

in the way he imposes his standards on other posters Alluding to me being a "bully" by comparing my comments to another poster's and saying we "impose" our views. Aren't you doing likewise?

intruding into other people's business... Again, insinuating I am a "bully." We all have a right to post, not just you.

Personally, I find the perspective you three espouse to be actively harmful, and it sometimes leads to browbeating or outright bullying. Calling me (among 2 other users) a "bully," yet again.

But you never said those things, didn't you? Keep calling me a liar...

Well In my understanding disability is for when you cannot function well enough in a work place to hold a job. It can be temporary like you get on SSI for a while get some help for your condition and gain better functioning and are able to work in the future......or if one never reaches that level of functioning they'd stay on SSI.

I mean unfortunately in today's job market being able to do work does not guarantee you a job....you have to be able to function at the work place with the employees and customers there. There are some jobs without much interaction, but then availibility could be an issue...if nothing one can function is is available what should they do off them-self rather than apply for disability?

Yep, but you do sorta need a bit of both. Hell, maybe it's all just luck. It seems some people are simply luckier than others. In my case, with my NVLD/ASD, in some ways I'm blessed, and in some ways I'm cursed compared to others with it. I'm coming to the conclusion I'm much...weirder and more awkward than a LOT of people on here, but at the same time, I usually don't suffer from as much social anxiety. I was taught by my friend (who's a bit sociopathic at times, but a cool guy to hang around, though everyday going out with him turns into an adventure/sitcom episode) in high school to just ignore any social anxiety at all and just do what I want, and so that's what I started doing. He basically told me as far as random people go "You can do whatever you want, you'll never see them again." But as a kid, I was weird, too, I'd eat sardines for lunch at school and stuff, just because hey, I liked sardines. So I guess I'm choosing crazy over anxious, oh well.

Like for example, there was an estate sale, I had like 43c or something on me at the time. I wanted a bicycle for sale there. So I told them "Hey, I don't have any money, can I have that bicycle?" And they just gave me the bike. I even came back after the sale because they had a record player I wanted, so I just asked if I could have that, too. I'm sure that's awkward, but screw it, I wanted a bicycle and a record player. So, that's sorta how I take life much of the time, doing things like that, I'll want something and I won't care about what's socially acceptable or the "normal" way to do things.



The problem with this, right, is your failures "cost" you so to speak. If you go to school, rack up a student loan, and then find out your school is meaningless because you can't work in the subject, your life is sorta screwed because of such a decision. And most of the time stupid decisions like that are made at the insistence at well meaning, but irrelevant people who don't know your abilities and strengths as much as you yourself do. So as for trying again, I think what many posters are getting at is, if you've tried, and crashed and burned, there's very little motivation to try again. So I feel like, yeah, try anything you can, really. But, do it in a manner that if you fail, you minimize losses. IE, let's say you wanna work on cars. You don't start on a $50,000 Audi, you start with like, some junker.

With working on cars, too, specifically for me (that's a possible job skill I got there, I was considering going seriously into it, but yeah, I've also made money working on cars for friends and acquaintances in the past.) I taught myself basically everything I know. I had random people point out stuff here and there, but it was all my own work, trial and error, and research. And my failure costs were sorta high. I got 3 nonworking cars right now I gotta fix, it cost me and my parents about $2000, that sucks. But, it's still cheaper than the 20-25K that would have been spent on tech school for the same work experience. C'est la vie. So maybe again, specific to me, I might have an extraordinarily high amount of self motivation or whatever. Also, tech school isn't needed for most fields (except oddly hair dressing in my state, which is quite odd.) Like automotive, there's the ASE tests, and you can just take them for $50 a piece, 8 tests, which is quite cheaper than the 20K you'd spend on tech school. But, if I had gone to tech school, found out how hard cars were to work on, found out it wasn't perfect for me, etc, I'd have been in a MUCH deeper hole. I have a friend that went to school for watchmaking, and his parents spent 20K on it, he did OK in school, but found it wasn't for him. That's 20K on a maybe. f**k that. Hell at least all my cars are still fixable now if I just get the motivation and momentum to get it going, so it's not even a guaranteed loss yet. But, you gotta just...learn stuff, and do it as cheap as possible.

I think for AS, too, when learning things, it's best to do it as self paced as possible. If it's self paced, as long as you're reasonably motivated and persevere, you'll learn it eventually. But if it's not at your own pace, you're gonna get frustrated and never do anything again.

In my opinion most people with Asperger’s should be able to work.

The main reason for the situation to be the opposite for some is probably hidden in the values and social norms of our society and job markets rather than in the disorder itself. I do not fully see such a reason in a large scale inherent in the disorder that it per se would lead someone to be fired or not able to hold a job.

A person is not a disorder – not even in the case where the person reflects his/hers whole life and possibilities through that rough characterization that a disorder like AS ultimately is. We are personalities, histories, temper, coping mechanisms, past experiences, attitudes, perseverance, will to change, ability assimilate and so on. It is also these things combined to your autism/AS that might prohibit you from doing things like getting or holding a job or the other way around they might be the things benefiting in you getting or holding a job. For example I’d say that my character, knowledge and general enthusiasm got me my jobs including the current, permanent one, not some socially flawless behavior during the interview or after - as long as you remember that social disability in AS/HFA isn’t the same thing as inappropriate behavior.

I also feel that sometimes it really is the attitude serving some other inner purpose that is holding us back the most. It is that inner inertia making us resist motion or on the other hand holding us in motion. We do make some of our boundaries, but hold the power within ourselves to cross even given boundaries. At the same time this does not mean that a blind should be able to see physically just with the power of will. But how many times a day we just decide that this is the way things are and just stick to that whether that is tastes, enemies, walking routes, beliefs or whatever?

Those of you who would like to work, but feel that you are unable or unfit to work, what are the main reasons according to you? What could be done for you to be able to work? What would that require from the working life? How we could change it?

I'm not really against capitalism per se, I just think it works best when everyone represents their own interests properly so that a good balance is achieved. Fordism was right and very succesful: raising the pay of workers created thriving markets, and the most explosive growth in economies and living standards ever witnessed.

But we've become victims of the tragedy of the commons, since then, and now we hear that we're going to grow our economies by shrinking everything - downsize the businesses, slash government spending, cut wages, make everything smaller and more constricted and more difficult. Not surprisingly the result is that our economy does not grow the way it should, it is stunted and diseased.

This is what Verdandi means by people reading between the lines when she doesn't say any of that. She's not meaning to make any implications. She's not using implications or anything implicit. You're reading things that are reasonable to read in normal conversation, but aren't things she was attempting to communicate. She doesn't communicate with conclusions that can be "quite easily drawn", she communicates with exactly what she says and nothing more, and then gets irritated when people reads into more than what she said. This is one of the problems she's talked about having elsewhere.



What Verdandi said had not nothing to do with disbelief. She said "you present yourself as [...]" You set the stage for your post with this description of yourself. You used this description of yourself. Whether what you are saying is true or false is irrelevant. She's not trying to accuse you of lying, she's saying that this is what you said, and nothing stronger than this is what you said.



You never did. However she never said you did. What she did was explained that pushing yourself to your limit isn't always a good thing. I can keep pushing myself past the point where I should and keep cleaning, and I've figured out the type of self injury I'm likely to end up doing. I almost ended up requesting to have my arms tied behind my back because I was fighting trying to chew my hands and arms off that much.

Pushing yourself past your limit isn't a good thing.



Statements about ooo are not statements about you. ooo's posts are imposing his standards on other posters. You were not mentioned here



There were no statements about you not being able to post. There were statements about not making claims about other people's abilities. Nobody here has attempted living my life. You, cavendish, ooo, Verdandi, nobody else here but me, has any clue what its like to try to live like me and why I've decided to apply for SSI. People going on and on about how AS isn't something that prevents people from working is intruding into my life and my business and is harming me, when I'm stuck here making the hard decision of requesting help. I don't want to be on SSI. I want to work. I want to be able to work. I don't want to be stuck at home crying about the fact that everyone else gets to go off and do their things and I get left behind cleaning up after them and feeling like I'm never going to be good enough to be more than a servant.



You were never called a bully or a liar. You however, were talked to in a type of communication that you're not comfortable with. She did say that your view point can lead to bullying. These differences are ones that if you are caught up in emotions are hard to see.

Thanks.......I was rather proud of my little unreconstructed Marxist rant.......


Boomtimes are great but crisis has always followed.


Yes, and I think the only thing that will change their minds is potential insurrection. Friedmanism isn't working but they can't bear the thought of spending our taxes on us.

Hmmm.........I'm a tad off topic I'm just saying Aspies shouldn't feel guilty for not joining in with the usual jobs market thing....and that's coming from one who has never been out of work.

It's also unbelievably ignorant. Not everyone with AS has the same needs. I would expect people to understand that. I know people with AS who have (this is just my observation; so they might be acting or whatever) what seems like no problems and then there are others who struggle to do many things without help.

I'm not caught up in emotions either. Now that's reading something into my posts that wasn't there. I'm not an emotional person, so please refrain from saying I'm "caught up in my emotions." I was indirectly called a liar and bully. You do not have to say "hey, you're a lying bully" to be called such. For example, one can say "hey, the crap he says is BS and he's acting like a d-bag," which is another indirect (though less ambiguous) way of calling someone a liar and bully. Ever heard of "beating around the bush?" You don't have to say in plain words what you feel about someone; many people don't. Who would be doing the "bullying" then in Verdandi's reply? That's right, it's us three. You can still extract that information from the post. I don't only take things literally, so I can see the implied meaning in the statement.

Last edited by CyborgUprising on 13 Jul 2012, 5:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.