What do you wish you had known about living as an adult?

Post Reply New Topic

Maybe Scott Adams (Dilbert) has the best commentary on expecting the world to be a rational place. It isn't. It is an emotional place, with a thin veneer of rationalization. If you have a better idea, you also have to trick people into adopting it, which usually involves major ego negotiations. Left to themselves, NTs just copy things badly, and actually lose important technologies when isolated in groups under several thousand.
To me, stimming is a desperate attempt to introduce something predictable into the chaos around us.

I don't think it's patronizing. There were (are) many things that are painfully obvious to some that I flat-out needed to be told. And for decades, no one explained them, as they may have felt that it would be insulting to do so, even if (because?) I explicitly asked them to do it. I have a habit where if I someone asks me to do something, unless I understand exactly why, I won't do it. Since no one could (would?) explain those things, I concluded that what they were asking wasn't valid. Turns out there are good reasons for it, that no one could/would give.

As for what to talk about, I would go with what your therapist suggested, under the assumption that she knows what would benefit her clients. As long as you bring your personal experience to bear, I think it will resonate.

In fact, my therapist asked me to do a similar thing and write about my experiences. Evidently this is something that therapists are asking people! I'm also a 30+ aspie that didn't know until recently. It would mean a lot to me to be able to help others so I am considering it. I find myself with some of the same questions that you have, but so far I have just put them all to one side and started writing (though it's against my nature).

Thanks for the replies. Reading everybody's thoughts, I remembered I once had an idea for a class that should be taught in high school, basically How To Live As An Adult. It was going to include how to write a check, how to check your bank statement, how to grocery shop, how to cook a few simple meals that are healthy but cheap, how to do your laundry, how to lease an apartment or buy a car, basic housekeeping, etc. Seems like a good starting point.

Boy, could I ever have used that. I didn't even know about cooking oil. I could build a house, but not live in one. I went months on savings because I didn't know I had Unemployment Insurance. Even after having run a Limited Company, I got caught out on a technicality and lost a grand on personal income taxes.
One time, I was involved with a charity that found a room for a guy who had been on the streets since he was quite young. We got a rather distressed call from him that evening. He'd produced a little bit of garbage, and didn't know what to do about it.

Exactly, Dear_one, even NT kids could use some of that explanation. I got the idea from my ex-husband, who went directly from his parents' home to the military and when he came out at about 25, he had no idea how to do some basic things.

For people on the spectrum, I guess you could just expand the age range (to "everybody") and cover more things in more detail. I think I can do this!

Going to bed at a reasonable hour.

Graceling, please teach them basic internet research and methodology :O Those are top skills to have in the modern world, I based my entire career on my 'googlefu'. A 12yo can look up all the stuff you mentioned, but he needs to be able to differentiate honest advice from clickbait. Teach the to have faith in peer reviewed data, and fear grand claims and heavily biased sources.

Parenthesis: maybe it's just a Canadian thing, but over here when I was a kid we had "home economy" classes in highschool that dealt with cooking and budgeting and cleaning and sowing and whatnot. It was technically a mandatory class too (altho that never convinced me to attend o.O ). If you don't have it wherever you are you should petition your local representatives. As stated by others, failing to integrate an increasingly complex, demanding and anxiety inducing society, that's not an autism thing, it's a modern human thing. I'd even go so far as to say it's easier for us (with proper education): Most of it is about creating a routine, paying the monthly bills, weekly laundry and budgets, daily chores, stuff most of us find satisfying and relaxing to some degree as I understand.

We had a class like this in school (Citizenship) and college (General Studies), and I always found it to be beyond pointless.

Then I had to live on my own, and even though I knew how to do things like cook, shop, wash, be aware of your money etc., I was totally hopeless. Knowing about these things in theory doesn't account for the sensation of being overwhelmed, as autistics frequently are.

I don't know how you would teach about that aspect. I've had to learn to systematise everything just to get the basic things done, and I'm still far from functioning as well as I should. Maybe teach them that it's ok to ask for help, or for help in helping yourself. Nobody expects you to be perfect at adulting, but due to black-and-white thinking, I thought this was the case, and that living on my own meant I was truly on my own, no help.



Critical thinking . Yes.

Make it dawn; be a vampire.

I'd have absorbed practical advice a lot better if it had been presented with logical reasons to do it. I couldn't tell the arbitrary house rules from the stuff that would stay useful. Now I'm finally re-discovering some of it.

Yes, all this stuff is exactly what I intended my post to involve, as I mentioned things like writing checks, how to get an apartment, etc.
I do think budgeting is vitally important no matter what amount of money you have in your life -- unless you're independently wealthy/a millionaire.

It's perfectly simple: are you paying rent and if you stop paying rent you're going to be homeless?

Do you not want to be homeless?

Then budgeting methods practically applied to your available funds will mean you haven't carelessly spent your rent money, leaving nothing left to pay the rent, leaving you EVICTED.

THAT a good enough "reason" to do it?

Case closed.

Listed among the many books on how to write books is one on "How to live on a small and variable income." That could apply to more and more people in cities these days. I blew my second windfall, and learned my lesson forever. I can usually keep my budget in my head, well defended by very thrifty habits. My large tool collection was slowly pieced together at about 30% of retail price. My house cost $15k, and cars run me $200 pa for parts and depreciation. I'm also very cynical about products bringing satisfaction, and filter out ads reasonably well.

That social skills are more important than 'my' skills in order to survive.

If I had much in the way of social skills myself, I would LOVE to teach them that, because it makes everything else so much easier. Unfortunately, I've only learned to fake it. One of the most important things I learned was that, at least here in the south, "Hey, how are you?" is a greeting, not a question, and the accepted response is "Good thanks, and you?" without waiting for a reply. It's gibberish to me, but it is what's done here; I guess I could teach that kind of scripting. I also have a few great ways to fake eye contact - look at the bridge of the nose, or their glasses, or just always wear sunglasses outdoors and keep your face vaguely in their direction.

Learn a relaxation technique like progressive muscle relaxation. It will help you sleeping in, will help you calm down when you are stressed, will help you with depression, chronic pain, tight muscles and anxiety. This has been proven in many scientific studies.

Progressive muscle relaxation is really easy to learn and can be done by anyone.