26 and dependent on mommy

Post Reply New Topic

This is the one I was using:

http://cgi.money.cnn.com/tools/costofli ... &x=35&y=18

Well, they apparently produce very different results, so there's no way of knowing which one is more accurate. Even using your calculator, which states that a salary of $45,000 in Flagstaff translates into a salary of 36,700 in State College, that's more than twice as much as I make. I do buy some things secondhand, but they are *nice* things. Like a gorgeous TV cabinet I got from Goodwill for $40. So the point is that you don't need to make scads of money to live an all right lifestyle in the US. You just have to watch your budget.

Cool, I'm lazy and sheltered by my mummy; that does a hell of a lot to alleviate my suicidal tendencies.

That would increase mine.

People do what they can. His illness notwithstanding, you may very well have greater difficulties to surmount than Ticker does in the area of independence. Social anxiety alone, even without sensory issues, can be a formidable foe. Trust me, I've been there. Only with the help of my parents, therapist, and medication have I become a much more functional person. It is true though that you sometimes need to practice doing something that feels terrible until one day, it feels slightly less terrible.

One of my friends just quit Safeway to move to Calif and she was making $14.90 a hour.

BTW- the police dept is so desperate for dispatchers that they are hiring off the street for $18.00 a hr to start. Employers are desperate for workers in this town! My own employer has become so desparate they will now take any idiot or tweaker off the street starting at $13 hr with an opportunity at $1000 a month bonuses.




Yet another statement not based on fact. My apartment is $499 a month and utilities- ie: water, sewer, electricity, gas and trash pickup was $53 last month. And I am paying more than most as I pissed off the landlord last year for reporting her to the corporate office, so my rent got jacked up an extra $109. So my neighbors are paying in the range of $350-399 depending on when they started renting. That is under $600.

Yes the town is expensive if you are trying to buy land or a house. Rent is about average for the West, well still way cheaper than Calif. Gasoline is higher because its a tourist town. Car insurance is higher. But otherwise prices are about average. At least we don't have sales tax on food here!

That's the aim of CBT. It can only go so far with what’s innately within the individual.

As I said, across the whole spectrum, 2-15% achieves a nonretarded level of functioning in society. That is telling of the severity of autism.

People have a distorted perspective of autism (AS/AD aren't different in all reality); we were usually in the care of our parents, put in an asylum and/or homeless in the past.

Actually I'm one of the few diagnosed Aspies on here. Its not compassionless to expect everyone to pull their weight in the world. Enablers are the ones without compassion.

You're parents will not live forever. Unless you come from a wealthy family once the parents die you will be faced with learning to survive on your own.






If you had bothered to read everything I said you would know that ONCE I too was afraid to call people on the phone. I would shake and tremble after the call and stutter throughout the call. I got turned down over a dozen times at job interviews, got a couple of really lousy God awful jobs but I stayed at it even though it was bad working conditions & sometimes even dangerous. I even got hired and laid-off in the same day at a govt job before I ever stepped into the office. I used to be put in terrible anxiety at just being asked "paper or plastic" at the grocery store. But I kept trying and it got a little better each time. IF you TRY, life will get better and you will get better at doing things. If you cower and whine and never try, nothing will get better.


I don't buy this AS excuse. Why? Because I work with 60% 17-23 year old NT's and even though many of them make as much or more than I do they still live at home and mommy still does their laundry. The NT's say they are afraid or unable to live alone too. It's not an AS thing. It's all about laziness and being cottled too much as a child.

Look at Gates. He's more Aspie than just about anyone -- and look how he's livin'. Come on people Aspieness is about being smart and creative. Look at Einstein! Wilhem Reich! Aspies are the ones sent to create new things and save the world.

Yeah instead I'm working my ass off despite having a life-threatening illness and paying taxes to foot your SSI checks.

In this town employers are desparate for workers! Seriously! I've been offered jobs in restaurants and stores as a customer and I look very awkward and have darty eye contact. Come on there is a labor shortage in much of this country. There is also Voc Rehab who will train an Aspie if they will honestly be willing to work.

By the way this Aspie just got voted in as Employee of the Month for the 2nd time and out of 185 people. And I most definitely look Aspie. There are six other Aspies at work that I know of. My supervisor is an Aspie. So people will hire you even if you have AS.

Richard it takes a strong, solid, vigorous person to walk these mountains. Uh didn't they rescue two hikers off the mtn a week or two ago? Wasn't one of those people even air-lifted to the hospital for exhaustion? A lot of people can't do it. Its a tough climb. You've posted many a picture online and you are a sturdy, strong young man. There are many things you could do that other people cannot do.

Sorry I irked you. My intent is not to hurt people; it is to try to make them understand AS is not a reason to curl up and die. I THANK YOU for supporting at least part of my post.

You are right. In the past AS was sink or swim and most people found a way to swim even though they floundered many a time. I floundered many a time. I had the door closed in my face so many times trying to get my first job that it was disheartening. But I kept trying. All you have to do is kept trying and try till it hurts and things will improve.

Look I'm not that high functioning, probably middle spectrum... I have 16 different illnesses. One of the illnesses is an autoimmune disease that usually kills within 10 years. I have had 4 head injuries and struck by lightning twice. As if that wasn't enough someone's service dogs attacked me and I am in my 5th month of physical therapy because of that. I am in constant freakin pain. Some say I have had bad luck and I can't disagree with that because I still wonder what I did to deserve all the illness and injury. But thing is I keep going. You gotta keep going.

Someone mentioned cancer patients are more afraid of dying. But from the cancer patients I know they are not afraid of anything. I have a friend that battled breast and thyroid cancer at the same time and she is very cheerful and active. Another co-worker is recovering from cancer and she is the kindest most upbeat person I can think of and she is very gentle with me and my difficulties as an Aspie. An older woman in my physical therapy class is undergoing chemo, ever so many weeks, yet she comes to the pool cheerful & never complains. She probably feels like crap if the truth be known. But what does she do, she races with me across the pool though she feels bad and I swear she must do it just to make me laugh. Cancer has to be a lot worse than AS and you don't see those people whining.

See, here's another Aspie doin' it. And NY is suppose to be one of the most expensive places in US. I know an Aspie that makes under $10,000 and is totally independant. I know a man with a wife and 3 children who lives on $15,000 and doesn't use food stamps. No he's not Aspie, but still he's living okay too and I don't know how he does it.

I'm not sure what he means by "comfortable" either.

Now I can see even more where you are coming from.
I would say, although you at times can come across as harsh in words, that you are a pretty good role model for younger people with AS, for the fact you have persevered in spite of difficulties and not just sat down and decided there is no point to trying anymore.

Though I would ask, how did you manage in jobs that involved a lot of interraction with people or a lot of pressure/busyness, assuming you did job involving that?

You are not lazy in the slightest, nor have you been sheltered from the world.

Certain people shouldn't judge others without understanding what their life is like.

Ticker,

I have had quite enough of your self-righteous, judgemental attitude. Thinking you know everything and being right about that are two different things.

I am right in the political vanguard of encouraging young Aspies to believe in themselves as equal to anyone else and to discover their strengths and develop everything they are capable of towards full independence and autonomy, but what you are doing here is something quite different.

You are trying to goad and bully young Aspies into things they are NOT capable of, things that are harder for them than for others, areas in which they are less capable of functioning than anyone else, and taunting them when they cannot.

You keep going on about "bagging goods in markets" - full of noise, lights and all the things most Aspies find intolerable because of sensory issues, never mind the huge quantities of people that are intolerable because of social issues. You aren't stupid, you know that as well as I do.

Or you go on about construction sites, again intolerable due to sensory issues with noise, lights and open spaces, but MORE than that. Like a lot of manual labor, working on a construction site is totally dependent on being a functioning part of and sustaining a social group dynamic that is beyond impossible to an Aspie. In some areas failure to sustain that dynamic can lead to real, physical danger...particularly for someone like Richard (I hope you don't mind me remarking this Richard?) who has something of a confrontational manner...

What you are doing is a recognised technique for emotional abuse and manipulation, any professional conman will tell you it's a great way to stop somebody doing something and make them believe giving up is their own idea. I suspect that you are doing it so that you can go on telling yourself how superior you are.

It is also a PERFECT example of everything that is wrong with the way young Aspies are conditioned and trained by society.

Trying to force people to do the things they find hardest is the best way to ensure they either fail or give up.

What our young people NEED is proper assessment of their skills and limitations to establish what is easier for them than for most people, as well as what is harder.

We can do things the NT can't...most of us are quite happy being isolated for long periods that it would be psychologically abusive to expect of the NT. We have a closer attention to detail. Many of us can sit at computer terminals comfortably for far longer. Most of us have a higher than average IQ, which usually makes intellectual work easier, while physical labor feels like torture to us.

Almost all of us have a special interest or ability that has a real, vocational application...

But we need encouraging to explore and have faith in those differences within ourselves so that we can utilise them for independence, not shattering by being taunted with the simple things that even educationally subnormal people can do and we can't.

Put an Aspie into a supermarket or onto a building site to "perform simple mindless tasks" and all you do is prove to him that he will never be able to work or live independently. Because in those situations he cannot cope even where the educationally subnormal could.

Find out what he CAN do instead, show him where he can do it for money...and TRY STOPPING HIM.

M

I am a few months away from 21 and I do plan on getting my own used car, going to community college, and eventually getting my own apartment. Hopefully by my mid 20's. Biggest barrier for me is figuring out exactly what steps to take towards said goals and getting started. Heck I couldn't even seek out a job on my own (Pumicer right now) just because I have no experience in doing so nor do I have any kind of observation of it happening in my life. My parents worked with Vocal Rehab to have me be accompanied by a "job coach" as he called himself to get me where I am. I didn't even really pick the job. I was introduced to it and I was like "oh ok". But I doubt my parents are going to hold my hand like that through my future goals.

Scratch the bolded word and replace it with "was very very reluctant to" would be more appropriate. I had no desire to have a job nor did I have any self confidence in my ability to hold a job or understand how well I would be able to do any particular job.