How do you survive as an adult?

Post Reply New Topic

I don't want to live with my nasty parents anymore! They think I can't do anything single-handed.
Well, I really need a lot of assistance and support from different people, like psychologists and more--at least at the moment--and I don't think I get any better as an adult either. I've heard that people with AS stay with their parents longer than NT people, and I hope I don't have to be one of them.
When I was younger I said things like: "I'm going to live with you until I'm 30!" but now I want to move away from them when I'm around 18-20.

I'm nervous of my future adult life.
I won't get any job. My lack of social skills sets me back. Sometimes it feels like I have the world's poorest social skills!
The sociable people around the world are driving me crazy, and I'm so horribly envious. I am never able to live a "normal" life.
I just need help all the time! Help from creepy people who don't understand anything about AS anyway!

When I'm an adult, I'm going to live in a flat/apartment. I'm going to own a cat, a dog and a rabbit.
I will hang up a big and structured schedule on the wall where I'm going to write all events that are going to happen.
I won't go to the store, because I absolutely can't. I'll order food and all things I need, on the internet.
I want to work as an author, a translater, an employee in a pet shop, an employee in a zoo or a copy editor (Swedish of course ). But I don't think I get any job at all.

Do you have some advice? How do you survive as an adult?

Withdrawn, I think it might be not that difficult for female with AS to survive. Am an example I stay at home with my child, my husband is making a living and I don't have to contact people much if I don't want to. It is now billion times easier than when I was in elementary school or high school or in some cases in college. I hope you will do fine as an adult Best wishes!

You can do anything that you put your mind to. Do you have any hobbies and special interests that you can make a profit off of?

Agnieszka: Sounds nice! Unfortunately, I'm a recluse and am not going to live with anyone (with the exception of animals). Then it isn't that easy, is it?
CockneyRebel: Okey! Yes, I have.

Am a recluse too! I really am! I haven't a slightest idea how come I found the most charming, sweet, loving and caring person in the world and how come he married me Life is sometimes very surprising!

I've been through that stage when I was your age. I didn't think I would get a job or live on my own and my mom told me I can. But she had always helped me. She used to make me do things on my own like order my own food when we eat out and she help me if I had troubles.

You just need to work on your social skills is all and try and do things on your own. Do your parents ever help you with your skills like having you purchase your own items in the store or ordering your own food? Is it shyness that stops you or social anxiety?
Having low self esteem isn't good because it tends to hold you back. If you have parents who keeps shooting you down by telling you you can't do this or that, that will do it. Kids with those kind of parents quit trying then and hold themselves back because they believe they are that impaired and incapable to learn.

I survive day by day and if today was bad, tomorrow will (probably) be better.

Once I moved from home things got actually immediately better, not worse. Social skills improved somewhat with being forced to cope with environments (took some years, though, and dozens of set-backs). Just never give up.
Shops and stores are easier to cope with if you regard them as kind of museums, you don't have to interfere with the other people, most of them are preoccupied with themselves anyway, they don't care about you. Try silicone earprops. Otherwise, internet is OK, of course.

You can get any job you want to, even if it could take some more time than "normal" to find one. Sometimes a job shows up, which you never ever considered and which is far away from your special interests, but provides you with an ideal working-environment.

Best wishes
/
EDIT: Asperger's wasn't yet invented, when I moved from home, so I had to get along by myself.

Last edited by pixxie69 on 20 Mar 2010, 9:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If earprops = earplugs, then I agree with this. It makes so many things in life easier.

I can't really offer much more in this thread. I'm often wondering the same thing at the moment.

Probably, yes,
it's clear silicone, nearly invisible ones with a tiny hole in it, originally used when flying to reduce pressure on eardrums. Really helpful in any kind of noisy surroundings.
/

Same here. One truly bright spot of my life. Were it not for him, things would have been much different and much harder.

Agreed, same here.
/

Honestly... I dont, i seriously honestly do not in any way shape or form survive as an adult, but then ive noticed, almost no one else does, Aspie or NT

I left my parents house when i was 18 years and three days old (three days was the time it took the bank loan to clear) and if im honest the only reason i DID leave was domestic abuse, I was /glad/ to be out of there.

One of the most freeing and beautiful things i ever learned was about Chaos Theory this idea coupled with the knowledge that people are generally stupid/not very observant, pretty much saved my sanity in this world, disruption of my routine used to stress me tremendously right till i figured this, there IS order and structure to everything, just alot of the time its so fine or so complex, we just dont "spot" it, like we dont see air, when something unpredictable or disruptive comes along, its actually Okay, because thats part of the higher more complex Order to life, we just dont SEE it at the time and all that's required of us is to make compensation for it (which can be planned).

following on from this is largely the certainty that, we will "fail", things will mess up/change, go up, go down and the like, BUT what matters most is our next action, two months after renting for the first time in my life I couldn't keep up, i hadn't learned the skills to take care of myself so ended up back with my parents (i got a live in job on the otherside of the country after that), yes it was hard, yes my gods it was stressful, but i did not "cave in" and do nothing, I "added" to my plans/routine instead of freezing up.

If you say you wont get a job, you wont, anyone can teach themselves to Not achieve something, going at it till you do succeed is harder and (see Chaos theory and Agnieszka's post) life has a habit of.. adding things that end up assisting us, you can and you Will get a job, and maybe it wont be the one you want, maybe you'll get "lucky" and land the perfect job for you first time, trick is, if you can get a job that wont ruin you, keep it while looking for the job you Want, as for your social skills, you write well enough I know a few people who cant express themselves at all in written form.



Do me abit of a favour and take a slow deep breath.. My social skills are pretty much the ONLY thing that has landed me 28 (yes twenty eight) jobs, All by Interview with Employer -> hired, every application form or CV ive handed in got me nothing and only twice have i been face to face interviewed and not gotten employed..
odd for an aspie hmm? my social skills are a result of a decade and a half's intense study, mentally cataloguing "Normal" behaviour and communication methods right down to bodylanguage, because my options we're, be "normal" or get beaten and the sheer effort and time its taken to be able to successfully "fake" being normal and "translate" NT comms into "me" language has left me barely competent in every other area.. my point?
i get the jobs because i can read people most of the time (tiring as hell) like most people read a book or computer code and usually to a scary degree and at 29 what have i so far discovered?

"Normal" is infact a myth, NT's "fake" being normal and okay, almost as much as we do, doubt it? open your telephone directory and have a count of the number of therapists there are in your city/nearest city, there are so many because being scared, having difficulties is "normal" if it wasn't, there'd be no "market" for therapists.. as there is the "market" is huge. because, everyone's abit crazy/has issues, ergo you WILL NOT live a "normal" life, nor will anyone else the best anyone can aim for is a life in which they'll be happy and what that takes differs from person to person, everyone you are envious of are infact also having difficulties some of them are just better at pretending they're not, beating yourself with the exaggerated distorted measuring stick of "normal" will only make you miserable.


Want or Need? a Need is something Absolutely Required

In terms of "useful" advice over philosophy and observation, what really messed me up when i struck out on my own was that i Thought i was prepared, when infact i wasn't.. at all, things that would have helped me to learn.

*How to cook for myself. (if your being cooked for, believe me you do not know how to cook for yourself)
*Immediately organising bills and paying them as soon as possible. (its easy to get sidetracked with these, they can seem unimportant)
*Local services including housing benefit, etc.

Plan for "if-it-all-goes-wrong".

hope this helps

You know, I have only been 'diagnosed' with anything as an adult. But it was incredibly hard to transition to being an adult. I had trouble when I went to college because everything was optional, I didn't have to go to class. so sometimes I didn't....and eventually I dropped out. After a while I went in the Army...where nothing was optional, and I felt very secure in the Army. But again, I got out after four years and started college again...drank a LOT...dropped out of several colleges...drank....had sex. You know, it was SOOOOO hard transitioning out of the army. Really difficult for me to go from everything required to everything optional. I got married. Then at least I had a 'permanent' support system Over time jobs have worked a lot better than school. I'm divorced now and a Mom...and HAVING to be a Mom really worked..particularly after the divorce because I realized it was 'on me.' Really, I've had a lot of family support until just the past ten years (I'm 40). Really financially independent totally in the past five years (meaning family used to send money when it was time for my daughter to start school. the last four years they haven't done things like that...they also used to send money when they wanted me to visit...they don't have to do that anymore either). I guess the good news is that since I got divorced and started really having to figure out bill paying strategies, feeding myself and a child...etc, I've improved exponentially year by year. The bad news is, I know it took me longer than my peers to figure all of that out. But also good news, a lot of my female peers rely on a spouse to help support them and I don't. I support myself and my family/child. I've only twice in my life (for short periods) received any sort of government aid.

But what I can say is jobs work better than school because jobs are something 'required', while school is something 'optional.' Like being a Mom isn't 'optional'. Whenever something isn't 'required' I have more trouble with it. That said, I'm going back to school in the fall....on medication this time, which helped my brother finish college. So for the first time ever starting college I have a lot of hope that I can finish it this time. I'm seeing it as a way to help support myself and my daughter...which perhaps makes it now 'required' whereas before it was only optional.

Last edited by bethaniej on 20 Mar 2010, 8:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm going to be living with my parents while attending community college then afterward will try to get a dorm at a university. I figure that leaving your parents' home to get a dome would be a good transition.

On social skills....all I can say is I really had to practice. Again, since I got divorced and realized my daughter's social issues...I knew I was myself going to have to 'practice' social situations. We do a lot of that now. I go to church, I make her go to youth group meetings, on mission trips with her peers....even though it's something I have to think about in my head, and it doesn't come natural as it does for peers....I practice. I've gotten so much better in social situations.

I can only share the mistakes I have made that have inhibited me. Number one most important thing you can do, right now, is research the work force and acquaint yourself with what fields of employment you might like. People change careers several times in a lifetime so don't limit your interests. Your education is the most important thing you can obtain so don't let anything or anyone come in the way of it. There is *zero* guarantee you will marry and be able to stay at home, don't count on any support from anyone. Once you find a field you are interested in that there is a chance of sustaining employment in (research), find out about early college programs where you can start attending now, you are about at the age where they begin letting kids start, you can graduate with an associate degree at 18 for some of them. Try to pick a field where you do not have excessive interaction with people. Make sure the field you are interested in is an employable degree. Get as much education as you possibly can. Get support for your problems with your parents that is not based on you being an aspie, if possible. If there are personality-disordered people in your life get acquainted with help for that. Don't get caught up in social games or gossip because that stuff drains people like us ten times worse than NT's. I can't stress enough that it will cost you in cold hard cash (i.e. rent) every time that you allow yourself to be drawn into drama where other people are working out their issues at your expense. Sorry if I am projecting my issues here but I really would love to save someone else the trouble I have gone through. Identify your family of origin issues because those are the issues you are going to be attracting in people you are interested in romantically, you can bank on that. The more awareness you have about yourself and the other significant people in your life the better armed you will be to recognize it in the people you are drawing into your life. I know that is heavy stuff...let's just put it this way, if you focus on your education and get as a advanced degree as possible (a masters at the very least, to be competitive in the work force), when the time comes and your significant other or spouse is driving you nuts you will at least have the money to hire a competent shrink to help you through it, in addition to having a place you own and all the cats you desire.