I feel so stupid and alone

Post Reply New Topic

I've scoured other boards and couldn't really find much related to my specific topic. Apologies if I missed it - just point me in the right direction.

I have so much to say and don't know quite how to say it. I'll try typing it. I had a meltdown at work today and I'm so embarrassed. I started as a part-time cashier at a grocery store while I finish school (I'm a late bloomer). So far I've handled what I thought would be incredible stress until tonight when I was thrown in the liquor department to fend for myself after only a few hours of training. A line was out the door and I kept calling the front desk to help me. At one point, I didn't have any customers and walked up to find a lead. You would've thought I murdered someone because I left liquor unattended for 5 seconds. Mind you, I have to do that in order to stock/ face shelves outside of the store during downtime. Yes, I shouldn't have walked away, but in my stupid autistic brain, getting help quickly was more important than manning the counter.

After being yelled at in front of everyone, I yelled back, "Well, if I was properly trained then I wouldn't be up here!" I was able to get coverage for a few minutes and took a 5-minute breather to stim, cry, and take anti-anxiety meds. (I also get non-verbal during a meltdown so I don't even know what I muttered to explain why I had to step away). By the time I got back inside, I told my co-worker that I have autism and sometimes I just need to -- oh wait. She cut me off and said, "I'm not interested in that. I'm not a manager. What do you need help with on the register?" I just shut down. I blankly told her what I needed, said thank you, and didn't make eye contact with a single person for the rest of the night. I felt so dismissed like I have all my life. So I guess she hit a nerve.

I'm so angry that I can't get the simplest task or understand what people want from me. A manager did ask me later what happened and I told him I'd have to tell him later. I wasn't in a place to talk. I still don't feel like talking. I want to crawl into a hole and just be happy in my own world. I'm so tired of pretending to be someone I'm not to make others feel better.

Side note -- I wasn't diagnosed with ASD until a year ago, at 38. It explains a lot but now I don't know what to do with it. I don't know if it's a disability or not and I hate calling it that. But then I look back on my meltdown and think, "Well, a normal person wouldn't react that way." I don't want people to cater to me. And I REALLY don't know how to voice my needs without feeling entitled. I have an explanation as to why I'm odd but that doesn't help me. It just makes me feel more isolated.

I'm also a full-time, non-traditional transfer student at a local university. This past year was hell - one more to go. I don't relate or fit in and believe me, I've tried. At least I have my studies to distract me and I feel most like myself being nerdy. I thrive in academia, just not socially.

Anyway, this was my little pity party. Thank you for your thoughts. I thought I'd give online forums a try and see how others are living with ASD. I can't find reliable resources for adults diagnosed later in life.

So sorry.

I suspect your experience will be familiar to a lot of people here. I can certainly relate to the "if you'd only given me proper training" problem — I've encountered that many times.

I am reluctant to advise anybody to quit their job and lose a source of income, but for the most part retail and being a cashier, in particular, is very autistic unfriendly because of the sensory overload, and the multitasking and social skills needed.

Thank you both for responding. I have to work again tonight but I'm sick to my stomach. There is one area I'm fairly good at, self check-out, and hope they place me there. More than anything, I'm terrified of confrontation and having to defend myself. I'll shut down and go along because it's easier. (Yes, I know that's not healthy)

Anyway, I don't have to work but it really helps. I have few expenses being in school and helping to take care of my mom and disabled brother.

I'll let you know how it goes.

It's evening here so good evening.

This is my first post aside from the get to know you questions, and I have a lot to relate to. I grew up in towns of less than say 2,000 people. The kind of towns where there are maybe 20 last names and they never leave. I've never been from any of these places and I had the upper hand of being new. THE UPPER HAND...It was like I was a shiny new toy or something. All I've ever known how to do is mirror the people I'm interacting with. If I don't see how they interact with others enough to gauge how I should conduct myself when trying to communicate them, I emulate someone else. Usually a video game character or something. This is where I blow it. It never seemed to go well past 2 minutes into the conversation. This caused me to prefer isolation as well. I still prefer it...I recently married my girlfriend of almost two years who deals with her own set of fun brain behaviors and I still get that nudge to disappear into total anonymity.

I've worked factory jobs and general labor jobs most of my life. Didn't fare well in customer service either. I prefer the jobs where I can simply "do" and not be bothered. Forklift is perfect for that in lots of places. I didn't do well in retail either and I can't stand anything sales related. Even in times when I screwed up (having no idea as to how I screwed up) I didn't make it until I got yelled at. A gentle scold or corrective action was enough to get me planning an escape. I didn't care what the financial repercussions were....sadly still don't. I'm 29 years old, I was diagnosed around the age of 7 and not told until I was about 24-25. Thrown to the wolves socially and in every other way without a clue. I interact with the ones that matter and that's about enough for me. I still crave that ghost like existence.

Hi TJ! I'm glad you found an outlet here. I can only imagine being autistic in a very small town is beyond challenging. I'm curious as to why you were diagnosed as a child but not told until later? Certainly didn't help you.

Emulating others works well until someone feels like you're mocking them. I got accused of that many times as a child. Plus, girls are vicious, vile creatures. I've masked my lack of innate social direction so well that when people do find out I'm autistic, I always get, "Wow. You don't LOOK autistic." It takes every ounce of my being to say, "Wow. You don't LOOK ignorant and stupid. Yet here we are."

Anyway, I do hope you find some answers/ relief/ humor/ acceptance on WP. Autism is not easy to live with.

I think the reason I was never told and the reason I never saw that shrink again was because my father was usually pretty dismissive about things like that. ESPECIALLY when it came to any type of mental diagnosis. He’s the old school “depression just means you’re sad, smile and walk it off” type guys. I haven’t been accused of mocking yet but I’m sure it’s coming.

I’ve found a lot of relief so far browsing the posts. Finally I see examples that I can read and say, “I do that too.”

I’ve never related to anything as much as I have on these forums.

Autism is not easy to live with, especially in life situations where I can’t have detachment anymore. Where the cover of a fantasized character falls through or the spotlight hits me in any bad situation...I’ve never known such overwhelming terror.

I sometimes feel like the werewolf in Hotel Transylvania...I should stick to the shadows.

I can't always tell whether the sloppy training is just that or if it's a way NT's try to weed each other out - sometimes it feels a lot like it's the later.

The best way I can put it, I've come to the conclusion that the workplace in a lot of ways is a place of zero-sum game, ie. everyone needs a job but not nearly enough high-quality jobs to go around and even among the mid and low quality the same game does get played with some leniency if they can't find replacements very easily. It's part of why work has to be a struggle, part of why 25% of the effort is what should be the job itself and 75% is struggling to overcome bad communications and directions.

What's been important for me, to tell myself I'm not crazy on that observation, is to reinforce for myself the awareness that most people are operating subconsciously much of the time, and when they're operating subconsciously they're in animal mode, and when they're in animal mode their behavior is on an agenda that slips right past their cognitive apparatus that should in most cases otherwise filter their morality for the better.

My best advice - spend as much time as you can, in your freetime, on a couple things. Find ways to bring together and synthesize your nervous system the best you can whether that's some form of soft yoga, tai chi, chi qong, and spend plenty of time as well maybe thinking through your emotions, putting them down in paper, making art, but the most important point with the later is that if you have a lot of emotions that aren't all connected and built into one apparatus they can wreak more havoc but if they're integrated they'll be more in check. Find ways to be tender to yourself, find ways to prepare yourself for trials ahead of time, that's important because environment is largely incorrigible on this one and this falls back on being an effort of how well you can upkeep your relationship between your mind, your nervous system, and everything else going on below that. It'll never be perfect, you'll have plenty of days where you crumble, but you'll need as many healthy coping mechanisms in place as possible.

Aside from that keep up on your job skills and perhaps even find hobbies that incorporate them in some abstract way. The important thing though, if possible, is to be the polar opposite of a procrastinator - prepare for things as well as you can in advance, with most work situations you won't be able to but apply what anxiety you have toward mapping as much of the information you need as possible.

I don't know how much all of that will help, I don't know all the ins and outs of your situation and I also know full well that autism symptoms aren't exactly malleable. That's part of why though, in my own case, I've opted for counter-balancing them as much as possible and what I said above includes a lot of the approaches I tend to take.