Who Says Asperger's Sufferers are Unemployable? (article)

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the way things are where you are is not exactly the same way things work in my country

in my country all the jobs that does not make you be around a lot of people do need 4 year college degrees and this is not only for management

the college degrees is even required to be a accountant to work with numbers and not people and in certain types of businesses they even make you have a 4 year engineering degree to run a machine since you are being required to know engineering principals to change how the machine is programmed to make one item and then change to make a product for a different customer

if you can be a accountant in my country with no college degree and professional certifications then you are violating the law

you also need to consider that the business you work at is not located in every city except possibly mcdonalds and then we get back to the must be around a lot of people

the just force yourself attitude sounds like advice from a person that actually has no idea what reality of living with aspergers and the different kinds of problems people have

I get pretty tired of the "just do it" attitude from people that have no idea how it is to be me.

Does the Golden Wall on Minn. Ave. in Sioux Falls still serve fried rice as good as it was in the late 90's. I miss it. We'd always stop there after a day at the mall with the in-laws. If I recall, there was a particularly good craft store in the area... was it Michael's? We used to make the So Dakia run late at night, oblivious to most of the speed limits except for Gibbon... local cops there were on a mission to catch anyone from out of town who didn't drop to 35mph on the way through. We got nailed a few times there... usually stopped at the Casino in Redwood Falls to try to win enough to cover the tickets... never did though.

I spent the first dozen years of my working life and my childhood in a small town in rural Minnesota. I didn't get any special ed in our backwater sports mad school that mainstreamed everyone but the most disabled students. The marijuana smoking school shrink labelled me as 'troubled'. My teachers were determined to punish me into being normal, my parents were even more determined to do so. Most of the time I didn't even know I'd done anything wrong when the next punishment was handed out. When I finally made it out of school I'd been bullied and punished to the point of being unable to address people directly or make eye contact. I was lost and scared and alone in a world that was alien to me. I spoke like a dictionary, if I dared to speak at all, and took no prisoners with my sarcastic and inappropriate comments. I hadn't had a real friend since elementary school.

I got fired from my first job... even though all I had to do to get that one was manifest a pulse. I learned a lot in a hurry, in a small town where the news that the most desparate employer in town had fired someone travelled the grapevine faster than the speed of light. I wanted the ground to open and swallow me but it didn't. I made plans to end my life but wasn't even able to do that properly. Fortunately, I found another job, it was even worse than the one I'd lost but it was a job. And I started to figure out how to pretend I was normal for eight hours a day. By the time I moved to England, I'd managed to find my way into a reasonably good IT job, having done just about anything and everything along the way, including grading eggs, sticking labels on boxes, and picking bits of scrap metal out of floor sweepings. I still thought I was what I'd been so often told... just a bad person who had to learn to get along with other people. I had little self esteem and never considered then that there could be any other reason that I never knew the right thing to say or how to behave around people.

I came to England on a marriage visa, more to escape then for any other reason, and ended up divorced not long after I'd married. I found myself alone in a strange country with no way forward and no way back. I almost lost it completely, and probably would have if it weren't for an ex-relative I met during my divorce, someone who had an autistic son and saw something similar in me. He pointed me in the direction of some of the first real answers I had about who I am. So, with a different perspective, I rolled up my sleeves and got on with things again. I didn't really have any choice. That was ten years ago. It seems now like it happened in another lifetime.

If anyone wants me to start the little violins playing and saying 'poor you', I won't. We all have our challenges. I've known a lot of people with a lot of different abilities and disabilities. Some of them far more disabled than any of us here. The one thing that always seems to determine if they succeed or fail at whatever they attempt is the ability to 'just do it'. It's much better to get on with living, however difficult and imperfect it may be, than to find excuses no to do so. If you really want a job, it is possible to get and keep one, but if you are happier with excuses then, by all means, indulge yourself. You have that choice... many people in the world don't.

I "just do it" every day. Then the bosses "just fire me". They too, "just do it".

I think the thing is that while employment isn't impossible, it's not as easy as just finding a job. For starters, interviews are difficult, so just getting a job can be a problem. Then there's the day-to-day interactions. Not only is it an effort for aspies to interact with other people, other people frequently feel on edge around aspies, too. The eye contact thing alone makes people nervous. Then you have the almost complete inability to make small talk. That's awkward for almost anybody. If there is a tendency to have meltdowns or shutdowns, it's even worse. So sometimes, even if an aspie can work, it's just too stressful for employers to deal with.
So the jobs aspies can have are kinda limited. If someone has the capital (or I guess in the case of that article, if their family does) to start a business that they're qualified to run, that could be great. Or if they have the education to do skilled, solitary work, that's feasible as well.
The thing is that there are a lot of jobs that aspies are unlikely to do, or be unable to handle, it's not as easy as just going out and getting any old job, say, waiting tables. So a lot of available, low-level jobs are a lot more difficult to get and keep, and more employment support is needed. So what it boils down to is that while aspies aren't completely unemployable, your run-of-the-mill employment agency isn't going to be able to place an aspie in an appropriate job. And aspies also aren't usually particularly good at finding and getting the correct resources.

So no, not unemployable.. but the combination of employment difficulties and trouble accessing resources necessary for employment leaves a lot of aspies just out of luck.

I am not capable to work, I can't focus on something for too long and i hate being away from home.
I don't have the need to feel useful at some place, doing boring repetitive stuff, just because i am capable as an aspie. It would be very depressing.

I didn't happen to hear violins playing for anyone. Nor did I hear anyone wishing for a pity party. What I heard were people sharing their opinions on being an aspie and the typical workforce.

I feel fulfilled and happy doing what I do. I'm a stay at home mother. I don't need outside validation to feel that my life has a purpose.

Obviously I know how to "just do it." I didn't graduate high school with highest honors, and receive a full scholarship to college because of luck.

My point was, you have no idea what I go through daily anymore than what you go through daily. We're all individuals. You don't know how much effort I put into the things I do. You don't know that about anyone but yourself. Some of us are "just doing it" and still treading water.

In much the same way that not all people with Asperger's are going to be highly successful engineers and members of Mensa, not all people who don't have jobs are failing to "just do it."

You cannot judge others efforts in life, you can only judge your own.

Life may be difficult -- and some days are beyond difficult -- but I'm determined to live my life, not convince myself that I can't.