Do you feel blessed to be able to keep a job, yet other aspects of your life are in disarray?

[SimplyWandering]

The following is "my story" in hopes that i !and others can gain more perspectives on the topic... knowledge is power.

I know a lot of Autists tend to have a hard time keeping jobs or finding work due to impairments, and this topic is not to demean anyone who is in that position. Hopefully you'll find what you are looking for.

I have been blessed to be able to keep jobs for long periods of time. At any given time between 16 and 31 I have had at least a part time Job 90% of the time.

Unfortunately I put my"All" into work and neglect everything else, my health , "friends"/acquaintances, and the bigger picture that time is fleeting... We only have so much time to do what we can.

I love work, well actually i lied. I really don't love it, i tolerate it, because it is an escape from reality, from the crushing anxieties that exist from societal pressures about fitting in, being married, having kids, political sentiments, etc. stuff that I've tried to work on, but it just doesn't seem important to me.

At work I am the boss, i don't have to deal with much change because i set the rules.

Change is a difficult concept to grasp, maybe related to Theory of Mind, not being able to understand why other people think the way they do.

So what is my point? I guess my point is that i am happy to have a job, because for me it is my only wait out of this NT world..
An escape, but is it really healthy, it nags at me.

Anyways, just wondering how others feel or relate to this.

 

[Metalhead]

As somebody who was a functioning alcoholic for several years, and I can only speak for myself in this case, I understand what you mean about being able to hold down a job while neglecting most other angles of self-care.

And of course, keeping the job was extremely important to me, because if I kept my job, I can keep my apartment, and if I kept my apartment and kept on living alone, I could do whatever the hell I wanted to do. I never drank before I went to work, but if I wanted to continue binge drinking after every work shift in the privacy of my place, I had to keep the job and remain somewhat functional.

Change is an easy concept to grasp and imagine. It is easy for me to imagine how much better life would be if I could just live how I wanted to live and take my life where I wanted to take it. I'm still under 40, I am physically fit, I have some degree of intelligence, and I have a great support circle. Self-love is what I need to learn to really put a fire under my ass to do what is in my own best interests.

 

[the_tortoise]

When I had a job I was happy to have one because it allowed me to pay for things I needed. If it was a job I was good at and loved doing, then I felt blessed to have the job because I loved doing it and felt that my work was valuable.

A job was never an escape from anything, for me (well, except homelessness and starvation).

I don't feel pressured at all to get married and have kids.

I ignore the pressure to live a certain kind of life (like where you have x,y,z for possessions, a certain income or type of job, do certain activities for leisure).

I do want to have friends and people I can relate to, to feel like there are people and places where I belong (I do have those things, had them to a much greater extent in the past), but I don't care about being normal and I don't think about fitting in as something I alone have to achieve or make happen; I guess I think about it more as something that happens by itself (or through mutual effort) when there is a good-enough match between a person and other people, or between a person and their environment as a whole (including but not limited to other people).

Most people don't fit in everywhere (possibly nobody does, if you think of fitting in as not just what you seem like on the outside, but also how you actually are and how you feel on the inside), it's just that if someone is normal in most ways then they will encounter fewer situations where they don't fit in than someone who is outside the norm in a lot of ways (or even in just one really significant/far-reaching way).

 

[Gritches]

I pretty much work, drive, and sleep, and that's about it. I've been trying to find some sort of point in the circularity of it all: work to make the money to pay the bills that sustain my life so I can keep going to work to make the money that pays the bill that sustain my life so I can keep going to work to make the money that pays the bills that sustain my life so I can keep going to work...and so on and so on.

It's like I'm just doing it for its own sake. Because the alternative is death-or-worse. I find that less than motivating. Sigh.

 

[LucyPurrs]

I pretty much work, drive, and sleep, and that's about it. I've been trying to find some sort of point in the circularity of it all: work to make the money to pay the bills that sustain my life so I can keep going to work to make the money that pays the bill that sustain my life so I can keep going to work to make the money that pays the bills that sustain my life so I can keep going to work...and so on and so on.

It's like I'm just doing it for its own sake. Because the alternative is death-or-worse. I find that less than motivating. Sigh.

Just about anyone would likely feel similarly if their lives were all work and no play. Play is so important- I didn't learn that until my 40s but am sure glad I did. It makes all the difference in the world for one's life. Hope you will take time to find your passion in life and play, play play! Or if not that , then find work you enjoy.

 

[mw2530]

I feel you. I struggle to find time for anything more than work and my special interests. I also devote time to maintain friendships with a few close friends and maintain relationships with my family. My adult life has basically been devoid of any fun and happiness. I like my special interests, but I'm not sure it necessarily gives me happiness. I love to partake in them, but it is also a coping strategy. At work, it feels that whatever I do is never enough. This is more my feelings towards myself than anything. Actually, just today the scheduler in our office said that my name kept coming up over and over again when managers were requesting people to work on their jobs. I am really good at most parts of my job and am probably one of the most productive people in our office. But my skills are limited in certain areas, but make up for it in others. I have limits to how far I could move up given my difficulty communicating and managing. That is ok though. But I want to find more balance in my life. I seem to tie a lot of my worth to my job, and not necessarily based on my value to other people. Part of it is that I work at a place where there are many workaholics.