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To quit or not?

AprilR said:
I feel like lately i am being a burden on my coworkers. I have executive dysfunction, work too slow and have trouble understanding unsaid things.
I feel like i don't deserve my job basically and that i am deceiving my employer and everyone else by pretending i am NT.
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I felt that way for years throughout my career and suffered crushing depression for it. Finally, my wife suggested that I retire, so I did. They honored me with a retirement party and my boss / business owner told me that he was very sad to see me go and that in all the years of the business; I was his best employee.

I was floored and totally dumbfounded. All those years I felt I was on the razor edge of being fired. Like you, I am slow, I don't work well with others and there are a lot of required tasks I just couldn't do. Someone else always had to do it for me.

I learned that it is very hard to see yourself from others perspective and what your value really is to them. Since you have not been fired, perhaps your value is greater than you think. Perhaps your are actually worth more than the negatives of all your difficulties, slowness, etc.
 
I don't know. I just wish there was somewhere i could go to from here. But there is probably no right work place for me in this country. If anyone knew i was autistic i would be deemed unemployable.
Just left to my own devices as usual. And of course shunned by my family, and i dont have anyone else apart from my family.
 
AprilR said:
I don't know. I just wish there was somewhere i could go to from here. But there is probably no right work place for me in this country. If anyone knew i was autistic i would be deemed unemployable.
Just left to my own devices as usual. And of course shunned by my family, and i dont have anyone else apart from my family.
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Actually, I did not mean to suggest you should quit or not quit. I was just saying that you are not as "bad" as you think.

Perhaps your current job is not fitting to your talent. I don't know, but I'm sure I would not do well in close quarters with other people.

I do agree that you should not disclose to anyone that you are autistic. That would just invoke added stereotyping and misunderstandings. It's OK for people to think you are just a bit odd.

Also, you don't have to be great at a job to be worth having. I don't know where you live, but I would find it hard to believe that any country is so small or constricted that no job could exist that would benefit from you talents; even if you don't believe you have any. Just because you haven't found it yet doesn't mean none exists. You just have to be patient and keep looking. For me, I eventually learned that for me to be successful at any job meant that I had to work alone and never interface with the general public. That made finding such a job very hard, but I finally found it. I too was entirely on my own. Yes, it is hard, but hard is not impossible - just hard.
 
Ken said:
Actually, I did not mean to suggest you should quit or not quit. I was just saying that you are not as "bad" as you think.

Perhaps your current job is not fitting to your talent. I don't know, but I'm sure I would not do well in close quarters with other people.

I do agree that you should not disclose to anyone that you are autistic. That would just invoke added stereotyping and misunderstandings. It's OK for people to think you are just a bit odd.

Also, you don't have to be great at a job to be worth having. I don't know where you live, but I would find it hard to believe that any country is so small or constricted that no job could exist that would benefit from you talents; even if you don't believe you have any. Just because you haven't found it yet doesn't mean none exists. You just have to be patient and keep looking. For me, I eventually learned that for me to be successful at any job meant that I had to work alone and never interface with the general public. That made finding such a job very hard, but I finally found it. I too was entirely on my own. Yes, it is hard, but hard is not impossible - just hard.
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Thank you very much. What you said made me relax a bit. When i am too anxious i tend to catastrophize situations. Maybe that's what's happening right now, or maybe i am Just not able to use my talents where i work. Either way everyone's responses helped me relax a bit.

I am feeling a bit better now psychologically although physically, i got sick so i am staying home for a few days. Hopefully next week i will feel better
 
AprilR said:
I have had negative feed back from my employer but there is no solution bc i guess other people work faster than me and are more practical. I am expected to work things out on my own and i make mistakes if i don't ask questions and "take responsibility"

I have heard of imposter syndrome but i am not sure if i have it or just that i am less capable than others
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I realize you posted this about a month ago, but thinking of Imposter Syndrome...

I feel like one difficulty with Autism and Imposter Syndrome is we are often asked to be imposters. There is intentional or unintentional pressure to mask and be "normal." We are often addressed as if we are not Autistic, which is very jarring. The people doing this may mean well, but it's still difficult and can be disorienting, day after day. Maybe this is something you feel.

Yes, we can often do what others do, but with much more effort, and probably not for as long. I think that can make us feel like we're posing because others assume if we can do it then it's not that hard, but we know otherwise. At least, that's my experience.

I relate a lot to your work pressures and hope you can make the right choice for yourself. Unfortunately, supports seem to be minimal.
 
Mr. Stevens said:
I realize you posted this about a month ago, but thinking of Imposter Syndrome...

I feel like one difficulty with Autism and Imposter Syndrome is we are often asked to be imposters. There is intentional or unintentional pressure to mask and be "normal." We are often addressed as if we are not Autistic, which is very jarring. The people doing this may mean well, but it's still difficult and can be disorienting, day after day. Maybe this is something you feel.

Yes, we can often do what others do, but with much more effort, and probably not for as long. I think that can make us feel like we're posing because others assume if we can do it then it's not that hard, but we know otherwise. At least, that's my experience.

I relate a lot to your work pressures and hope you can make the right choice for yourself. Unfortunately, supports seem to be minimal.
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You are right, it seems like they are forcing me to act normal and be an imposter. The reality is no one wants a disabled employee, they don't want to deal with that. I am trying to go easy on myself and be more forgiving to myself even when people think i am not enough. The worse thing that would happen is that i would get fired, and that is okay.
 
Update: because i am too slow and forgot about a dead line my coworkers also got told off. They have started to act cold to me bc of that. I have decided to wait until the next time i forget something, after that i will give myself a break knowing i did enough, quit and take a break from the work place. I have endured enough as it is, but i am way too enduring for my own good and i decided to test myself one Last time, to see if i will be able to manage or not.
 
I had similar sentiments late in life. Where the only answer I found was to become self-employed. Though that in itself is not for just everyone, whether on the spectrum or not.

It's just tough to think that a number of us end up wanting jobs that involve the fewest interactions of coworkers and customers...and usually are unable to avoid either. Pretty much my story, until I was willing to literally risk everything I had in pursuit of work at home, by myself.

Though equally I know what it's like to remain on a job that has become toxic for me, and stay there much longer than I should have.
 
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Judge said:
I had similar sentiments late in life. Where the only answer I found was to become self-employed. Though that in itself is not for just everyone, whether on the spectrum or not.

It's just tough to think that a number of us end up wanting jobs that involve the fewest interactions of coworkers and customers...and usually are unable to avoid either.
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I can mask enough to interact with customers, but i don't think i would be able to do it if i am self employed.

My main problem is doing 500 tasks at once, while everyone is talking on the phone, listening to music loudly or doing other distracting things. The work is very fast paced and requires a lot of responsibility too. It's the worst job for an autistic person
 
AprilR said:
I can mask enough to interact with customers, but i don't think i would be able to do it if i am self employed.
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That was the beauty of the work I was doing. Most of the time I didn't need to interact with anyone.

I had only one client- me. But then as a private investor, when something didn't pan out, it cost me quite literally. And at times it could be terrifying, depending on a stock market long ago gone wild.

Though I could still look back for all the years I was an insurance underwriter. Where I had to interact daily with both coworkers and customers. When the basic need for an income drove me most of all. Though it wasn't a comfortable existence. Yet all the experience and skills of underwriting helped me to consider becoming an investor. Something I normally wouldn't advise much of anyone to consider.

Still, it's frustrating to look back on my working life, and think of how most of it was motivated on one thing- pure desperation. But then I guess I'm hardly alone in that respect. Where doing the work was always easier for me than just getting the job itself.
 
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To me nothing is easy sadly. I can't concentrate with distracting background noise, have trouble interacting with people( while doing work at the same time!) taking "initiative" what ever that means and working fast.

The worst thing is people see me as lazy and irresponsible. They don' t even see the effort i am making and how much i improved. I mean its basically a success my brain haven't exploded from processing so much info at the same time
 
Can you think of one or more tasks that you can do well that could be done "on contract." Perhaps you can't think of something now, but in many fields, certain tasks are farmed out. Research, for example. Filling out basic forms. Writing up documents, etc.

I could only stand a job for a year or so before it drove me crazy and my supervisors didn't know what to do with me.

But I've been successfully self-employed now for more than 20 years.
 
I have improved a lot, i can do the tasks now but not fast enough and i still need instructions from my employer if i am not sure about something. Or i have to research the İnternet for hours to be sure since my enployer doesn't answer and tells me to take the initiative lol.
 
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