garbageMaster

Seek employment that fulfills the ASD needs and stability that isn’t too much on your body that it seeps out into your personal life.

Been wondering all my life what that employment could look like. I just come up with absolutely nothing. If I lived a century or two earlier, I'd be a craftsman and perfectly happy with it. Today, there's few such opportunities, you only become one with luck and/or wealth. There seems to only exist too monotonous or too exhausting employment and starting a business is too uncertain for a worrier.

What do you mean no career prospects?

I went through school under-achieving due to hostile environments and lack of support. Masking half a life-time left me traumatized and chronically tired. I can't fathom how anyone with these cards can muster up the will and courage to put the mask back on to have an edge at the job-market. Even the thought of a job interview paralyzes me.

It’s constant hurt if you’re in a place where you don’t fit in.

I have no idea where such a magical land would be, where a burnt out, under-achieving AuDHD person would fit it.

Can you make any decisions on how you interact with the world outside of your home that will make things easier?

Due to decades of nearly 100% negative interactions, I've almost completely isolated myself. I know it's not good, but just don't see how to interact without submitting myself to more harrassment and misunderstandings.

What helps is structure…

Yeah, I've found ways to get things done, just the motivation and reward is completely lost at this point.

It’s not just run of the mill anhedonia. It’s a removal of an entire support structure.

You nailed it. Now, with half a life-time of trauma, masking and dead-end jobs, it seems there's no getting those interests back.

if we try to talk about it people will re-orient what we say into their own framework and start making false equivalencies. “Just do X.” It can be a good-natured attempt to understand, or a dismissive invalidation. Either way it gets exhausting.

This right here. So tired of trying to talk to anyone not on the spectrum about it anymore.

If it wasn’t for my spouse I doubt I’d be here. I don’t fit. 40+ years of trying to be a square peg, scrambling to fill in all the corners on demand, has me drained. Nothing I do has ever been enough. I’m tired.

Yeah, hanging on not to dissappoint loved ones, is how I'd put it. Feels all kinds of wrong.

I wish you the best. Truly.

Thanks, to you too.

They’re for fun, to express yourself and make something you find valuable

That would be optimal, sure. The reality is, I'll have good run learning something new, and at a certain level, just become so frustrated and burnt out, it'll lose it's appeal completely. Might return to it after years, only to repeat the cycle.