So, this is going to be a very personal, and a very blunt discussion.
Here's the deal. While I'm not formally diagnosed, I'm very likely autistic. Like, 98% at this point. When I really think about it, my autism very heavily influences my politics. It's an obsessive interest you see. One that ebbs and flows. Sometimes I get obsessed with certain topics and talk about them nonstop, but sometimes I just get burned out and need a break. Hence why, sometimes this blog is full of posts nonstop, and then I'll just take a year or two off.
Why am I not diagnosed? Well, first of all, I'm one of those kids born in the 80s who grew up in the 90s who slipped through the net because autism wasn't as well known and if you have "aspergers", or mild autism, you're "normal" enough to pass as normal, but not normal enough where you continue having problems for years until in your 20s, you realize, holy crap maybe something is wrong with me after all. Autism can often go under the radar until the person tends to struggle enough with life that its demands begin to exceed a person's capabilities. And being sheltered, as long as I was confined to the environment of school with my focus being good grades, I generally was able to function well enough to blend in. Although I did get excessive crap from people for failing to blend in socially, how I dressed, and how I did not do things other people my age did like drive and work (in teenage years) because, well, doing those things would overwhelm me.
The second reason is because I lack healthcare. That and I just don't see the purpose in getting a diagnosis. But that's the problem with healthcare in America, you need money to see a doctor, and if you lack money, you're not gonna bother doing something so frivolous as getting an autism diagnosis. We struggle to go to the hospital in America when it's an emergency, you think we're going to go because gee, you know what? I might be autistic? Nah, we just live with it. While there are some arguments about how if I got diagnosed I could likely get disability, heads up, they don't really give disability out like candy and try to force more people to work.
For this month, I want to explain what it's REALLY like to be autistic, and why I find so many of our social structures to be so intolerable. Which is, by the way, another reason I don't get treated. Because mental health treatment in America is about trying to force people to cope in a crappy system. "Oh, your job sucks and you're depressed? Here's some nice little pills to take and some deep breathing exercises so you can handle it better." And then once a year they come up with some vapid circlejerking "awareness month" to talk about this stuff in a patronizing way, which really doesn't help US that much, but might make the virtue signallers feel better. That's what virtue signalling is really about by the way. Just this vapid circlejerk of caring that doesn't accomplish crap, which is why I come down so hard on that stuff on this blog. You know what would be nice? Systemic change. Or at least accommodations that didn't amount to vapid "inclusivity" oriented symbolism.
Here's the thing. The huge reason I'm so anti work, really comes down, push comes to shove, on not being cut out for the working world. While I can do limited work on my own terms, I feel poorly equipped for a job.
First of all, the social stuff. Jobs are inherently social. You have to have people like you. Coworkers, bosses. You need to interview well. You have to talk about the big sports game on the weekend and if you don't like sports, you tend to not be likeable. You need to know how to schmooze people and kiss butt, and if you're autistic this is extremely difficult, because you're brutally honest to the point that you'll offend people, without even realizing it. I have lost so many friendships over the years, simply because I'm "annoying." And I am. I discuss random topics no one really cares about. I don't care about other topics people do care about. I don't see the point to lots of social norms, and feel like they work against me. Social interaction is a minefield, and very draining. I feel like an impostor in Among Us, but all the time. I have to fit in and pretend to do the thing, and if I'm caught not doing things like others do, I'm ejected. It might be an immediate thing, or it might take months and years as I open up to people only for my faults to start grating on them. We're also expected to be very excited and enthusiastic to work. Like we have to beg for a job, and constantly be grateful for the opportunity. And if you don't, you're fired, and you need that income. So you basically gotta put on this fake act all the time, and it just wears thin. This is also, by the way, why I'm not for socialism or social anarchism. These solutions aren't answers to me. They just replace one social hierarchy for another, when I want independence from said hierarchies.
Second, dress. People have this idea that "clothing makes the man" and "dress for success." Okay, well what if business attire is SO uncomfortable, that it literally makes me dread getting up in the morning, let alone spending all day in it? Business attire sucks. The fabric is just so uncomfortable and grates on my skin in just the right way, to ensure that I am in hell when I wear it. It isn't the pants as much, it's dress shirts. The fabric is just...terrible. I can't really describe it. When I was a kid I would say it makes me feel "cold". I guess the feeling is similar to that. The feeling of it rubbing on my skin literally gives me chills. As far as pants go, jeans do the same thing. I'd be so happy if I could just wear sweats my whole life, except when it's above 70F, then I wear athletic shorts and a t shirt. Uniforms just...don't work for me. This isn't even getting into the fact that many autistic people have other sensory sensitivities that make workplaces hostile to them, such as noise and lighting.
Third of all, the idea of inconsistent schedules like exist in many lowly paid industries like retail and food service are hell. We aspies like routine and consistency. Telling us we gotta work 6-11PM one day and then 6-11 AM the next is the very definition of hell. Being asked to come in at the last minute? Hell. But these are all regular expectations of employees these days and we're just expected to take it or be fired.
Fourth, the long hours tend to burn us out more. We tend to have obsessive interests, and jobs in a modern society take up the majority of our working hours. We can't engage in our interests if we gotta work 40 hours a week, and then commute and do tons of preparatory work on top of it. It's even worse if we have "pathological demand avoidance", which isn't recognized in the US due to how work heavy our culture is, but is a subset of autism where the very idea of being told what to do and not having control over your time is just hell to you. But that's what work is, our time isn't our own. We're rent a slaves.
The problem with conditional aid, is that it's conditional. If we can prove we can work at all, we can't get help. So many of us aspies are in that uncanny valley of being horridly out of our depth as far as navigating a world set up for neurotypicals, but we're also "normal" enough we have the same expectations from us as a neurotypical person. It's hell. And it makes many of us experience burnout, mental breakdowns, and even regress mentally from the trauma. The working world is horrible enough for most neurotypicals, but for us, these expectations on us literally are hell.
I don't want pity. I don't want little awareness circlejerks the SJWs like to put on. I want systemic change. Fix this crap so I can actually have control over my life. Let me have universal healthcare and a basic income, and let me choose when and how to work on my own terms, if I feel up to it at all, rather than just imposing tons of expectations on me I can't say no on. It's bad enough being a wage slave in our economy, but being an autistic wage slave is so much worse, because this structure is hostile to our very existence. Less virtue signalling and more political action for actual solutions, please.
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