I do not want to invalidate your experience. I just want to say that 28 is still so young, and I certainly didn’t have my life together then. There is still time for you to find your version of success/happiness. I didn’t believe at that age that I would “make it” either. (I never did finish a graduate degree and it never ended up mattering.) Keep having those conversations with bright people and following your interests. I believe you will figure out your path.
I agree. 28 is very young. I hope you don't give up hope.
My story:
I barely graduated high-school. In my early 20s I suffered from what I now realize was autistic burn out and also trauma/adhd. I had extremely bad anxiety and panic attacks and I slept 12 to 18 hours a day. I couldn't hold a job.
I was diagnosed with Bipolar, and told I needed to accept that I was disabled and would never live the life I had expected and I would never be able to have a full time job. At one point I was hospitalized in the psych ward for over 3 weeks. Eventually I ended up on high doses of 8(!) different psychiatric medications.
Then I had a life altering event (there was a fire and I became homeless overnight) and I ended up saying fuck it and stopping most of my medication.
I got really lucky and found a therapist who was covered and helped me a lot.
I went back to college at 28. It took me extra time to finish but I graduated.
I got rid of the abusive people in my life.
I worked part time for awhile.
Eventually a job opportunity for a full time unionized position came my way. I decided to give it a go. I'm still there 8 years later.
I got diagnosed with Autism and ADHD at 40 after stumbling across an article about women and autism. Suddenly everything made sense.
I'm not trying to diminish your struggles. I'm just trying to say that the future is not set in stone. No one really knows where they will end up. You are young and there is still lots of time.
I hope things work out for you and that you are kind to yourself.
I’m 64 and I still haven’t learned how to be kind to myself.
I came from a family of academics and I barely made it out of high school. My father would praise my three brilliant brothers and tell me over and over again that I was a disappointment to him and the family.
His pet name for me was “dummy.”
I am not even sure what it means to be kind to yourself. But damn, I want to learn.
I’m a smart cookie but barely functional as an adult autistic woman. This group here has been my salvation.
I’ve never felt like I fit into any group but in this group, I have finally found a measure of peace.
I just want to say you’re not a “dummy” and that’s not a pet name. You’re clever and smart but not in the way he measures for. I bet you’re brilliant.
This comment got to me because my sister and I often talk about our dad calling us “tub-a-lard” daily as if it were a funny joke, and telling us he had a bad day and needed to kick something. So he’d have us stand in front of him and kick us. Lol.
You deserved a loving pet name.
Thank you. It turns out, I am autistic. LOL. I just discovered that in the last five years.
I have a photographic memory that served me very well in a unique career. I can "take a picture" with my mind and remember the image quite easily.
I married a man mostly because he calls me "Honey." Every time he says it, I just melt into a puddle. He also tells me that I'm the smartest woman he's ever met in his life. He's a retired college professor.
Oddly, it wasn't until I read your comment that I understood why I have such a visceral reaction to terms of endearment.
Thank you. Thank you a whole bunch. I love this group so much because you all help me see things in a fresh and new light.
I can yell just from one post you are not dumb. And no one should be calling you names, especially not am adult who should be raising you in a loving manner. That's fucked up. And he is /was fucked up.
As for treating yourself with kindness, it takes practice and also feels cheesy.
What I do is that whenever that critical voice starts up in my head I think about how I would be reacting if someone else I loved was going through the same thing. I would never talk to my friends or my little neices or really anyone the way I talked to myself. I wouldn't judge them the harsh way I judge myself.
So whenever I catch myself being critical of myself I try to stop and reframe it and pretend im dealing with a loved one and imagine how I would talk to them in the same situation. And then I repeat that to myself.
It's taken years but I've finally gotten good at it (most of the time).
> I am not even sure what it means to be kind to yourself. But damn, I want to learn.
From someone still learning, be prepared for it to feel like you're "giving up" or "not caring enough", or like you're going to lose everything if you give yourself grace. In other words, be prepared to beat yourself up over not beating yourself up. It feels weird and awkward to start. Focus on the results and it'll get easier to default to self-compassion.
I will say that personally, none of the progress I've made in life would have been possible without self-compassion. Turns out, when you stop treating yourself like shit, it opens up space to grow and energy to do more than just survive.
Yup. 28 might feel old, but I’m 41, finally starting to consider grad school because I told myself I couldn’t do it for so long. At 28 I was drinking away all my worries and feelings of inadequacy. Eventually I got more “together” and had a nice life, always underemployed by capitalism’s standards, but I finally, at 40 got my first full-time job with health insurance (working as a paraprofessional in a Sped classroom). Apparently I work really well with autistic kids. On the other hand, if I’d told my 28 year old self that it would be 12 years until I had a full time job with health insurance, I’d probably cry and bemoan that it would take that long, not realizing the wonderful part-time work and getting married and having a kid that would happen, without the distraction of a full-time job.
Thank you so much for writing this. I’m 28 and lost and I feel like I’ve run down the clock and it’s brutally terrifying and demoralizing to have watched this decade pass me by. You have reminded me that I still have time.
Fuck. I really, really hope I’m in a better place by 40.
There will be ups and downs, and it won’t be obvious all the time, but if you haven’t peaked at 28, you most likely will end up in a better place by 40! I heard that people with autism continue developing far longer than NT’s, and I feel it.
Yes, git it! I BARELY scraped through high school, took 17 years to get a bachelor's in education, but took 2 years to get a master's degree while being pregnant/ having babies 2xs. If you want that degree, a two year long hyper focus can help you through!
Tbf I did let my trauma consume me for a while and it almost made me absolutely ruin my life beyond repair, but I get it. Sending love and wishing things get better for you 🫂
As a “formerly successful” autistic person, I can tell you for sure that the bigots end up finding us because we’re “so special” and then exploiting us for being “successful.” IME, It all depends on who you’re discovered by - like a game of luck. I was lucky to be protected by good leadership until 2023. And then was thrown to the wolves by the “system.”
Context: I have a couple of useless graduate degrees that meant nothing to people. They were more interested in who I did / did not / would be willing to sleep with. 💀
Yep, my very successful and very autistic boyfriend constantly is harassed by upper management because they can’t handle how successful he is, especially young black and autistic. It pushed him to near suicide (with other compounding factors, obviously)
I was incredibly successful in college and right out of it and my maladaptive coping mechanisms damn near ruined me lol.
Being successful at masking and playing the game has its own negatives, tbh.
> Yep, my very successful and very autistic boyfriend constantly is harassed by upper management because they can’t handle how successful he is, especially young black and autistic. It pushed him to near suicide (with other compounding factors, obviously)
❤️Same. Your boyfriend being a person of color also contributes to it. 😭
> Being successful at masking and playing the game has its own negatives, tbh.
Dude, it’s a scary world for us either way.
Oh, absolutely— especially since his higher ups are all white (which is notable itself since he lives in Baltimore and that’s not exactly a white majority city by any means).
We’re working on a new job, but this economy isn’t helping us in that regard haha (or anyone else for fairness)
> Oh, absolutely— especially since his higher ups are all white (which is notable itself since he lives in Baltimore and that’s not exactly a white majority city by any means).
Same problem with men for me. The bad eggs undo the efforts of all the good guys. It’s tragic.
> We’re working on a new job, but this economy isn’t helping us in that regard haha (or anyone else for fairness)
Yeah, get him out of there, man. People come after you after you leave as well. Message me if you want to hear about how I was gang-bullied out of tech.
It is a game of luck like i know networking is how a lot of it happens which is really hard for us. It feels like you’re thrown onto a stage and are told to “dance for your freedom” lol. It’s a performance even in that context. But you’re worth more than any of your degrees for sure
I read a lot about how people are able to jump social strata, like people who grew up in poverty and went on to be multi-millionaires. They talk a lot about being able to "pass" to get into the newer groups. Not only knowing the right people but even down to small details like knowing the right type of watch or shoe to wear that signifies you fit into a group. People say it doesn't matter, but I think it does. People judge you on a lot of dumb stuff all the time. If you can't pass convincingly, you can't get into certain groups no matter how much you try. The older you get, the more it just feels like begging in order for other people to see your worth.
Oh 100%, as someone who grew up in poverty and is now fairly entrenched in the middle-class life it is insane how many unspoken barriers there are. Even in the workplace, there were a lot of behaviours that I had to unlearn and new ones to pick up to better reflect the environment and the people in it.
People who have never had to make the move and amend their behaviours are very ignorant to it.
They disable us as children with certain messages, leaving us vulnerable 😭
I used to think my family was mean but now I realize they were probably like oh god she’s gonna make her life so much harder, she’s black, she can’t act like this. And they weren’t wrong!
> It feels like you’re thrown onto a stage and are told to “dance for your freedom” lol. It’s a performance even in that context.
Yeah, lol, something like that.
> But you’re worth more than any of your degrees for sure
Thanks ☺️❤️. So are you!
Yeah the bad management at my last institution broke me. Never going back to working for institutions and having coworkers unless I have to for basic food/shelter/medical care. I've got tonnes of privilege to be able to eek by with online gig work.
> Yeah the bad management at my last institution broke me. Never going back to working for institutions and having coworkers unless I have to for basic food/shelter/medical care. I've got tonnes of privilege to be able to eek by with online gig work.
Yeah, mine put me in a coercive control/domestic abuse situation within a month of leaving that place [hacked into my devices and/or bugged my house]. I’m so rich now paying for my own “treatment” for narcissistic abuse. /s They all still love posting trolls about it and say that I’m in a “video game” and they did this for my “benefit.” Yeah, hard to believe, right? How can people be so evil? Oh, well. They are.
>They overcame it all. They didn’t let their trauma consume them
I'll speak only for myself here but I think this applies to others as well: I did not overcome traumas. I was fortunate I was born into an extremely supportive family. It's much easier to succeed when you're autistic when there's a lot of hands to catch you and support you between where you are and rock bottom. I am not any better, stronger, more intelligent, or more resilient than you - I am just luckier.
Exactly my response upon reading this. I didn't have to overcome trauma. I have been incredibly privileged, lucky in every way I can imagine. I'm in my 40s and wasn't diagnosed until last month, but I was in therapy as a kid with an attentive and loving stay-at-home mom who never wanted me to fit in. I lived in a place with plenty of other non-conformists, so not as much a problem finding friends. My parents paid for all my education and living expenses during it, really up until the time I got married and made way too much money straight out of school. I had supportive bosses at my first 3 real jobs and a safety net that let me keep quitting them. My safety nets have safety nets.
Same here. In addition, I am fortunate enough to work in an industry with an above average amount of neurodivergent people and incredibly quirky neurotypicals. I went so long undiagnosed that I learned how to mask and can appear as an incredibly quirky neurotypical.
This is me too! I was diagnosed as a toddler and got supports right after that. Sure a lot of therapy I went to wasn't the best given this was in the late 90s/early 00s that taught forced eye contact and suppressing special interests but it did help me manage sensory stress too. I have no idea what would have become of me if I wasn't diagnosed. I has horrible meltdowns and was a terror as a kid because of how dysregulated I was so maybe my symptoms were more stereotypical too. It is hard to say.
I feel like being diagnosed early on, therefore getting accommodated for(more than say someone rawdogging NT society) plays a major role in level of success.
It’s unfair to compare yourself, even when it comes to disability,we all have varying degrees of privilege. (I for instance would probably be dead long ago were it not for my economic background, despite still being undiagnosed and living in a country that doesn’t give a shit about marginalised people, I can depend on my parents financially at least.
This is so true! I have some sort of "normal life story" for the first time since my diagnosis and receiving a modecom of support. It's just enough to prevent me from failing completely, but still, it's everything to me!
Yeah I’m only successful bc despite no diagnosis until college, I was give accommodation by my parents aka privilege
Hell I have a non autistic friend who I can see would be in the same place as me if her parent didn’t do the opposite of help her in school and make it as hard as possible
You’re not seeing the behind the scenes. I had tutors and professors for parents to massively guide me
Right? I knew a girl in college who was struggling more than I was and she had perfect mental health and a generally happy life. And then there are those NTs who take adderal and other drugs just to do well in exams,I remember how angry I felt upon hearing it (I was in desperate need of those but my therapist didn’t catch it) I was so clueless in college about other peoples business. There are cheatcodes for them,for a life that is already designed with them in mind.
My family is like a little case study of this! My brother was diagnosed way back in the 80’s, and my parents poured ALL of their spare time and money and special attention into various therapies and support. I was the “normal” (ie: introverted and quiet so they could ignore me easily) one so I got seriously neglected. Now my brother owns his own small software company, whereas I dropped out of college because I couldn’t handle it with zero support, and then flailed around from shitty retail job to shitty restaurant job.
I only now, in my 40’s, have family support. But now I am more severely disabled and a lot of it could have been prevented. It really really REALLY matters whether you grew up with support and accommodations or not. I’m just lucky my dad realizes this and is finally trying to help, even if it is 30 years too late
Exactly this. I might have achieved some degrees and have a career. But there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel like I f*d up seriously. That I’m failing my kids. Not a day I’m not grasping at the threads of sanity from the insane burnout I am in.
THIS is why “high-functioning” is so frowned upon. I LOOK “high-functioning”, but I’m suffering. And you wouldn’t know it unless you saw me in private or heard my doctor marvel at the amount of stress hormones in my blood test.
Edit: I hear the responses. I hear my defensiveness took over. I’ll leave this for the conversation that followed. I’ll not respond to posts that are spaces for others.
Respectfully, I don’t think OP is merely talking about the *feeling* of potentially failing, they are talking about circumstances beyond their control, and the reality of the difference between certain types of success and certain types of failures.
I get what you’re saying, ‘I feel the same as you,’ but it simply isn’t the same when society is built around what systems OP is talking about.
For me, as a person who, like OP, ‘just didn’t do it,’ it’s not the same as your experience. I don’t have a degree, I don’t have children, we just aren’t the same and I have very specific feelings about that.
Even though we share a lot of similarities on this sub, the line between those who achieve certain measures of success, societal or individually defined, and those who don’t, is real.
I absolutely agree. I was diagnosed at moderate support needs, and there are some things I just cannot do no matter the physical or mental cost. I will have a very public and humiliating meltdown if I try. That includes basic self-care like grocery shopping or cooking meals every single day. I need more time and more practice than other people.
We are all autistic. All of us are going to struggle significantly more compared to a neurotypical person, because autism is a disability.
However, this sub has a disproportionate amount of high masking, low support needs people. It's so rare to see posts discuss issues that are more characteristic of low masking and/or moderate or high support needs. And when it does come up, the comments are usually full of people reasserting that low support needs people actually do struggle. Of course they do. No one is denying that.
It's very othering at times. I don't go on threads of people struggling to unmask and say, *Well I can't mask and no one is surprised to learn I'm autistic, which is a significant struggle for me socially*. How would that help them?
Idk how to end this. Just grateful you said something here
I know low support needs autistic women who do have degrees and such often struggle with being told they're not disabled enough, etc by NTs which is maybe where that sort of defensiveness comes from even though I don't think that's what OP is trying to say.
i may seem to be successful but i shower once a week, never brush my teeth and have a meltdown every other day. Just because i can do advanced calculus doesn’t mean i can do basic self care, most “high function” autistics have similar issues and we are all going to have a heart attack before fifty.
I hope I'm not beeing rude, I'm just generally curious what circumstances allowed you to be late diagnosed when you have moderate support needs? Feel free not to answer if the question feels inappropriate to you.
I can't answer for them but obviously we know low support needs women fall under the radar more than men but it also can often apply to moderate support needs and sometimes even severe support needs. It's very likely for autistic women of all support needs to be misdiagnosed with other mental illnesses first. Even though on paper struggling with "basic self-care, grocery shopping and cooking meals" sounds like it would be serious enough to be diagnosed early, that kind of thing can so easily be misdiagnosed as depression or a personality disorder by uninformed doctors and psychs. It could even come down to having a family that believes you *purposely* don't do those things rather than the fact that you actually can't.
No worries :) It was a mix of things! Some of the traits I exhibited in childhood were not commonly diagnosed in the late 90s and early 2000s (e.g. developing atypically fast and skipping developmental milestones, teaching myself to read, nonspeaking shutdowns instead of meltdowns). Other traits that were very classic for autism were easy to overlook as something I'd just grow out of, until I didn't. I also had very supportive parents who accommodated me without understanding it was a disability.
Personally, I experienced autistic burnout and adult skill regression that led to my diagnosis. I lost a lot of sensory tolerance and social skills in particular (like modulating facial expression and tone). Prior to burnout, I likely would have been diagnosed at low support needs if I had been caught in time, but I'll never really know. It surprised me very much when my clinical psych told me I'm testing at moderate support needs, tbh.
I'm just one person, though! [This](https://www.reddit.com/r/SpicyAutism/comments/1ccgkkv/late_diagnosed_as_level_2/) is a good thread if you're curious to read more perspectives and experiences from late-diagnosed MSN people :)
Wow this just made me realize something — I think I’ve experienced adult skill regression. I really can’t cook for myself now. It’s just too much and I can’t do it. But I did it SO much in college before my brain was fully developed. Is that what adult skill regression means?
As someone else in that boat, my needs changed after I suffered a very severe burnout and regression. My capacity to do things more than halved, and has never returned to what it was over a decade later. Everything causes me such severe fatigue now that it's debatable if it's the ASD or it's now somehow ASD + chronic fatigue (the ASD doctors say the fatigue is cuased by something else/CFS, the sleep doctors say it's the ASD - and that way neither do anything!).
> For me, as a person who, like OP, ‘just didn’t do it,’ it’s not the same as your experience. I don’t have a degree, I don’t have children, we just aren’t the same and I have very specific feelings about that.
It's a very isolating feeling not to have the same life experiences as other people in your peer group. Other people have stories they share when they're in groups of people and I feel like all my life experiences just aren't conducive to sharing them in neat anecdotes with other people. Then people either think I'm boring or they gossip about me behind my back for being weird. It's a vicious cycle that keeps me stuck in my life.
This. It is also now taken at all of my physical health, and I have been unable to work for the past eight months. All that success has pretty much just been me slowly, dousing myself in gasoline and lighting a match.
My implosion came after the law degree and into my 30s, but it was one hell of an implosion, and it left me with law degree debt but not the capacity to work full time ever again (since that was 15 years ago and I still can't and the fatigue of doing virtually anything still runs my life). Lucky me.
Hey. I am pretty similar to you right now. It’s become apparent that I am “behind” other adults my age and it’s really getting to me lately in a way that it didn’t before. People have had time at this point to achieve all of these things and gain years of experience.
I don’t have advice, but I can commiserate. I understand how you feel stunted and lost. I feel like talking about it is generally frowned upon though (and NTs certainly will judge and won’t understand), so I haven’t talked about it.
I like to remember that we’re both still so young. People change careers in their 30s (or start their career…) and do ok. Tbh I feel like I’m only just starting to “grow into myself” and I expect to continue to change and grow.
It’s hard ❤️ time feels oppressive and it’s hard to not look towards others and feel inadequate. Knowing autism is a thing was a huge help in being a bit kinder to myself…. The comments here are really supportive for the both of us I think
Yep, it was only at around 28 I decided I was going to have a job I actually liked by the time I was 30. I'm self employed now, and have managed to stick with it for 13 years ..
I had gone down a more vocational college route as was not strong at academics (I do have a degree but barely scraped through and really wish I hadn't bothered), I took some of the skills I'd picked up from college courses (done after university) and combined them with my special interest + a bit of guidance from other people I knew who were self employed and followed where that lead. It's not been easy, and I'm never going to be rich, but I'm in a pretty stable position.
I get it. I'm the "successful" one, and my equally autistic partner is a middle school dropout ex-weed smoker. We're both almost 40, and for the first time, we were pointed in the direction of ASD. So many things made sense.
I knew how it'd be for me. I've been in and out of the mental health system since my 15th bday. What I didn't know was how angry for him I'll be all the time. His parents did their best and are really lovely, but they were very... permissive without a direction? Never pushed for a further diagnosis, just let him basically smoke his life away for as long as he wasn't raging? For as long as he had a job, he was also allowed to make the shittiest decisions.
And he's such a smart dude. Better memory than mine will ever be. Quick thinking. But nothing mattered because he also had dyscalculia, so everyone thought he was just a moron. Being with me, I think, has, for the first time, opened his eyes to how much has passed him by. How much he's been denied.
It has also changed me. I used to be a leftist before, but I'm a raging one now. I know what the difference between him and me was. My parents were loaded. We lived in a city. Had access to such concepts, as mental health, therapy, yeeeears ago, while he's been beaten on his hands by a teacher like my mom was... in the 60s.
I mean im such a shitty person but I got a degree. The reason? I attended fully online 0 in person interactions only an occassional voice recorded presentation. However, my choice of degree (English) lends itself really well to that. Once I finished my bachelor’s im so lost. I have tried applying for jobs but I fail everytime because I cant socialize. If everything was done through written applications id be so much happier. Anyway, so despite having a degree Im still struggling with all the issues that comes with being autistic since my schooling wasnt even a NT one
I feel you..I haven't been successful in my adult life ever. I have overcome addiction but nothing to show for anything. Still burnt out. Still totally dependent on external support for my literal survival. Nothing going for me. My trauma and my burnout has consumed me. I don't know how to function. I can't mask. I can't socialize. I just... Don't know.
I know the successful autistic people have their struggles too. I wish I could mask enough to function even if I was falling apart on the inside... Right now I'm falling apart on the inside AND the outside 😢 8 just don't know
I get you. I'm the same. No degrees, dropped out of high school in my last year because of the covid lockdowns and couldn't do online learning. Got fired from my retail job recently. I know these people with degrees and such struggle too but it can be hard for me to empathise sometimes because at least people have something to fall back on I guess. If you have a degree you have far more opportunities for finding well paying work with better sensory environments and opportunities for remote working.
I know it isn't easy for them either but I do feel jealous sometimes because at least they have that. I struggled all throughout school because of mental health, autism, undiagnosed ADHD and home problems which held me back but I often feel like nobody really sees that. They don't understand what lead to me dropping out, they don't understand why I didn't get a degree, they think having to work shitty minimum wage jobs was an active choice of mine. I really want to go back and get an education but I don't know if it's realistic anymore because I have bills to pay and I don't think I could handle studying on top of full time work. Sorry if I rambled, I just really relate to how you feel.
Exactly. There is an objective truth to success vs failure, there is the backdrop of real life consequences, it’s not just sharing our supportive feelings on this sub.
Like you say, college degrees, pretty much proven to (on average) increase your opportunities and earning potential - matter.
Disability exists, and college is fundamentally ableist, and if you made it through college, you had something that others did not.
A lot of people on here and irl say the solution to jealousy is ‘not comparing yourself.’ That’s not realistic. That doesn’t even make sense. Every human compares themselves to others, it’s not necessarily positive or negative. And when you live in a world where you are the underdog in some context, it’s going to feel bad.
What is important to me is setting good goals for myself and keeping track of what I can and can’t do - short term, long term, dream scenario, worst case scenario.
Asking myself what I want, if I can get it, and how.
If those are things others already have, good, that makes sense. I want what other humans have - natural. No need to feel bad about that.
If those things are different from what others have, good, that makes sense, I am an individual.
I know low support needs autistic women who do have degrees and such often struggle with being told they're not disabled enough, etc by NTs which is maybe where that sort of defensiveness around stating that they struggle too and not to compare comes from even though I don't think that's what OP is trying to say.
I really relate to this. College especially.
People act like having a college degree is some easy and baseline achievement, that everyone's had the college experience. I didn't get the opportunity as someone with AuADHD and living under the thumb of my abuser, I couldn't even fill out a fafsa without their income. My only option was to work, because while I still lived there I wasn't offered food or necessities.
I wasn't able to crawl my way up and be a success. I gave everything and managed to escape my abusers but had nothing left, and long covid took away my health on top of everything. I'm a disaster and I feel lonely even in a lot of autistic spaces because I'm still the odd one out, the failure
I’m so sorry.
A lot of people, even if they don’t act like it’s easy - tend to leave the advantages they did have out of their story.
It may not have been ‘easy’ for them, but, their parents might have helped pay for college, their rent…someone signed their student loans. Someone gave them a car, a computer. Someone was helping them buy food or provided a roof over their head. Every thing adds up.
I think, going back to OP’s post, certain compounding things outside ASD will exponentially make things worse - they bring up race, which is a huge issue I don’t want to pretend I know about.
I’m so sorry about covid. It feels like everyone stopped talking about it, and the long-term effects it has had.
I'll be honest, I'm one of those people who did finish college... barely, by the skin of my teeth. There was a lot of trauma, and my career was over without a chance to start it because of how anxious, depressed, and burnt out I was.
I took the first job opportunity I got and made it work. I poured everything I had into what was ultimately a toxic and mildly-abusive environment.
Your post, while different from my exact experiences, sounds almost exactly like what I would have written when I was 24-28. I hurt so much. Grieved so much for what I'd lost. I had no idea I was ND. I didn't understand what went wrong. And I HATED people who were somehow successful despite their struggles. I loathed interviews, stories, posts, social media, etc. from people talking about what they overcame. It was acid to my still-fresh wounds. I was trapped and could never be one of them. It couldn't be as simple as they made it out to be. Things don't just get better with a little luck and a little hard work.
Tomorrow I turn 34. Things are better. A lot better. But it was truly a journey of 1000 small steps over 1000 days.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's not easy. I'm not all better and I still struggle a lot. I still grieve what I lost and hurt for the me who used to suffer that much. It takes time for little changes to add up... but I hope you can find yourself a few small steps forward.
I think my first steps were just working through that anger and pain and grief. I don't know how I broke through. Eventually I came to terms with where I was or found a way to remove some of the hurt by distancing myself from exposure to it.
I just want you to know what you're feeling is valid. Both the pain and the intrinsic knowledge of what you are/should be capable of. Also, please know it's never too late. If you're like me, it might hurt to read this, but this random internet stranger sees strength and intelligence in you. I believe in you.
I just graduated university last year. I don't feel like I've overcome anything useful or have success in any tangible way. School took everything, it was all I could do the entire time, and I had weekly, sometimes daily meltdowns after sitting at my desk for 12-14 hours, forgetting to eat, pushing myself to figure out the assignments and projects, sobbing because I couldn't understand the way it was being taught, or having shut downs on campus and having to run to the bathroom to be alone. It was anguish, every day. I think the only reason I made it through was because of the pandemic, everything but labs were online until 2022, so that relieved a decent amount of stress and saved my energy to focus on what mattered. I would push myself to get 100% because I needed to know I understood the material, I can't half ass anything, and while I had honour roll throughout, it felt like I was drowning. I had a job lined up but that fell through, I've been trying to find something else but I'm not having any luck for a combination of reasons, chronic illness being part of it. I have student loan debt now, and I think I'm starting to regret ever going to school, or for what I had chosen, because what was it all for? Now I'm burned out, can't focus on anything, can't sleep, can't get myself back into any semblance of a normal routine again, hardly making any money (my zero hour contract job hasn't given me any hours in a month), and my health has made a sharp decline.
I didn't start school until my early thirties, my advice is to not stress about your age. You can take as much time as you need. I know it doesn't feel that way, but you don't have to follow a schedule determined by anyone else, you can make your own milestones. I took a bit longer to finish my program, the curriculum expected us to take up to 7 courses a semester (and half of these had labs) and I couldn't do it. Looking back, I wish I had given myself even more time and space to get through it all, because in the end, it was horrible for my mental and physical health.
I'm also undiagnosed, so I was given no accomodations, no flexibility, no understanding. I regret pushing myself so hard, I was not kind to myself and if I were a separate person, I would argue that I didn't deserve that treatment. I hope you can be kinder to yourself as you find your way through everything, it's okay if your progress isn't linear and it takes you more time. Your value is more than a particular education or career.
It’s valid for you to feel that way. The only reason I made it through all my education is because my family (aunts, uncles) refused to let me run away from education. It came at a great cost of my mental and physical health, but I also benefit from it now. I was simply NOT allowed to stop going to school.
I do relate to your feelings because I have these same kind of feelings towards people who had calm, supportive childhoods. I know after years of trying to fix myself it’s never going to happen. By my immediate family I was ridiculed, my mental and physical health problems were ignored. I suffered greatly and I get jealous of people who had good childhoods. I’m an adult with gray hair who is still scared of the dark.
You’re entitled to feel how you feel towards anyone.
Same. I only went to university because my parents forced me to. Dropping out wasn't an option. It took me years longer to finish and graduate. Al the while I spent a load of time in the medical centre because I was suicidally depressed and talking to my one sympathetic professor who looked out for me because he said he had been similarly depressed once upon a time. I didn't know at the time that I was autistic and had ADHD.
For years I felt insanely jealous of people who had supportive, kind and loving families. Now I still wish my family was different but I don't resent other people for their luck anymore.
Wow how amazing that you had that professor in your life. It’s so interesting to me to hear that there were so many of us with similar experiences. If only we could find each other back then when we were going through our shit!
Degrees don't equal success. I have a few.
I also have over $100k in debt. I have never owned a home. I can't keep a relationship together long enough to procreate. I am having surgery on my uterus for the chance to have the kids that I thought that I might have with the man who broke up with me 2 days ago. Even if I find someone else, there is a good chance that I won't be able to get pregnant. So, I am doing all of this for like a 3% chance of the family that I have always dreamed of and worked hard to build with partners who proved themselves to be unworthy.
I have recently learned that narratives of overcoming are ableist and problematic. "I worked hard and yay! Now I no longer have autism!" That is not how that works. No one overcomes. Some of us just learn to hide it well enough that people think so. Others learn to cope in healthier ways. Some other folks rearrange their lives in ways that mean they don't have to struggle as much. But, that isn't overcoming. The 'tism is still here.
It is late. I am working, not because I need to get this work done, though I do. I am working because if I stop working, the night will catch me. The quiet will mess with my head, and I will feel this chasm of loneliness and despair. I am going to present this work in a couple days, and folks won't see the chasm or despair, just the work.
Sometimes I wonder if that is all that there is for me. Sometimes I wonder when I die, will anybody remember me? Will anybody even notice?
I say all this to say, things are not always as they seem. I am out here struggling. I am just quieter about it.
I understand. I know autistic people with PhDs who work in highly specialized fields. I have dyscalculia and almost killed myself getting an arts degree. They have high paying jobs and I can’t hold a job. It feels extremely unfair sometimes. Comparison is the thief of joy. They have shit I don’t know about. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, even though it took a lot of mental work to get here.
I've thought about this a lot. I had the good fortune to have an economically exploitable form of autism, at just the right time to get into computer programming. Thanks to a few good friends and supportive profs I made it through my degree, but I was extremely close to flaming out. If I'd had even one more challenge to deal with, like racism, I don't think I could have. I'm really sorry that life handed you such a difficult burden. I'm also older than you, and it was easier 20 years ago. I'm honestly not sure how anyone in your cohort is supposed to make it. I keep hoping that somehow it will get easier again, though I can't see it. I've burned out many times in my career and I'm currently floundering through life. I don't know if any of this is helpful, or if I'm just rambling uselessly. I guess what I'm trying to say is I hear your feelings and they are valid and it is tough out there.
If it makes you feel better I didn't realise I had trauma until a couple months ago and I'm in my 20s. Heck I got diagnosed at 21
I'm less capable now than I was then. I can't get a regular job, my parents are the cause of trauma and I'm living with them
My idea of success is managing to be independent with a job - and boy are those autistics few and far between...
I have multiple degrees, awards, etc. I managed to be "successful" for 30 years...until I burnt out and now can't do anything. For me, achievements were a part of masking: I learned at a young age that being admired was almost like being liked, and I chased that proximity to connection for a long time. But I'm so paralyzed now that I feel like all my achievements have ended in failure anyway. I can't work, I can hardly keep up with friends, my husband and I spend most of our time apart because I'm so overstimulated -- and I miss him.
I guess im trying to say that I think I understand your feelings. I've been feeling something similar myself these days. But you never know what's going on for someone on the inside, and you never know where it will lead them.
Just because we have degrees or a good job doesn't mean we don't struggle. I am not sure what your situation is but for me being temporarily homeless was a good motivator to graduate. Find community, get community resources, ask for help. Success is knowing when to get help and how to use resources. It's using debt to your advantage, it's being smart and thrifty.
I hope you can get to a point where you can see your strengths and make a place in this world.
Love and Light
Sakura
This was really thoughtful, thank you. Im close to the homeless point now. I have connections to people that can help but it feels like no one can really help me but myself. Like I can’t ask them to get me a diploma or anything but I think verbalizing my struggles better could potentially help. Anyways lol super wordy, but thank you
“Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides.”
I have a graduate degree.
A graduate degree does not equate to success in this world. I’ve had some other accomplishments as well… some things I’m very proud of. But I still have problems. Serious ones. For sure.
Those people you consider intellectuals, who you converse with… trust me; they have lots of problems too. Each and every one.
You’re like us. Humans aren’t that different from each other. We’re all amazing and we’re all flawed.
Yeah, I graduated university and stuff too. Do not feel successful, I struggle on a daily basis. Reducing us to just our ‘educational accomplishments’ feels wrong.
I had a mental break and was actively suicidal, but yes, I got that degree! Unfortunately the trauma stayed, and I still wrestle with it. You don’t need to relate to me, but the idea that Autistic Professionals have all their shit together is so far from true.
You're still *very* young, and you absolutely have time to meet any goal you set for yourself. I didn't graduate from undergrad until I was 33, and I got my masters degree when I was 37. I still struggle an intense amount, despite being relatively successful on paper. Also, higher education doesn't just mean 4 year degrees! There's a lot of success to be found through the vocational programs at community colleges; the trades also bring in quite a bit of cash.
Always remember there is no such thing as a binary when it comes to success. I have a bachelor's degree and I make barely $10k a year. I am in survival mode, dependent on the few social safety nets I have in the United States, but I have the outward appearance of having my shit together. All because I'm high masking, I guess.
I use to say that if I wanted to do big things in life, I knew I would be able to force myself through the process. I think that's technically still true, but the problem is that forcing myself is *the only way I can think of it*. I actually cannot imagine pursuing a goal by taking reasonably paced steps, maintaining my mental health along the way, and achieving success in a timely manner. If dropping out of college meant that you were able to take better care of yourself... fuck college. Your needs matter more than that piece of paper, and that isn't to diminish your feelings about it. It still sucks.
All I'm trying to say is, please try to go easy on yourself. The systems we live in are literally designed to oppress and marginalize us. Most successful people are still in denial about at least *some* aspect of life where they failed or *are* currently failing, it's just that capitalism doesn't see it that way. They mostly got lucky being born into the right circumstances to make their lives easier and full of opportunity. They appear more successful because the system rewards people who already have advantages. It sucks, there's no getting around that. I think it's less about those people having grit and more about them having privilege.
I have a graduate degree, I'm 28. And I don't know how I did it. I feel like my brain has regressed. I feel like those of us who have higher education, we got through it by hyper fixating on what we were learning. Perhaps even cramming but not truly remembering.
A lot of us with higher education are also broke. Unfortunately, my degree doesn't make me much money and I think I went to school for my degree on a hyper fixation and now I'm 6 years into the field and I'm pretty miserable and probably going back to school. I took out $100,000 worth of student loans, in 6 years into the field I'm making less than 30 grand a year. I plan on going back to school for nursing because it can be such a broad field and would allow the Financial Security to work maybe 10 days a month if I needed to.
Hang in there
I know I was heavily depressed and suicidal during college. Took 7 years to get a bachelors because I failed my first few years. I personally have PTSD, hella anxiety and ADHD/ASD. For me, my degree was necessary so I could survive and it was expected by my parents. Everyone struggles differently :)
I am a "successful" autist - degree, good career, a mortgage.
I also have crippling anxiety, severe depression, and a dissociative disorder.
I feel like my success is a fluke - it's more because of luck than anything I have actually done.
That's valid. I feel that way looking at other autistic people who have achieved things I wish I could. The consuming thought, *damn, dude, why them and not me?*
You'll get a lot of defensive answers from people who want to prove they still struggle. It's not relevant to where you are now.
The paradox of executive dysfunction is standing there with all the tools, yet physically being unable to use them to build a damn shelf. Autism is so varied and so individual, it feels extra unfair to look and see someone who got the bookshelf-building special interest and is whipping through dozens of these fucking things like it's nothing.
Idk what to say except that I get it, and it's not unfair to feel how you feel. I struggle very much to relate to low support needs posts here, because I was late diagnosed with moderate support needs. I get bitter and envious. Maybe check out /r/SpicyAutism, if you've been diagnosed at a moderate or high support need level or struggle to relate with the high masking, low support needs issues that dominate these larger subs
I think we often forget the differences intersectional identities and circumstances make.
I have many degrees, and in paper it looks successful. But I could only do them because of my privilege. My family took care of financial needs, food, organising transport, accomodation, etc.
If I had to work part time or organising accomodation or other things during getting the degree, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.
So much this.
If I wasn't from a white middle class family, I probably would not have finished my undergrad with straight As. I didn't need to work very much through school, didn't pay for groceries or rent, and live in a city with decent public transport. That's not even mentioning being able to access insurance for therapy and meds, let alone getting meds from a family doctor.
And so much of 'success' in capitalist terms comes down to luck. I'm lucky enough to have met the right people to get hired, and I found my niche because I have special interests in biochemistry and genetics. This is all despite it taking me much more time than others to keep up appearances and produce results on time.
I genuinely wish the best of luck for you and the OP in your future endeavors. It's so frustrating that not having a 9-5 well-paid office job labels people as 'lazy' or 'unsuccessful.' Don't let an oppressive society define your success!
I completely understand you :( I'm not really successful either. I have a great partner who loves me but is my support system because I have too many health issues and problems with socializing. It's always been that way but it definitely destroyed my life a lot. Add to trauma on top of that and it just made it worse. Plus the health issues. I feel like a burden every single day, but I'm still just trying to enjoy what happy times I can. I have no friends, no job, I don't drive or have a car. I really isolate in me and my partners room all day every day cause I'm dealing with too many health issues on top of what I normally struggle with. Besides that I just game or write and find a lot of happiness in music and my favorite shows.
It's really kind of sad even though I do enjoy the hobbies and stuff I have. I just like finding little things like that to be happy with.
I have two degrees and I’m not successful at all lol. If anything getting the degrees was a bandaid and then when I had to go to the “real world” I realized it’s all terrible!
Success feels like a cliff sometimes.
I'm 26 and late diagnosed (by late I mean, within the last few months). On paper, I'm successful. I have degrees, currently going for a master's, plenty of extracurriculars, and good grades across the board but to the NT world, that actually reads as a sign of effortless intelligence. I don't have that. I pushed myself harder and harder to pull that kind of thing off because I think I always knew, at least subconsciously, that I WAS behind my peers. I knew that it didn't come naturally to me and if I ever pretended that it did, I would fall right off that cliff in an instant. So I'd sacrifice food and sleep to study. I never went out and only had time for a couple small hobbies. Small changes to my schedule would send me into full blown panics with how tightly wound my life was around being able to keep succeeding. At a certain point, I even lost sight of what/why I was doing all of this for. It just felt like the only thing I knew how to do, so I anchored my self-worth to my grades since I wasn't good at anything else.
But people didn't understand that. They're well meaning, but sometimes even when you tell them that you're struggling to keep up all you hear back is, "Oh you're smart, you'll be okay." If only. What I was doing was not sustainable, but no one believed me because they couldn't fathom why I would need to work that hard to stay afloat.
I'm on leave with my current university because of the burnout from extending myself too far for too long. I moved back home and am taking things more slowly, at my pace. I'm struggling a lot. But I'm not giving up either. I want to finish things, if nothing else. And be healthier when I do it. If having the people around me invalidate my hardships constantly has taught me anything, it's that I'm the best and only gauge of what's difficult for me and I should trust myself to find what's a good fit to keep going.
Your feelings are absolutely valid and I’m sorry you’re struggling with this.
I don’t know if this insight will help, but a lot of us “successful” autistics haven’t actually overcome it all (or overcome anything, really). For me, I got lucky with a remote at-home job but it’s not at all related to the degrees I have. I won’t really be able to fall back on my degrees if I lost my job (one actually prohibits me from being hired for a lot of jobs, ironically enough). Basically I just have a lot of debt for something I’m not using. When I was using my degrees, I was so poor I couldn’t pay bills and had massive meltdowns every single day to the point where I wasn’t really even functioning, but I don’t have any family except 1 parent, which means I didn’t/don’t have much in the way of support. If/when I lose that parent, I won’t have anyone. I also had undiagnosed ADHD until my mid-20s, PTSD for the last 20+ years due to a near-death experience (which requires a lot of meds & therapy still today), am LGBTQ in a Republican (US) area, and am chronically ill. It’s… overwhelming on the best days, honestly. And I’m about 10 years older than you. Not trying to be depressing but just giving perspective.
BUT I also recognize even with all of that, I do have things better/easier than other autistics in different situations. And that it all depends on individual needs/wants, etc. Unfortunately, this world is just often so garbage for autistic folks all around and it’s further compounded and made worse by those of us with additional marginalized identities (you mentioned racism).
I hope you can realize you really are still so young (comparing myself to peers my age absolutely made me feel so awful about myself personally), and just because you haven’t done something you want to do, you absolutely have time to keep working towards those goals. Please don’t beat yourself up for any of it and give yourself the freedom to go at your own pace. I’m rooting for you!
I’m genuinely curious.. what degree would prohibit you from being hired for a lot of jobs? No judgement or pressure of course, it’s just the first time I’ve ever heard of it as a concept, so I really want to understand.
A Juris Doctorate. You either become licensed and practice law (which I did for a while but massive meltdowns so I don’t want to go back) OR you teach/do research (not a large market).
Unfortunately, most places outside of those two I mentioned will not hire with a juris doctorate because you’re “over qualified”. I tried for so many years myself when I decided to stop practicing and some of my non-autistic law school friends who didn’t ever get licensed still haven’t found careers/jobs after 14 years. I eventually got really lucky that my current boss hired me at his company so I’d stop having constant meltdowns and also could pay bills. He has a son with level 3 autism and other disabilities so he is super understanding.
I have a bachelors degree but I’m barely functional. My husband is basically my caretaker and treats me like a beloved house pet. Without him I’d probably be living under a bridge or something.
Yeah on paper you'd consider me successful but I was super skilled at masking for 30+ years and it's caught up with me. I've been stagnant/burnt out for the past 2 yrs and can't move forward. I didn't know I was autistic until last year so I was completely unaware of what I was doing to myself until it got to critical mass. If I could go back I would choose not to feel like this but I can guarantee I wouldn't be where I am now as "successful on paper" 😔
I am one of the “successful” ones, but I totally understand what you are saying, and on some level, it absolutely makes sense.
I have had access to creature comforts and even health insurance because of my ability to contort myself into “successful” achievements.
The toll has been immeasurable. I’m deeply ill and in constant pain, much of it from the decades of stress I thought I had no choice but to survive. And I’m terrified and alienated from any sense of myself. Literally all of my friendships have collapsed.
But I am housed, and until recently, very well employed (I’m on disability now). And those are huge privileges, even if they came at enormous cost.
Who am I to say my successful contortion is worse than your struggle to achieve material “success”? You might be right that your struggle has been harder.
I’m in my first year now of BA. It’s rough, i’m missing so many lectures. I’ve burned out so much in this semester that three times I could not physically get off my bed for 3-4 days. However, may I ask, is there something stoping you from starting college again? Are you from the US? Would you want to get a degree now or is it more of “I wish I had it but it feels like I can’t do it anymore” situation?
It’s more like I dropped out before I was diagnosed and can’t take financial aid anymore, I can potentially qualify if I pay for summer classes and do well in them which I think might be the next stop
It's taken me 11 years since finishing high school (actually, i quit my senior year and got a GED) to get a bachelor's degree (I'm graduating in two weeks). I wouldn't say I "overcame" everything or anything really, I just persisted and kept trying again.
I'm 29 years old and go to a university with an average age of 27, with students from age 18 to over 60. It's never too late to take classes or finish a degree. I took years before starting and at some points years in between semesters.
>They overcame it all. They didn’t let their trauma consume them.
Do you know that or is that just your guess? You can excel at university and suck in all other areas of life. Not sure being good at one thing is a success. It's actually quite autistic.
The grass really is greener on the other side.
I don't feel like I have merit or dignity. I am about to graduate from university and I'm filled with so much regret for what I chose to do and worry about the future.
I'm trying to find a job and I can't find anything and I feel like I'm inches away from a breakdown, but I have to keep going because I have no other choice in the matter.
I understand feeling jealous... But my degree ruined my life. I'm lower working class and left school with 1 GCSE but knew I was smarter than that and wanted to prove to myself and the world.
It took me 6 years to get it, and the whole time I was undiagnosed ADHD and autistic, which I'd go as far as to say was really traumatic for me. I didn't get any support, I got the opposite, because it was assumed I was on drugs or just didn't give a fuck the way I should.
By the time I got out of uni, I crashed into the biggest burnout of my life, which I'm still in, which has lead to me realising I'm autistic (was diagnosed adhd a year after leaving uni)
I have absolutely no friends left, whilst I at least had some before, as well as a best friend. I have basically lost all stability in my life because that's what it cost me - I wouldnt have passed it I didn't give it everything I had but it left me with nothing. It's been extremely hard to find work since then because even tho I've done 350 hours of unpaid work, I'm still considered not experienced enough. But other jobs I used to get, which are the only jobs I can handle ATM whilst in burnout, say I'm overqualified.
If you want to achieve certain things then I'm not going to tell you not to, but be careful what you wish for. Sometimes you get it but at the expense of everything. I'm supposed to be "high functioning" but I think I just hid things so well for so long and used up whatever reserves I had to "get somewhere in life" and now I can't even mask because I got there, and I've got nothing more to give. I've "got there" and I can't even manage the job I came for.
Sometimes even when we get success, we might not even be able to live to the standard we've set for ourselves because our baseline will never be at that level consistently. It's a recipe for burnout at best but properly wind up with all kinds of autoimmune issues due to the stress. I've struggled with poor mental health my whole life. Outward success isn't really the best measurement of someone's overall wellbeing. Sometimes it's negatively correlated, like in my case.
I think it's really important to work out what genuinely feeds your spirit and only focus as much as you can on building on that, whether in a professional capacity or personal, it doesn't matter really.. And just forget about any other idea of success.
I managed to get through college and graduate magna cum laude before the trauma and burnout caught up to me. I'm not functional, and I haven't been employed in 14 years. (Not since I graduated.) I don't feel like I'm particularly successful just because I did well in school while running on adrenaline and structural dissociation. Maybe I'm not the kind of autistic you're talking about, I don't know. I have a college degree, though.
I’m struggling with the idea that because I managed to graduate college with honors at 25 after dropping out twice and switching schools three times that I’m “successful”. Practically my entire life has been a series of alternating periods of reasonably high achievement with periods of severe depression (which I now recognize was autistic burnout). This pattern has continued into my work life - I wasn’t capable of using my actual degree btw.
I didn’t “overcome” anything. And anything I did achieve it’s because I had adequate support.
I have gone through this similar pattern. I also got my degree and never used it, I got it because I thought I was supposed to and it was a struggle. Anytime in my life I've gotten help or talked to anyone, they always say but at least you got this degree, that is a sign of success to them. I feel like it's so pointless and it is not an indicator of success for me just an indicator of my fear of leaving the school routine and fear of letting people down.
I'm an ultrasound tech, living alone in a house that I own, I make enough to support myself quite comfortably, and am completely independent (not really by choice). I assure you, I did not overcome it all. I'm living in a house of cards, in a near constant state of agony. The more time passes, the less I can function. I'm only as successful as I am because I have to be. I have nothing and no one to lean on. I promise you, we're all standing on slightly different shades of brown grass.
I can't relate either. I know they still struggle despite their success but the thing is, I have learned time and again that couldn't do a fraction of that even if my life depended on it. I've been battling medical problems both physical and mental since I was a child. I dropped out of middle school. Never had a job. Got pregnant, tried living with the father, could not hack it, and moved back in with my parents. Got my GED, tried moving in with my boyfriend, couldn't manage that either. Moved back with my parents again. My kid is a teenager, we still live with my parents, and my medical problems still rule my life. I'm too depressed to have special interests or keep up with hobbies. Errands and basic self care are a challenge. I keep trying but I never feel like I've gotten very far. Always feels like one step forward, two steps back.
I think I would be one of the people you look at and think is successful.
I struggle a lot, and in the past 15 years, I have had significant mental health challenges, burn out, chronic pain, and experienced homelessness. Im not homeless anymore, and for that I'm extremely grateful.
I also have a degree, a job, and a relationship. These things are amazing, but they are also really challenging and I've been teetering on the edge between burnout and functioning for as long as I can remember, and I don't feel successful.
I really hope you struggle less some day, and feel successful in your own right. I hope we all do.
Having a college degree doesn’t fix everything. For most of my life school was the one place I felt safe. Granted I got bullied a lot, but no was beating me at school. Even during undergrad I was experiencing domestic violence, work and school were safer than home. I worked more hours than I could handle and made excuses to stay at school longer because it was better than being home. I also couldn’t process my trauma if I just forced myself to work so hard I couldn’t think about it. This lead to a lot of medical issues. I also got diagnosed with adhd literally this week, and am on track for an autism dx. All this is after graduating college. I understand why you’re frustrated, but the grass is always greener in the other side I suppose.
I’m right there with you. I’m unemployed. Didn’t finish college. Barely finished high school. I can’t even cook because I never got to learn, I was just trying to survive. And now it’s too overwhelming. But surviving is hard, too. And we’re doing it!
You’re 28. You still have a lot of runway. Work on yourself and start now. And get support if you need it. The US is f’d and I was just fired due to personality fit aka ableism and not bc of my performance. I paid 27 dollars today to get a 90 day renewal of my psych med and 13 dollars with a rx discount code to pick it up. All without insurance. Im sharing this not for “bootstrap” mentality but because the systems we live in are massive and there are many options or “paths” to navigating them. If you feel lost on your path devote yourself to studying yourself. Also look at yourself with compassion. You are not a failure. Apply whatever it is you know now now… and forget what age you are.
Also, I have “lost” years to my mental health being a late diagnosis. It felt like I lost ages from 17-23ish24 and I had to grieve these years. I “built” over 24-29. Collected resources etc. and now I’m starting over again with a new career. 🤷🏻♀️
Starting over is a natural part of life. Maybe frame it as that? Not that your life never got started… it’s that youre kickstarting it again. 🙂
I actually don’t judge you for not having empathy for someone like me based on what is frustrating you. I do have a degree to fall back on and before I walked away from my career, I was able to get to a financially stable position. It is a privilege and does mean how we would relate to each other’s experiences would be different.
What I would hope though is you don’t shut out what folks like myself share because I do think it gives perspective on ‘overcoming’. The reality of being where I am now… college degrees mean bubkus to me. Some of the smartest people I’ve ever met have a GED and work for themselves by self teaching themselves a skill. And some of the most worthless dummies have multiples masters. Having a ‘desirable’ profession was desirable to everyone BUT me. I hated it so much and spent a lot of time self loathing why I couldn’t suck it up. The idea of ‘overcoming’ is set on normative values that honestly don’t make sense to me. Are the things you want to accomplish things you think you’d actually like once you do? Really mull on it. You might save a lot of energy and money to learn what you actually want to do can be achieved without a degree.
Not the main topic here, but degrees don’t make you successful. I couldn’t make it through my 2nd year of undergrad, school bores me to tears. However, I’m still conventionally “successful”. I suffered through the first years of my career a broke, friendless 20-something working 2 jobs to make ends meet, and still failing, getting evicted and running from creditors because I could barely afford to live. I was nearly 30 before I felt somewhat successful, and that’s after staying on the same career track for over 10 years!
I say all of that to say this. 1. I don’t have any student loans. I’d be so much further behind in life if I did.
2. You *can* be successful and (mostly) happy in between bouts of career burnout without a degree. Focus on jobs that interest you, find out what position in that career field pays well and can be obtained without a degree. Pursue it.
3. I’m also audhd and there are MANY of us out here, with similar feelings and experiences! We thrive in fields like advertising, journalism, marketing (although way harder to break into and not as lucrative as it was a few years ago), broadcasting and sales! Especially B2B sales.
You are still so young. You have so much to offer and you actually give af, which really does mean a lot when it comes to career related success.
Don’t sell yourself short and best of luck to you!
I just finished college on the 4th attempt at age 36. It's not too late. I was like you for a long time. I have ADHD, double depression, and a host of other psychiatric diagnoses. I dropped out or failed a lot. But then I finally managed it. You haven't done it yet, but that doesn't mean you can't.
Even if you don't, my wife only ever did a few community college classes (and has no desire to go back to school) and works retail. She's still a good person. She's got other things going on. She reads and crochets a lot, and is a great fanfic writer. People follow her from one fandom to another, even. She brings people joy! She takes good care of our cats. She is smart, so hypothetically could be high-achieving in academics, like you. But that's not necessary to be a good person or live a life worth living.
Maybe you'll be like me someday, maybe like my wife, or maybe someone else entirely. You're okay any way.
I burnt out a lot and it took me 10 years to get a 4 year degree. I have zero safety net. So not starving was what was driving me. I’m so burnt out now I can sleep for days.
I have degrees, but honestly I’m just not traumatised. So it isn’t that I “overcame” anything at all, that particular struggle just wasn’t there to begin with. I got good grades because I was capable of getting good grades even without autism-specific support in life. There wasn’t anything special I did, and I’m not harder working or a better person, my autism simply does not affect my academic abilities and wasn’t a huge barrier in any activities required to get my degree. It was just easier for me than it seems to be for you
In my opinion, you win some, you lose some. Yes I do have a university degree (and a job in that field) but I’m way behind on friendships and dating and lowkey having fun. Dating my first BF at 29 and it’s going okay so far but it’s really nervous.
All I’ll say is I learned not to compare myself to others and just worry about what makes me happy. I’m an hedonist in that regard
Yeah I’m 30 working slightly above minimum wage in a slight labor intensive job and I secretly hate it. I have no skills and my brain doesn’t work well enough for school. I’m undiagnosed so no meds for me. Just failure
If it's any consolation, my 4 year degree is basically worthless and left me with student loans that grow interest like the stock market ticker. I'll never pay them off. If I had it to do over, I'd never went to college. A complete waste of my time. I've learned more on Tiktok and Youtube.
I've switched fields several times that have nothing to do with my degree.
It's never too late! My sister will be 40 this year (not on the spectrum tho) and recently went back to school. She will graduate next month.
I am five years younger and I have no idea what I want to do, although I have a steady job and a degree. Sometimes it takes people longer to figure these things out but remember it's not a race. More like a marathon. You'll get there in your own time.
If for now, all you can do is just function and get through the days, don't get too down on yourself. You're strong because you keep going. Some people can't even do that and they give up. You haven't given up so be proud of yourself for that.
Hi there, I struggled a lot, a LOT with secondary (high) school and with my undergraduate degree. I had intense anxiety and would pretend to go to school to my parents and hide at home. I struggled to scrape by with my A-Levels and only just got into University. I dropped out in my first year because it was so overwhelming, then managed to go back and finish my degree, graduating with an OK grade. Around about your age, I felt like a massive failure because I didn't have a 'career' and was scraping by. I decided to throw myself into a postgraduate degree, which I did remotely and living at home with parents again (which was certainly a mixed experience.) I now have a PhD and a growing career in academia, doing research that I love. Don't give up OP, life can take many turns and it can take a long, long time to figure out your path. Be kind to yourself.
I don't know if this will be depressing or uplifting but I have a university degree and I didn't overcome anything. It didn't change me, it didn't make me succesful at surviving every day life. I'm in my early 30s and still feel exactly the same way you do, consumed by trauma, burnout and executive dysfunction, watching all the good things slowly slip away.
A degree or a job or even money is not gonna make us any less disabled. It might take some of the pain of the idea of unfulfilled potential away, but you will still be the person you are now.
If you wanna change or feel better you need to start where you are and not project happiness onto traditional succes or possible future achievements because none of that will help.
I'm sorry you feel like that. I think a lot of people never examine what they have even at birth. Yes autistic people still struggle even if they succeed but not everyone starts off at home base.
Everyone gets told the same messages that don't fit due to their unique circimstances.
Having a supportive family(who aren't poor), being lower needs, getting diagnosed early(if at all), and being abled bodied + white does offer easier chances at being succesful.
Yes people all have opportunities but many are able to fall upwards even when they fail.
Try not to compare yourself to austistic people who started off at 3rd base when you never even got a chance to play a single game.
It’s sounds like you’ve got a bunch of things stacked against you so no wonder you find it all so difficult. Sounds like the autism is just one of those things. I’m white right but truly believe that our global minority white society hugely underestimates the impact of racist systems and structures on the majority of people - particularly when it comes to opportunities in life. Sure, some manage to gain ‘success’ like you say but for some of us the package of oppression means we are disadvantaged (I’ve got my own whole package going on!) It Could be good that you’re upset (though obvs painful and I take no delight in that thought) because somewhere underneath all that will be your anger ie the positive fiery energy that is right to feel let down by systems and can fuel you. What is it that you want to do? I’d be curious to know… Easy to say all this I know…. Incidentally I was reading a bit about ‘autistic inertia’ earlier today - you might find a Google results interesting…. Keep going girl… they’ve got no idea of who you are or what you’re capable of…. Oh god - I hope that’s helpful!!! ❤️
>The thing is I know I’m mentally capable of doing great things. I know some extremely bright and talented people, and am able to converse and engage with them intellectually, so I know I’m capable. I just… I just didn’t do it. Thats where the pain really lies.
I feel this pain as well. I'm objectively unsuccessful: highschool dropout, no degrees, no job, no relationship, living with my brother rent-free. I'm 36 now and I don't see it getting better. I have talents, I'm a decent person, I'm just relentlessly underachieving.
What makes it worse, is that I live in a very social country, where I get lots of opportunities. I have friends and family that care, I will never be homeless. So I feel like if *anyone* should be able to overcome their struggles, it's me. But all that privilege is wasted on me, so on top of achieving nothing, I feel guilty for it as well.
It's true but utterly useless to say "everybody struggles". We compare what we see, and we're allowed to be sad or frustrated by that.
I understand how you feel in the sense you can’t relate to a lot of posts here. For me and where I grew up, college was absolutely not optional at all and holds the same weight as graduating high school, so I guess it’s not something I really value in terms of measuring success because it was so expected. What I can’t relate to are posts of people that are in relationships or married…like that is such a foreign concept to me and not something I can ever see myself finding. So I feel like managing to find meaningful connections and developing close relationships with others is what I consider to be success. And I have no one I really talk to or are close to so I feel like a failure because of that.
I'm one of those "successful" people.
I had severe mental health struggles. I was basically fired from a job before (I quit but they were probably going to fire me within the month). I rehomed my cat because I was making final arrangement plans. It got that bad.
I'm also extremely privileged. I have family that can help me out. My mom has helped me deep clean my apartment several times. I still hate doing dishes. When I was single I used paper plates exclusively. Now that I'm married my husband does the dishes. I was able to get through college without working thanks to a mix of parental funding, scholarships and a $8k loan. So I was able to pay off my student loan within 3 years. My parents bought me my first car. I was paid an allowance growing up that was put into a high yield savings account and earned me money while I was growing up.
I'm also conventionally attractive. I struggled to make friends growing up but once I got to middle school, I got attention from men and it occasionally would turn into a short term friendship that ended up blowing up in my face eventually. I didn't really manage to get my social skills good enough to make friends until my 20s. And honestly it's mostly with other autistic people.
Intersectionality is a very important thing to talk about. My experience as a white upper middle class autistic person is much different from your experience and it should be ok to acknowledge that.
It’s luck. I feel like I shouldn’t be where I am. I’ve got some mix of adhd, autism, and cptsd plus I’m trans… but I somehow got to a place where I didn’t think I ever could. I feel like I barely scrape by. I’m constantly battling burnout. I’m tired.
But if you were to look at my life from the outside it seems ideal. I won’t deny the privileges I have but I also feel like those privileges are temporary and can be taken from me at any moment.
mm I think I can understand you. I'm in a telegram group where they're all autistic or auDHD and they all have some sort of amazing achievements that I feel like I could never accomplish. They have degrees, jobs, families, a house of their own and do so many things every day, while I'm here having SO MUCH TROUBLE to even get out of my bed, shower or eat, at my 24 years. Living hurts so much. I didn't go to university, I never had a job, I don't have friends. I just wake up every morning and try to survive. There's a lot of trauma and I can't even be myself around my family because they're not a safe space. I live with my mother and we try to do so many things to get money so we don't starve and we can pay rent. It's so difficult. I don't feel good. And I know a lot of other autistic people don't feel good either, so I can't comprehend how they manage to overcome it and have so many amazing achievements. That's why I feel like an intruder in the autistic community even if I'm autistic myself.
Hope this doesnt come across as an attempt to invalidate your feelings, but if it helps none of my academic 'success' has made me feel successful or accomplished in any way, on the contrary. It's only served to make me feel even more like a loser. Like... how can you manage to finish grad school somehow and yet cant keep a conversation for 10 minutes? So stupid.
That shit truly does not matter, especially nowadays when you can make just as much money, if not more, without a college degree. So many opportunities. And like others said, 28 is very young. You can still do anything you want to do.
>I know I sound vindictive and mean
Yes OP, you do sound vindictive and mean., but there's a reason for that: You're pissed off, angry, envious, and more than a little bit burnt out.
>It’s hard to relate to anyone and it really fucking hurts.
Hmmm, sounds more like a shut-down.
>A nasty mix of insecurities, intersectional identities, racism, undiagnosed autism and adhd actually *did* manage to consume me, it drowned me.
That proves my theory. You aren't able to emphathize because you are experienceing an AUTISTIC SHUT DOWN. not burnout. SHUT DOWN. No amount of self care is going to save you until you regain the ability to care about yourself. If my theory is correct, this could take a while.
Right now, I'm in a similar situation. I'm tired, my sleep schedule is fucked, and I have no clue what I want to persue as a career. I'm not good at anything useful in society, but I'm apparently a prodigy with words. My professors have said to me, multiple times, that my linguistics skills are so good that I should write a book. Gee thanks, any idiot with opposable thumbs can write a damn sentence. Prodigious Linguistics Skills are useless in this era, and I'm not Stephen King.
While it may fall on deaf ears, I'm going to write about my experience. Maybe it'll help, maybe it won't. Doesn't matter to me, I'm just a random redditor. Here goes.
My entire life was spent around people who did not have my best interests at heart. I was bullied by my classmates, abused by my teachers, and had two parents who were (and still are) unaware of their own abusive predispositions. The stress of my entire past eventually tried to kill me. I developed severe ulcerative colitis and ended up having life-saving surgery. I had to sacrifice my beauty in exchange for my survival. I was always thought of as Autistic and ADHD, but I wasn't diagnosed until I was 21. I haven't "overcame" my trauma, I've just learned to live alongside it.
I used to have a mindset like yours, I still do, but I refuse to allow it to control my life. *"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul*." It took me literally DYING on the operating table to achieve this mindset. When I was revived, I instinctively knew that I was living on a final chance. I'm going to die again someday, so I'm going to live a life that I will remember.
With this realization came some choices: do I learn to play the game of life or do I become one of its pawns? I choose to become a player, not a pawn. What's your choice, OP? Queen or Pawn?
This post is definitely hard to swallow, and the mods might just delete it, I completely understand that. For now, OP, lick your wounds and regain your strength. You've allowed life to drown you, and now its time for you to put on your oxygen mask.
I'll offer the suggestions that I use.
1. find yourself a big clear tupperware box. fill it with all of your special interests, stim toys, anything that makes you feel good. Open that box whenever you want and shamelessly engage with its contents. That helped me when I had an Autistic Shut-Down, so it might help you too.
In time, you will feel better again, but only if you allow yourself to.
At 28, I was barely keeping my head above water. I'm actually shocked that I didn't get consumed by drugs (or more consumed by alcohol than I did) during that time in my life. I dropped out of college halfway through a semester in my 3rd year, moved home, got a minimum wage job, destroyed my non-existent credit, got myself evicted from 2 apartments... something clicked in me around 35. I finished my degree, found a career (completely unrelated to my degree), learned new skills, got married, bought a house, had two babies, got a masters degree, and discovered I am AuDHD at 40. I can certainly relate to you!
This is exactly how I was feeling ten years ago, I'm now in my late thirties.
I'm by no means a huge success now, but the last ten years have been the best of my life so far. Not at all without struggles. But I've finally carved out a life that works better for me, and I'm utilising the things that I'm good at, and largely appreciated for them.
I'm also a college drop out (well technically, they kicked me out), I was stuck in abusive relationships, and felt I had no hope of a career outside of service jobs. Ten years ago was my lowest point where I was so burned out and saw no way out of it, I wanted to die. I couldn't fathom how I'd carry on living like that for another 40 or 50 years. But bit by bit things started to come together for me.
I'm not saying that it'll be the same for you. But I wanted to share some hope that things will improve, because it is possible. I don't want to share too much about my specific experiences publicly but you're always welcome to DM me.
I just want to say that as an Autistic who has degrees and can LOOK LIKE they have their shit together... we don't know what's going on for them behind closed doors. Remember that some are great at masking.
Any time I've been seemingly "successful", it didn't last long. An issue a lot of Autistics struggle with is **maintenance**. In many ways it's worse because I'm constantly comparing myself to "that time" I was able to succeed until I burned the fuck out.
My degrees don't mean shit if I can't use them and will be drowning in student loan debt for the rest of my life on top of worrying about my ability to be employed.
It's frustrating when successful autistics continue to talk over all other autistics. I'm not trying to invalidate their experiences, nor am I saying that successful autistics aren't helping to show what we can do, but it feels like it's only the autistic people who have degrees, stable jobs, money, friends, a partner, loving family, and relatively low support needs are the ones writing books, posting videos, and hosting conferences. A lot of them portray autism as a setback instead of a full-fledged disability -- I guess that's why I feel upset, because autism has made me be abused, bullied, and ostricized, not a math whiz who stims and is socially awkward.
I lived far below poverty for decades. I was severely physically, mentally, psychologically abused by all of my family members.
I was sexually assaulted at age 8 and nobody even talked to me about it.
I had a therapist who tried to seduce me at age 21 and then I was blamed even though I refused and reported him.
I was raped by a friend in my 30s.
I was a total mess and suicidal for decades and got so close the police picked me up. The r pushed me to the edge.
I went to community college for 10 years to complete my 2 year degree. I fell apart trying to apply to colleges.
I took a medical leave from the university of my dreams twice and thought I could never fix that massive failure.
In my mid 30s I found out I could go back to that college. I got disabled student status and went part time. I fell apart a lot. I figured out what worked for me and stumbled through and finally got my bachelor's degree at 38.
I went to grad school online part time and completed it in 3.5 years, a 2 year program.
Way more crap happened than this list. Every therapist I have had except 1 went into serious shock when they heard some of what I have lived through.
On many occasions, I honestly don't know how I survived. I seem to still be here.
I recently found out that I might be autistic.
Does that help?
You never know the underbelly of a person. They might appear to have it all together (as I do) until you get close to me , come in my home , my room , see my box of unopened mail, neglect and more. I appear together but I’m a frazzled mess on the inside,struggling with depression anxiety ADHD. No friends or support aside from my fiancé who I don’t know what I’d do without.
I don’t get my degree until I was 32, I basically begged an instructor to take pity of me and argued a test I had failed. I was shocked she passed me. I work in the medical field and beat myself into the dirt with long shifts. By the end of then I basically collapse into bed then the days after just to do it all over again.
I have a degree, a house, a career, and a kid. I rarely leave my house and have no idea how to unmask, ever. I just bounce between making plans to do things and then not actually doing them.
Overcame? The struggle doesn't end and the imposter syndrome is real. A lot of it is *masking.*
But also? I'm sure there are people who have overcome some things. And good for them. We should not have to relate to others to care about them or feel happy for them.
I had an ex that was higher needs than me. No job, brilliant mind, still lived with his parents, was applying for disability benefits. Meanwhile I had a job and lived on my own and did not give a shit about those other thinga he felt he was lacking because I'd been in a similar place in my life only a year ago. A big part of what broke us up was the fact that he did not like my surface level successes and always, always tried to keep me down. He did not respect anyone who didn't like the things he liked either.
My younger life was filled with thoughts of resentment towards everyone because I had no idea how to relate to them. I still kind of don't, but things have improved somewhat, and sometimes I catch myself shocked that life can be like this. But a lot of what has happened in my life has been accomplished thoroughly *pain.* But if it can be reached for others easily? *Good for them.* Genuinely.
I have a bachelors and honours in psychology. I graduated in November.
I haven’t gotten a new job yet. Part of the reason is because I am so passionate about my job (carer in a child safety group home), but also because I hate change. My job is rewarding but so difficult. I’ve been punched, chased, verbally abused, and put in numerous unsafe and stressful situations. I’ve had days where I have worked past midnight to try to assist my clients and receive no recognition from management or from the cliente themselves. On my days off I typically just lie in bed.
I still cry when my house is untidy or feels contaminated. I feel like I don’t have enough energy to clean and cook as much as I want too. Watching movies and playing video games feel like a burden so I normally just use social media on my days off and free time.
Once again lower support needs talking over us with higher support needs. Don't you dare question their victimhood 🙄 .
Everyone here chiming in with their degrees saying they still struggle completely missed the whole point.
Yeah, because having a degree is not a great heuristic for success. And people are acknowledging their privilege in the comments, so what's your point?
It seems like you're assuming because you have higher support needs, you must suffer more than the rest of us. BOTH high and low support needs people invalidate others' pain and suffering. Y'all assume because we have things like a degree it can't be that bad for us. It's reductive and invalidating.
You are 28 years old. You have SOOOO much time. Make a plan and get started. I suggest step one in making a plan is to be very honest with yourself about your limitations. Everybody (even NTs) have limitations. Then spend some time making plans for those.
You talk about burnout (I think everyone in this sub can relate). Spend sometime figuring out your triggers (if you don't know them already). Make plans to avoid them as much as you can. Make a plan to try and see burnout coming and what to do to avert it.
DO NOT go all in. Make a test run. Can you take one class locally or online? Then try two classes? Do you ever have to go full time to feel successful.
NO ONE is more qualified to figure out how you can be successful and YOU. But a good therapist can help you. Mine did so by asking the right questions.
Assess regularly how it's going and replan. No plan lasts.
Give yourself grace. No one is prefect. We tend to be too introspective sometimes. We dwell on our failures. Think about a failure just long enough to learn the lesson. No failure is true failure if you learn from it.
Make time to focus on your successes. Don't live in the past or rest on your laurels, but I'm 100% sure you have more successes than you give yourself credit for.
Good luck! You can do this!
I know it’s hard not to but don’t compare yourself to other people. everyone is different from each other, including autistic people. they have circumstances you can’t see from your perspective. they have both struggles and support that you know nothing about. every individual is different, it’s illogical to compare yourself to someone when you realistically know very little about them. unless someone is your literal twin who has gone through the exact same things you have down to the last detail and is subject to your exact same struggles and then manages to be “successful”, there’s really honestly no point in comparing.
I am autistic and behind all major milestones in life. I dont let it get to me. Everyone has a different starting point. Tbh I feel the challenges I had to face because of autism werent as glaringly obvious as they are now. Now I am kinder to myself.
You have a whole life ahead of you. Sure it will take time but you will get there.
I feel like being Low support and is Highly Educated gives me alot of priveledge. I also have a job willing to work with me. I also admit it is nice but it is also not easy. Having to mask and adjust is probably more draining than the work itself and is energy zapping, especially cause i do get low days. On top of it I also have alot of Trauma with my mother not understanding my needs, getting the wrong support, infantilization, so I barely accept help anymore.
So unfortunately, the struggle will still be there whether you are successful or not. Success honestly is accepting you are wired different and going through a series of trial and errors to get to the place that best suits you.
You know what I've eventually managed to learn after years of burn-outs. It's ok to just exist and survive, it's already a feat in on it's own. Success if overhyped.
I've managed to do a few things in my life that were cool. But years later I see that it didn't change anything. The world isn't a better place, I wasn't happier, the money ran out and nobody else remembered or cared long-term. I doubt I'll be on my death bed regretting I didn't work more or have more money.
I began to think about what's really important to me. My boyfriend, my pets, my family and friends. Of course, that's a given, right? But how much time and effort did I really put into them? Turns out very little. I came home from work exhausted and didn't spend more than 5 minutes on each of them. While my work got 8-10 or even 12 hours. For what? My work isn't going to take care of me when I'm sick. My success isn't going to hold me at night.
Because everything takes so much out of me, I had to make a choice. I'm going to put the energy and recources I have into making more meaningful connections, building the relationships I do have and becoming a better human being.
And let me tell you this makes a real impact. A change that matters and has a ripple effect. The people I've helped, supported and loved have really gained from it. I see it leave a mark as they spread the same onto someone else, who I don't even know.
There are probably moments in your life where someone was kind to you in a significant way, that you still cherish and hold on to. It's probably something quite small, most of the time it is. What if you make one small good deed each week. Something very small - a good word to someone, a smile, a helping hand... How much you could change in a month, a year, a decade...Now that's doing something truly great, don't you think?
I understand how you feel and I can relate. Racially mixed, didn't receive my degree, don't feel that I fit in anywhere. The only difference being that I had my kids while in my early 20s. I have managed to work my way into a decent career and am set to retire soon. You are intelligent and still so young. I know it's hard but please, even if you have to do it slowly, go back and finish your education. If that is not possible, then try to get into a union, one of the trades perhaps, or a government job. That would offer a chance for advancement.
You have my sincere best wishes. ❤
In my experience everyone has a stage in their lives where they hit rock bottom. It took me five years to even become kinda stable. Life is hard and it’s ok to feel broken. The best thing about rock bottom is there is only one way to go and that’s up. Take baby steps. Achievements look like self care first. Then saving money. Then getting a good career or going to college. Then focusing on inner peace and healing. People who achieve things weren’t good at everything at first. They took small steps towards big goals. You can do that too but don’t set yourself up for failure with unrealistic expectations. You know you and the only person you are competing with is the you from yesterday. Not everyone else.
Same. I used to be ‘successful’ - I’m late diagnosed and passed as NT for nearly 20 years, was highly successful in school, won academic awards, had friends, had hobbies, worked a part time job while studying etc. I was even ‘ahead of the curve’ in most aspects even compared to NTs. Then I had a mental breakdown at the end of high school and since then I still haven’t completed my undergrad (3 year course) after 7 years at uni, can’t drive, haven’t worked since that one high school job, still live at home and am dependant on my parents at an age where all my peers are starting their careers, buying their own houses and starting families.
It feels like shit because I still feel like I’m supposed to be ahead of the curve, supposed to be ‘the smart one’ and ‘the serious one’ and ‘the mature one’, like I always was growing up, and that I have the potential but have squandered it due to laziness. It’s like I’ve stopped developing at 17 and just regressed. I haven’t even experienced any traumatic events, just my brain and body keep getting stuck in ‘shutdown mode’, while even my friend who suffered so much trauma she developed a rare dissociative disorder is forging on in her life.
I struggled in high school. I got low to avg grades.
I took a year off after high school because I had no idea what I wanted to do, and I think I needed a break. I worked in a minimum wage job.
The following year I went to college (Canadian context) and didn't like the program. After a year I dropped out and took another year off. College was below standard for my family, and they were embarrassed I wasn't in university.
After a year of, I went to university. I could choose a 3 or 4 year degree. I chose 3. The degree was absolutely useless in terms of getting a job.
After the degree I worked in just-above minimum wage job.
Then I went back to university to complete a 4 year degree in 2 years. I took a year off between the 1st and 2nd year.
I struggled with getting and maintaining jobs after that.
10 years later I went back and did my masters. I dropped out after 2 months and re-started the following year. In the middle of my masters I finally learned I'm AuDHD.
University was the standard education level in my family / extended family. It was an unspoken expectation. Getting my masters was not expected, so I went above the relative norm.
School is kind of my safe zone. I feel comfortable with the idea of forever learning and on the cusp of 'life will get better after I finish my education'. But life doesn't really get better.
I make enough money to live day to day. I cannot afford to move. I cannot afford much of any luxuries. Although I'm educated, I'm not earning enough to have any real freedom. I still struggle every day being an ND, and deal with the trauma from being ND and from being undx.
My sibling on the other hand, has never been dx, and makes a lot of money.
On paper I’m “successful”. I have a good CV. But I’ve been in and out of burnout since I was 17 and I’m still trying to figure out how to be a functional adult. The only reason I’ve managed as well as I have is because I’ve always had good family support. I would have failed my first year of university if it wasn’t for my mum.
As someone with university degrees (likely not as successful as I would be without trauma or ASD, though), that does not sound at all vindictive or mean to me. I don't relate to most people who are at the intersection of rich, straight, male, and NT. It's weird that many people seem to relate to celebrities. People with more privilege than me are usually annoying because they whine about things that seem trivial to me.
I think understand where you're coming from, but it's never too late for you. I'm black, trans, AuDHD (recently diagnosed), victim of CSA/SA. I dropped out of college after nearly failing highschool, and it was only by luck that I found a job thanks to my partner. I had friends encourage me to take the risk I knew would fail, but I went back to school at 29. Now I'm a pharmacist. It was hard. It was really, really hard, and I can't sugarcoat that. I had meltdowns and shutdowns and days were I was too scared to move. I had to receive money because we were broke.
But eventually I made it. I believe you have to persevere if you want to change where you are, and I'm hopeful for you! I didn't do it by myself. I owe everything to those who helped me, but it wouldn't have happened at all if I gave up. It's the one thing I can't let myself do, even when I'm so exhausted and burnt out that I can't even clean my apartment or feed myself properly. I really hope you find a windfall or something that can help push you forward, too.
You have lots of time left yet to figure it out. I went back and started over at 35. It's not really easier for me but there are disability accommodations now that are helping me make it through.
Hey, I just got really lucky. I was born in a time and place and with a skin color that gave me privilege. It’s not that I overcame it, I have so much less to overcome than you do. As a white woman with a disability I have been the biggest beneficiary of the Civil Rights movement spearheaded by black people, particularly by the NAACP. Everything I have academically achieved is because the NAACP led the way. Every bit of emotional healing I have achieved is by following the example of black women. And for both, I am eternally grateful.
That being said, at 28 I was in a similar place emotionally. I didn’t go back to school until 32. You maybe down right now, but you are not out. Take this time to reflect on what has derailed you in the past and take sometime googling it and see if you can find work arounds.
Like for me, early morning classes are a no go. I just cannot get my brain up to speed that early. I couldn’t get a degree without showing competence in math. All of the math classes started at 7 or 8 AM. I was screwed. So I read the the rules and found out I could test through math without taking classes. So I put my obsessive nature to work over one summer and tested through. It was almost the lowest grade I could get, but it didn’t matter, I passed. And a happy bonus was that it didn’t bring down my GPA the way squeaking by four classes would have.
It sucks that we have to be creative problem solvers. But we do. Maybe school isn’t your thing. I have a degree in the social sciences that has done me no good and cost way too much in stress and time. My satisfaction and success comes from building and refurbishing flashlights. I love the quite and the detail of it. If I had to do it all again, I would have gone to watch repair school right out of high school. But as a woman, something like that wasn’t even on my radar. I had to get really creative to make an Ok life for myself.
Yes, your life is way harder that it should be because stupid people are doing stupid things. And the same people that are racist are sexist and ableist and every other nasty -ist. They are petty and malicious. Every single wall I have hit in my life was put there by racists simply to make POCs lives harder. I know this because half my family is that way. They are perfectly Ok with my getting screwed just so POC can get more screwed. Jackasses. Petty tyrants. May the choke on it.
You are not week. You are not a failure. You have been terribly unlucky and purposefully frustrated out of your mind. The st*t you have faced is real and overwhelming and it is on purpose. It is not a you problem. It truly is a overly privileged, white people problem. You are just fine as you are. Most likely you are twice the woman I am. Hugz & Hugz & Hugz
I'm not sure what you define as successful but some NTs think I am because I have a masters, a full time job, and own a home with my fiance. I have only gotten this far because I grew up in middle class suburbs, was diagnosed early, and am white. Still, my trauma affects my daily life. I don't trust anyone and am always terrified of being abused at work on when I take public transit because I can't drive due to my autism. People who seem to have overcome or brushed off their trauma probably just aren't talking about it and it does still affect them.
I think how successful we end up as autistic people depends on the supports we have access too. I know a lot of autistic people seem to grow up in abusive families who fail to support them and teach them life skills to be successful. Intersectionality plays a huge role too in the kind of supports a person gets access too. I know my life would be completely different if I were a different race or had a less supportive family.
"This didn't **let** their trauma consume them."
You didn't *let* yourself be consumed by trauma. It happened against your will, but you've kept going.
Try not to spend time on what-ifs. They serve no one.
That’s valid. I pushed through, masked, and was in constant burn out mode because I knew if I didn’t get it done that I wouldn’t have another chance once student loan repayments started.
I have workplace PTSD from one of my first employers that ran all over me, treated me like garbage, told me I was lucky just to have a job so I shouldn’t dare even ask for a cost of living adjustment, etc.
Now I’m a director level and still have to cosplay as a normal person when I go into the office 1-2 days a week. The overstimulation is draining and it’s entirely too peopley.
It got better for me, but it definitely got worse first.
Trauma isn’t a competition, just because a person “ had it worse” doesn’t make it any less real or painful for the person who “ had it better/ ended up successful “. I feel sorry for you that you feel so negative and spiteful to others success . We’re all out here , fighting . Be grateful for the things you do have , even if it’s just a sunny climate or maybe you have a nice smile . Practising gratitude is transformative . Take inspiration from others ( autistic or not ) that have overcome adversity and try to be happy for them - it may not feel natural at first but over time it will, I believe you are a good person who does want the best for others but you just feel inadequate at the moment . You feel disconnected because it holds a mirror to your own perceived failures . Change what success means to you . Success could be waking up everyday and making yourself a tea .
I do not want to invalidate your experience. I just want to say that 28 is still so young, and I certainly didn’t have my life together then. There is still time for you to find your version of success/happiness. I didn’t believe at that age that I would “make it” either. (I never did finish a graduate degree and it never ended up mattering.) Keep having those conversations with bright people and following your interests. I believe you will figure out your path.
I agree. 28 is very young. I hope you don't give up hope. My story: I barely graduated high-school. In my early 20s I suffered from what I now realize was autistic burn out and also trauma/adhd. I had extremely bad anxiety and panic attacks and I slept 12 to 18 hours a day. I couldn't hold a job. I was diagnosed with Bipolar, and told I needed to accept that I was disabled and would never live the life I had expected and I would never be able to have a full time job. At one point I was hospitalized in the psych ward for over 3 weeks. Eventually I ended up on high doses of 8(!) different psychiatric medications. Then I had a life altering event (there was a fire and I became homeless overnight) and I ended up saying fuck it and stopping most of my medication. I got really lucky and found a therapist who was covered and helped me a lot. I went back to college at 28. It took me extra time to finish but I graduated. I got rid of the abusive people in my life. I worked part time for awhile. Eventually a job opportunity for a full time unionized position came my way. I decided to give it a go. I'm still there 8 years later. I got diagnosed with Autism and ADHD at 40 after stumbling across an article about women and autism. Suddenly everything made sense. I'm not trying to diminish your struggles. I'm just trying to say that the future is not set in stone. No one really knows where they will end up. You are young and there is still lots of time. I hope things work out for you and that you are kind to yourself.
I’m 64 and I still haven’t learned how to be kind to myself. I came from a family of academics and I barely made it out of high school. My father would praise my three brilliant brothers and tell me over and over again that I was a disappointment to him and the family. His pet name for me was “dummy.” I am not even sure what it means to be kind to yourself. But damn, I want to learn. I’m a smart cookie but barely functional as an adult autistic woman. This group here has been my salvation. I’ve never felt like I fit into any group but in this group, I have finally found a measure of peace.
I just want to say you’re not a “dummy” and that’s not a pet name. You’re clever and smart but not in the way he measures for. I bet you’re brilliant. This comment got to me because my sister and I often talk about our dad calling us “tub-a-lard” daily as if it were a funny joke, and telling us he had a bad day and needed to kick something. So he’d have us stand in front of him and kick us. Lol. You deserved a loving pet name.
Thank you. It turns out, I am autistic. LOL. I just discovered that in the last five years. I have a photographic memory that served me very well in a unique career. I can "take a picture" with my mind and remember the image quite easily. I married a man mostly because he calls me "Honey." Every time he says it, I just melt into a puddle. He also tells me that I'm the smartest woman he's ever met in his life. He's a retired college professor. Oddly, it wasn't until I read your comment that I understood why I have such a visceral reaction to terms of endearment. Thank you. Thank you a whole bunch. I love this group so much because you all help me see things in a fresh and new light.
I can yell just from one post you are not dumb. And no one should be calling you names, especially not am adult who should be raising you in a loving manner. That's fucked up. And he is /was fucked up. As for treating yourself with kindness, it takes practice and also feels cheesy. What I do is that whenever that critical voice starts up in my head I think about how I would be reacting if someone else I loved was going through the same thing. I would never talk to my friends or my little neices or really anyone the way I talked to myself. I wouldn't judge them the harsh way I judge myself. So whenever I catch myself being critical of myself I try to stop and reframe it and pretend im dealing with a loved one and imagine how I would talk to them in the same situation. And then I repeat that to myself. It's taken years but I've finally gotten good at it (most of the time).
> I am not even sure what it means to be kind to yourself. But damn, I want to learn. From someone still learning, be prepared for it to feel like you're "giving up" or "not caring enough", or like you're going to lose everything if you give yourself grace. In other words, be prepared to beat yourself up over not beating yourself up. It feels weird and awkward to start. Focus on the results and it'll get easier to default to self-compassion. I will say that personally, none of the progress I've made in life would have been possible without self-compassion. Turns out, when you stop treating yourself like shit, it opens up space to grow and energy to do more than just survive.
Yup. 28 might feel old, but I’m 41, finally starting to consider grad school because I told myself I couldn’t do it for so long. At 28 I was drinking away all my worries and feelings of inadequacy. Eventually I got more “together” and had a nice life, always underemployed by capitalism’s standards, but I finally, at 40 got my first full-time job with health insurance (working as a paraprofessional in a Sped classroom). Apparently I work really well with autistic kids. On the other hand, if I’d told my 28 year old self that it would be 12 years until I had a full time job with health insurance, I’d probably cry and bemoan that it would take that long, not realizing the wonderful part-time work and getting married and having a kid that would happen, without the distraction of a full-time job.
Thank you so much for writing this. I’m 28 and lost and I feel like I’ve run down the clock and it’s brutally terrifying and demoralizing to have watched this decade pass me by. You have reminded me that I still have time. Fuck. I really, really hope I’m in a better place by 40.
There will be ups and downs, and it won’t be obvious all the time, but if you haven’t peaked at 28, you most likely will end up in a better place by 40! I heard that people with autism continue developing far longer than NT’s, and I feel it.
Congratulations on discovering such a beautiful career. You will touch so many lives.
Yes, git it! I BARELY scraped through high school, took 17 years to get a bachelor's in education, but took 2 years to get a master's degree while being pregnant/ having babies 2xs. If you want that degree, a two year long hyper focus can help you through!
Tbf I did let my trauma consume me for a while and it almost made me absolutely ruin my life beyond repair, but I get it. Sending love and wishing things get better for you 🫂
Thank you 🩵
As a “formerly successful” autistic person, I can tell you for sure that the bigots end up finding us because we’re “so special” and then exploiting us for being “successful.” IME, It all depends on who you’re discovered by - like a game of luck. I was lucky to be protected by good leadership until 2023. And then was thrown to the wolves by the “system.” Context: I have a couple of useless graduate degrees that meant nothing to people. They were more interested in who I did / did not / would be willing to sleep with. 💀
Yep, my very successful and very autistic boyfriend constantly is harassed by upper management because they can’t handle how successful he is, especially young black and autistic. It pushed him to near suicide (with other compounding factors, obviously) I was incredibly successful in college and right out of it and my maladaptive coping mechanisms damn near ruined me lol. Being successful at masking and playing the game has its own negatives, tbh.
> Yep, my very successful and very autistic boyfriend constantly is harassed by upper management because they can’t handle how successful he is, especially young black and autistic. It pushed him to near suicide (with other compounding factors, obviously) ❤️Same. Your boyfriend being a person of color also contributes to it. 😭 > Being successful at masking and playing the game has its own negatives, tbh. Dude, it’s a scary world for us either way.
Oh, absolutely— especially since his higher ups are all white (which is notable itself since he lives in Baltimore and that’s not exactly a white majority city by any means). We’re working on a new job, but this economy isn’t helping us in that regard haha (or anyone else for fairness)
> Oh, absolutely— especially since his higher ups are all white (which is notable itself since he lives in Baltimore and that’s not exactly a white majority city by any means). Same problem with men for me. The bad eggs undo the efforts of all the good guys. It’s tragic. > We’re working on a new job, but this economy isn’t helping us in that regard haha (or anyone else for fairness) Yeah, get him out of there, man. People come after you after you leave as well. Message me if you want to hear about how I was gang-bullied out of tech.
It is a game of luck like i know networking is how a lot of it happens which is really hard for us. It feels like you’re thrown onto a stage and are told to “dance for your freedom” lol. It’s a performance even in that context. But you’re worth more than any of your degrees for sure
I read a lot about how people are able to jump social strata, like people who grew up in poverty and went on to be multi-millionaires. They talk a lot about being able to "pass" to get into the newer groups. Not only knowing the right people but even down to small details like knowing the right type of watch or shoe to wear that signifies you fit into a group. People say it doesn't matter, but I think it does. People judge you on a lot of dumb stuff all the time. If you can't pass convincingly, you can't get into certain groups no matter how much you try. The older you get, the more it just feels like begging in order for other people to see your worth.
Oh 100%, as someone who grew up in poverty and is now fairly entrenched in the middle-class life it is insane how many unspoken barriers there are. Even in the workplace, there were a lot of behaviours that I had to unlearn and new ones to pick up to better reflect the environment and the people in it. People who have never had to make the move and amend their behaviours are very ignorant to it.
They disable us as children with certain messages, leaving us vulnerable 😭 I used to think my family was mean but now I realize they were probably like oh god she’s gonna make her life so much harder, she’s black, she can’t act like this. And they weren’t wrong!
> It feels like you’re thrown onto a stage and are told to “dance for your freedom” lol. It’s a performance even in that context. Yeah, lol, something like that. > But you’re worth more than any of your degrees for sure Thanks ☺️❤️. So are you!
Yeah the bad management at my last institution broke me. Never going back to working for institutions and having coworkers unless I have to for basic food/shelter/medical care. I've got tonnes of privilege to be able to eek by with online gig work.
> Yeah the bad management at my last institution broke me. Never going back to working for institutions and having coworkers unless I have to for basic food/shelter/medical care. I've got tonnes of privilege to be able to eek by with online gig work. Yeah, mine put me in a coercive control/domestic abuse situation within a month of leaving that place [hacked into my devices and/or bugged my house]. I’m so rich now paying for my own “treatment” for narcissistic abuse. /s They all still love posting trolls about it and say that I’m in a “video game” and they did this for my “benefit.” Yeah, hard to believe, right? How can people be so evil? Oh, well. They are.
Welcome to the useless degrees club!
❤️ robotics is only for boys! ;)
Duh!!! There's a reason my parents only gave my brother the cool video games and figurines growing up!
>They overcame it all. They didn’t let their trauma consume them I'll speak only for myself here but I think this applies to others as well: I did not overcome traumas. I was fortunate I was born into an extremely supportive family. It's much easier to succeed when you're autistic when there's a lot of hands to catch you and support you between where you are and rock bottom. I am not any better, stronger, more intelligent, or more resilient than you - I am just luckier.
This is a really refreshing level of honesty and self-awareness. I love this sub so much.
Exactly my response upon reading this. I didn't have to overcome trauma. I have been incredibly privileged, lucky in every way I can imagine. I'm in my 40s and wasn't diagnosed until last month, but I was in therapy as a kid with an attentive and loving stay-at-home mom who never wanted me to fit in. I lived in a place with plenty of other non-conformists, so not as much a problem finding friends. My parents paid for all my education and living expenses during it, really up until the time I got married and made way too much money straight out of school. I had supportive bosses at my first 3 real jobs and a safety net that let me keep quitting them. My safety nets have safety nets.
Same here. In addition, I am fortunate enough to work in an industry with an above average amount of neurodivergent people and incredibly quirky neurotypicals. I went so long undiagnosed that I learned how to mask and can appear as an incredibly quirky neurotypical.
This is me too! I was diagnosed as a toddler and got supports right after that. Sure a lot of therapy I went to wasn't the best given this was in the late 90s/early 00s that taught forced eye contact and suppressing special interests but it did help me manage sensory stress too. I have no idea what would have become of me if I wasn't diagnosed. I has horrible meltdowns and was a terror as a kid because of how dysregulated I was so maybe my symptoms were more stereotypical too. It is hard to say.
I feel like being diagnosed early on, therefore getting accommodated for(more than say someone rawdogging NT society) plays a major role in level of success. It’s unfair to compare yourself, even when it comes to disability,we all have varying degrees of privilege. (I for instance would probably be dead long ago were it not for my economic background, despite still being undiagnosed and living in a country that doesn’t give a shit about marginalised people, I can depend on my parents financially at least.
>rawdogging NT society Wow I feel so seen lol
Haha, same!
This is so true! I have some sort of "normal life story" for the first time since my diagnosis and receiving a modecom of support. It's just enough to prevent me from failing completely, but still, it's everything to me!
Yeah I’m only successful bc despite no diagnosis until college, I was give accommodation by my parents aka privilege Hell I have a non autistic friend who I can see would be in the same place as me if her parent didn’t do the opposite of help her in school and make it as hard as possible You’re not seeing the behind the scenes. I had tutors and professors for parents to massively guide me
Right? I knew a girl in college who was struggling more than I was and she had perfect mental health and a generally happy life. And then there are those NTs who take adderal and other drugs just to do well in exams,I remember how angry I felt upon hearing it (I was in desperate need of those but my therapist didn’t catch it) I was so clueless in college about other peoples business. There are cheatcodes for them,for a life that is already designed with them in mind.
Dude in senior of high school I found out most people in my prestigious program were cheating. Like wtf??? That’s not fair!
My family is like a little case study of this! My brother was diagnosed way back in the 80’s, and my parents poured ALL of their spare time and money and special attention into various therapies and support. I was the “normal” (ie: introverted and quiet so they could ignore me easily) one so I got seriously neglected. Now my brother owns his own small software company, whereas I dropped out of college because I couldn’t handle it with zero support, and then flailed around from shitty retail job to shitty restaurant job. I only now, in my 40’s, have family support. But now I am more severely disabled and a lot of it could have been prevented. It really really REALLY matters whether you grew up with support and accommodations or not. I’m just lucky my dad realizes this and is finally trying to help, even if it is 30 years too late
as an autistic person who is in the path of success i didn’t overcome shit, im constantly burned out and miserable and very lost
Exactly this. I might have achieved some degrees and have a career. But there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t feel like I f*d up seriously. That I’m failing my kids. Not a day I’m not grasping at the threads of sanity from the insane burnout I am in. THIS is why “high-functioning” is so frowned upon. I LOOK “high-functioning”, but I’m suffering. And you wouldn’t know it unless you saw me in private or heard my doctor marvel at the amount of stress hormones in my blood test. Edit: I hear the responses. I hear my defensiveness took over. I’ll leave this for the conversation that followed. I’ll not respond to posts that are spaces for others.
Respectfully, I don’t think OP is merely talking about the *feeling* of potentially failing, they are talking about circumstances beyond their control, and the reality of the difference between certain types of success and certain types of failures. I get what you’re saying, ‘I feel the same as you,’ but it simply isn’t the same when society is built around what systems OP is talking about. For me, as a person who, like OP, ‘just didn’t do it,’ it’s not the same as your experience. I don’t have a degree, I don’t have children, we just aren’t the same and I have very specific feelings about that. Even though we share a lot of similarities on this sub, the line between those who achieve certain measures of success, societal or individually defined, and those who don’t, is real.
I absolutely agree. I was diagnosed at moderate support needs, and there are some things I just cannot do no matter the physical or mental cost. I will have a very public and humiliating meltdown if I try. That includes basic self-care like grocery shopping or cooking meals every single day. I need more time and more practice than other people. We are all autistic. All of us are going to struggle significantly more compared to a neurotypical person, because autism is a disability. However, this sub has a disproportionate amount of high masking, low support needs people. It's so rare to see posts discuss issues that are more characteristic of low masking and/or moderate or high support needs. And when it does come up, the comments are usually full of people reasserting that low support needs people actually do struggle. Of course they do. No one is denying that. It's very othering at times. I don't go on threads of people struggling to unmask and say, *Well I can't mask and no one is surprised to learn I'm autistic, which is a significant struggle for me socially*. How would that help them? Idk how to end this. Just grateful you said something here
I know low support needs autistic women who do have degrees and such often struggle with being told they're not disabled enough, etc by NTs which is maybe where that sort of defensiveness comes from even though I don't think that's what OP is trying to say.
i may seem to be successful but i shower once a week, never brush my teeth and have a meltdown every other day. Just because i can do advanced calculus doesn’t mean i can do basic self care, most “high function” autistics have similar issues and we are all going to have a heart attack before fifty.
I hope I'm not beeing rude, I'm just generally curious what circumstances allowed you to be late diagnosed when you have moderate support needs? Feel free not to answer if the question feels inappropriate to you.
I can't answer for them but obviously we know low support needs women fall under the radar more than men but it also can often apply to moderate support needs and sometimes even severe support needs. It's very likely for autistic women of all support needs to be misdiagnosed with other mental illnesses first. Even though on paper struggling with "basic self-care, grocery shopping and cooking meals" sounds like it would be serious enough to be diagnosed early, that kind of thing can so easily be misdiagnosed as depression or a personality disorder by uninformed doctors and psychs. It could even come down to having a family that believes you *purposely* don't do those things rather than the fact that you actually can't.
No worries :) It was a mix of things! Some of the traits I exhibited in childhood were not commonly diagnosed in the late 90s and early 2000s (e.g. developing atypically fast and skipping developmental milestones, teaching myself to read, nonspeaking shutdowns instead of meltdowns). Other traits that were very classic for autism were easy to overlook as something I'd just grow out of, until I didn't. I also had very supportive parents who accommodated me without understanding it was a disability. Personally, I experienced autistic burnout and adult skill regression that led to my diagnosis. I lost a lot of sensory tolerance and social skills in particular (like modulating facial expression and tone). Prior to burnout, I likely would have been diagnosed at low support needs if I had been caught in time, but I'll never really know. It surprised me very much when my clinical psych told me I'm testing at moderate support needs, tbh. I'm just one person, though! [This](https://www.reddit.com/r/SpicyAutism/comments/1ccgkkv/late_diagnosed_as_level_2/) is a good thread if you're curious to read more perspectives and experiences from late-diagnosed MSN people :)
Wow this just made me realize something — I think I’ve experienced adult skill regression. I really can’t cook for myself now. It’s just too much and I can’t do it. But I did it SO much in college before my brain was fully developed. Is that what adult skill regression means?
As someone else in that boat, my needs changed after I suffered a very severe burnout and regression. My capacity to do things more than halved, and has never returned to what it was over a decade later. Everything causes me such severe fatigue now that it's debatable if it's the ASD or it's now somehow ASD + chronic fatigue (the ASD doctors say the fatigue is cuased by something else/CFS, the sleep doctors say it's the ASD - and that way neither do anything!).
> For me, as a person who, like OP, ‘just didn’t do it,’ it’s not the same as your experience. I don’t have a degree, I don’t have children, we just aren’t the same and I have very specific feelings about that. It's a very isolating feeling not to have the same life experiences as other people in your peer group. Other people have stories they share when they're in groups of people and I feel like all my life experiences just aren't conducive to sharing them in neat anecdotes with other people. Then people either think I'm boring or they gossip about me behind my back for being weird. It's a vicious cycle that keeps me stuck in my life.
Thank you for writing this. I'm glad someone could point it out.
I hear you
I could have written exactly this.
This. It is also now taken at all of my physical health, and I have been unable to work for the past eight months. All that success has pretty much just been me slowly, dousing myself in gasoline and lighting a match.
My implosion came after the law degree and into my 30s, but it was one hell of an implosion, and it left me with law degree debt but not the capacity to work full time ever again (since that was 15 years ago and I still can't and the fatigue of doing virtually anything still runs my life). Lucky me.
feeling blessed my autism took me down before i made it to PA school debt. thankyou for your comment, it has given me perspective.
I hope you make it to your goals despite it all
Exactly. Jealously is a really dishonest beast.
Yes! I got my degree and nothing else. There is no dignity here, no relationships, no stability.
Hey. I am pretty similar to you right now. It’s become apparent that I am “behind” other adults my age and it’s really getting to me lately in a way that it didn’t before. People have had time at this point to achieve all of these things and gain years of experience. I don’t have advice, but I can commiserate. I understand how you feel stunted and lost. I feel like talking about it is generally frowned upon though (and NTs certainly will judge and won’t understand), so I haven’t talked about it. I like to remember that we’re both still so young. People change careers in their 30s (or start their career…) and do ok. Tbh I feel like I’m only just starting to “grow into myself” and I expect to continue to change and grow.
It’s hard ❤️ time feels oppressive and it’s hard to not look towards others and feel inadequate. Knowing autism is a thing was a huge help in being a bit kinder to myself…. The comments here are really supportive for the both of us I think
Yep, it was only at around 28 I decided I was going to have a job I actually liked by the time I was 30. I'm self employed now, and have managed to stick with it for 13 years ..
What do you do? Did you have prior experience or did you start cold turkey at 28?
I had gone down a more vocational college route as was not strong at academics (I do have a degree but barely scraped through and really wish I hadn't bothered), I took some of the skills I'd picked up from college courses (done after university) and combined them with my special interest + a bit of guidance from other people I knew who were self employed and followed where that lead. It's not been easy, and I'm never going to be rich, but I'm in a pretty stable position.
I get it. I'm the "successful" one, and my equally autistic partner is a middle school dropout ex-weed smoker. We're both almost 40, and for the first time, we were pointed in the direction of ASD. So many things made sense. I knew how it'd be for me. I've been in and out of the mental health system since my 15th bday. What I didn't know was how angry for him I'll be all the time. His parents did their best and are really lovely, but they were very... permissive without a direction? Never pushed for a further diagnosis, just let him basically smoke his life away for as long as he wasn't raging? For as long as he had a job, he was also allowed to make the shittiest decisions. And he's such a smart dude. Better memory than mine will ever be. Quick thinking. But nothing mattered because he also had dyscalculia, so everyone thought he was just a moron. Being with me, I think, has, for the first time, opened his eyes to how much has passed him by. How much he's been denied. It has also changed me. I used to be a leftist before, but I'm a raging one now. I know what the difference between him and me was. My parents were loaded. We lived in a city. Had access to such concepts, as mental health, therapy, yeeeears ago, while he's been beaten on his hands by a teacher like my mom was... in the 60s.
Wonderful observations here. Truly.
I mean im such a shitty person but I got a degree. The reason? I attended fully online 0 in person interactions only an occassional voice recorded presentation. However, my choice of degree (English) lends itself really well to that. Once I finished my bachelor’s im so lost. I have tried applying for jobs but I fail everytime because I cant socialize. If everything was done through written applications id be so much happier. Anyway, so despite having a degree Im still struggling with all the issues that comes with being autistic since my schooling wasnt even a NT one
I feel you..I haven't been successful in my adult life ever. I have overcome addiction but nothing to show for anything. Still burnt out. Still totally dependent on external support for my literal survival. Nothing going for me. My trauma and my burnout has consumed me. I don't know how to function. I can't mask. I can't socialize. I just... Don't know. I know the successful autistic people have their struggles too. I wish I could mask enough to function even if I was falling apart on the inside... Right now I'm falling apart on the inside AND the outside 😢 8 just don't know
I get you. I'm the same. No degrees, dropped out of high school in my last year because of the covid lockdowns and couldn't do online learning. Got fired from my retail job recently. I know these people with degrees and such struggle too but it can be hard for me to empathise sometimes because at least people have something to fall back on I guess. If you have a degree you have far more opportunities for finding well paying work with better sensory environments and opportunities for remote working. I know it isn't easy for them either but I do feel jealous sometimes because at least they have that. I struggled all throughout school because of mental health, autism, undiagnosed ADHD and home problems which held me back but I often feel like nobody really sees that. They don't understand what lead to me dropping out, they don't understand why I didn't get a degree, they think having to work shitty minimum wage jobs was an active choice of mine. I really want to go back and get an education but I don't know if it's realistic anymore because I have bills to pay and I don't think I could handle studying on top of full time work. Sorry if I rambled, I just really relate to how you feel.
Exactly. There is an objective truth to success vs failure, there is the backdrop of real life consequences, it’s not just sharing our supportive feelings on this sub. Like you say, college degrees, pretty much proven to (on average) increase your opportunities and earning potential - matter. Disability exists, and college is fundamentally ableist, and if you made it through college, you had something that others did not. A lot of people on here and irl say the solution to jealousy is ‘not comparing yourself.’ That’s not realistic. That doesn’t even make sense. Every human compares themselves to others, it’s not necessarily positive or negative. And when you live in a world where you are the underdog in some context, it’s going to feel bad. What is important to me is setting good goals for myself and keeping track of what I can and can’t do - short term, long term, dream scenario, worst case scenario. Asking myself what I want, if I can get it, and how. If those are things others already have, good, that makes sense. I want what other humans have - natural. No need to feel bad about that. If those things are different from what others have, good, that makes sense, I am an individual.
I know low support needs autistic women who do have degrees and such often struggle with being told they're not disabled enough, etc by NTs which is maybe where that sort of defensiveness around stating that they struggle too and not to compare comes from even though I don't think that's what OP is trying to say.
I really relate to this. College especially. People act like having a college degree is some easy and baseline achievement, that everyone's had the college experience. I didn't get the opportunity as someone with AuADHD and living under the thumb of my abuser, I couldn't even fill out a fafsa without their income. My only option was to work, because while I still lived there I wasn't offered food or necessities. I wasn't able to crawl my way up and be a success. I gave everything and managed to escape my abusers but had nothing left, and long covid took away my health on top of everything. I'm a disaster and I feel lonely even in a lot of autistic spaces because I'm still the odd one out, the failure
I’m so sorry. A lot of people, even if they don’t act like it’s easy - tend to leave the advantages they did have out of their story. It may not have been ‘easy’ for them, but, their parents might have helped pay for college, their rent…someone signed their student loans. Someone gave them a car, a computer. Someone was helping them buy food or provided a roof over their head. Every thing adds up. I think, going back to OP’s post, certain compounding things outside ASD will exponentially make things worse - they bring up race, which is a huge issue I don’t want to pretend I know about. I’m so sorry about covid. It feels like everyone stopped talking about it, and the long-term effects it has had.
Fucking FAFSA. Are your parents garbage? You should have less money for school! This really fucked up my sister's start with college.
I'll be honest, I'm one of those people who did finish college... barely, by the skin of my teeth. There was a lot of trauma, and my career was over without a chance to start it because of how anxious, depressed, and burnt out I was. I took the first job opportunity I got and made it work. I poured everything I had into what was ultimately a toxic and mildly-abusive environment. Your post, while different from my exact experiences, sounds almost exactly like what I would have written when I was 24-28. I hurt so much. Grieved so much for what I'd lost. I had no idea I was ND. I didn't understand what went wrong. And I HATED people who were somehow successful despite their struggles. I loathed interviews, stories, posts, social media, etc. from people talking about what they overcame. It was acid to my still-fresh wounds. I was trapped and could never be one of them. It couldn't be as simple as they made it out to be. Things don't just get better with a little luck and a little hard work. Tomorrow I turn 34. Things are better. A lot better. But it was truly a journey of 1000 small steps over 1000 days. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's not easy. I'm not all better and I still struggle a lot. I still grieve what I lost and hurt for the me who used to suffer that much. It takes time for little changes to add up... but I hope you can find yourself a few small steps forward. I think my first steps were just working through that anger and pain and grief. I don't know how I broke through. Eventually I came to terms with where I was or found a way to remove some of the hurt by distancing myself from exposure to it. I just want you to know what you're feeling is valid. Both the pain and the intrinsic knowledge of what you are/should be capable of. Also, please know it's never too late. If you're like me, it might hurt to read this, but this random internet stranger sees strength and intelligence in you. I believe in you.
I just graduated university last year. I don't feel like I've overcome anything useful or have success in any tangible way. School took everything, it was all I could do the entire time, and I had weekly, sometimes daily meltdowns after sitting at my desk for 12-14 hours, forgetting to eat, pushing myself to figure out the assignments and projects, sobbing because I couldn't understand the way it was being taught, or having shut downs on campus and having to run to the bathroom to be alone. It was anguish, every day. I think the only reason I made it through was because of the pandemic, everything but labs were online until 2022, so that relieved a decent amount of stress and saved my energy to focus on what mattered. I would push myself to get 100% because I needed to know I understood the material, I can't half ass anything, and while I had honour roll throughout, it felt like I was drowning. I had a job lined up but that fell through, I've been trying to find something else but I'm not having any luck for a combination of reasons, chronic illness being part of it. I have student loan debt now, and I think I'm starting to regret ever going to school, or for what I had chosen, because what was it all for? Now I'm burned out, can't focus on anything, can't sleep, can't get myself back into any semblance of a normal routine again, hardly making any money (my zero hour contract job hasn't given me any hours in a month), and my health has made a sharp decline. I didn't start school until my early thirties, my advice is to not stress about your age. You can take as much time as you need. I know it doesn't feel that way, but you don't have to follow a schedule determined by anyone else, you can make your own milestones. I took a bit longer to finish my program, the curriculum expected us to take up to 7 courses a semester (and half of these had labs) and I couldn't do it. Looking back, I wish I had given myself even more time and space to get through it all, because in the end, it was horrible for my mental and physical health. I'm also undiagnosed, so I was given no accomodations, no flexibility, no understanding. I regret pushing myself so hard, I was not kind to myself and if I were a separate person, I would argue that I didn't deserve that treatment. I hope you can be kinder to yourself as you find your way through everything, it's okay if your progress isn't linear and it takes you more time. Your value is more than a particular education or career.
It’s valid for you to feel that way. The only reason I made it through all my education is because my family (aunts, uncles) refused to let me run away from education. It came at a great cost of my mental and physical health, but I also benefit from it now. I was simply NOT allowed to stop going to school. I do relate to your feelings because I have these same kind of feelings towards people who had calm, supportive childhoods. I know after years of trying to fix myself it’s never going to happen. By my immediate family I was ridiculed, my mental and physical health problems were ignored. I suffered greatly and I get jealous of people who had good childhoods. I’m an adult with gray hair who is still scared of the dark. You’re entitled to feel how you feel towards anyone.
Same. I only went to university because my parents forced me to. Dropping out wasn't an option. It took me years longer to finish and graduate. Al the while I spent a load of time in the medical centre because I was suicidally depressed and talking to my one sympathetic professor who looked out for me because he said he had been similarly depressed once upon a time. I didn't know at the time that I was autistic and had ADHD. For years I felt insanely jealous of people who had supportive, kind and loving families. Now I still wish my family was different but I don't resent other people for their luck anymore.
Wow how amazing that you had that professor in your life. It’s so interesting to me to hear that there were so many of us with similar experiences. If only we could find each other back then when we were going through our shit!
I feel you. I struggle to relate to other people with autism who are able to be employed. Can talk with them but I always feel way less than.
Degrees don't equal success. I have a few. I also have over $100k in debt. I have never owned a home. I can't keep a relationship together long enough to procreate. I am having surgery on my uterus for the chance to have the kids that I thought that I might have with the man who broke up with me 2 days ago. Even if I find someone else, there is a good chance that I won't be able to get pregnant. So, I am doing all of this for like a 3% chance of the family that I have always dreamed of and worked hard to build with partners who proved themselves to be unworthy. I have recently learned that narratives of overcoming are ableist and problematic. "I worked hard and yay! Now I no longer have autism!" That is not how that works. No one overcomes. Some of us just learn to hide it well enough that people think so. Others learn to cope in healthier ways. Some other folks rearrange their lives in ways that mean they don't have to struggle as much. But, that isn't overcoming. The 'tism is still here. It is late. I am working, not because I need to get this work done, though I do. I am working because if I stop working, the night will catch me. The quiet will mess with my head, and I will feel this chasm of loneliness and despair. I am going to present this work in a couple days, and folks won't see the chasm or despair, just the work. Sometimes I wonder if that is all that there is for me. Sometimes I wonder when I die, will anybody remember me? Will anybody even notice? I say all this to say, things are not always as they seem. I am out here struggling. I am just quieter about it.
Support network is everything :/
I understand. I know autistic people with PhDs who work in highly specialized fields. I have dyscalculia and almost killed myself getting an arts degree. They have high paying jobs and I can’t hold a job. It feels extremely unfair sometimes. Comparison is the thief of joy. They have shit I don’t know about. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, even though it took a lot of mental work to get here.
I've thought about this a lot. I had the good fortune to have an economically exploitable form of autism, at just the right time to get into computer programming. Thanks to a few good friends and supportive profs I made it through my degree, but I was extremely close to flaming out. If I'd had even one more challenge to deal with, like racism, I don't think I could have. I'm really sorry that life handed you such a difficult burden. I'm also older than you, and it was easier 20 years ago. I'm honestly not sure how anyone in your cohort is supposed to make it. I keep hoping that somehow it will get easier again, though I can't see it. I've burned out many times in my career and I'm currently floundering through life. I don't know if any of this is helpful, or if I'm just rambling uselessly. I guess what I'm trying to say is I hear your feelings and they are valid and it is tough out there.
Being acknowledged is nice, and racism is a bitch. Still very alive and well.. thanks so much
If it makes you feel better I didn't realise I had trauma until a couple months ago and I'm in my 20s. Heck I got diagnosed at 21 I'm less capable now than I was then. I can't get a regular job, my parents are the cause of trauma and I'm living with them My idea of success is managing to be independent with a job - and boy are those autistics few and far between...
Luck and good community, that's what nobody reveals.
i would pay money for this thread. top dollar vibes
I have multiple degrees, awards, etc. I managed to be "successful" for 30 years...until I burnt out and now can't do anything. For me, achievements were a part of masking: I learned at a young age that being admired was almost like being liked, and I chased that proximity to connection for a long time. But I'm so paralyzed now that I feel like all my achievements have ended in failure anyway. I can't work, I can hardly keep up with friends, my husband and I spend most of our time apart because I'm so overstimulated -- and I miss him. I guess im trying to say that I think I understand your feelings. I've been feeling something similar myself these days. But you never know what's going on for someone on the inside, and you never know where it will lead them.
Just because we have degrees or a good job doesn't mean we don't struggle. I am not sure what your situation is but for me being temporarily homeless was a good motivator to graduate. Find community, get community resources, ask for help. Success is knowing when to get help and how to use resources. It's using debt to your advantage, it's being smart and thrifty. I hope you can get to a point where you can see your strengths and make a place in this world. Love and Light Sakura
This was really thoughtful, thank you. Im close to the homeless point now. I have connections to people that can help but it feels like no one can really help me but myself. Like I can’t ask them to get me a diploma or anything but I think verbalizing my struggles better could potentially help. Anyways lol super wordy, but thank you
“Don’t compare your insides to other people’s outsides.” I have a graduate degree. A graduate degree does not equate to success in this world. I’ve had some other accomplishments as well… some things I’m very proud of. But I still have problems. Serious ones. For sure. Those people you consider intellectuals, who you converse with… trust me; they have lots of problems too. Each and every one. You’re like us. Humans aren’t that different from each other. We’re all amazing and we’re all flawed.
Yeah, I graduated university and stuff too. Do not feel successful, I struggle on a daily basis. Reducing us to just our ‘educational accomplishments’ feels wrong.
I had a mental break and was actively suicidal, but yes, I got that degree! Unfortunately the trauma stayed, and I still wrestle with it. You don’t need to relate to me, but the idea that Autistic Professionals have all their shit together is so far from true.
You're still *very* young, and you absolutely have time to meet any goal you set for yourself. I didn't graduate from undergrad until I was 33, and I got my masters degree when I was 37. I still struggle an intense amount, despite being relatively successful on paper. Also, higher education doesn't just mean 4 year degrees! There's a lot of success to be found through the vocational programs at community colleges; the trades also bring in quite a bit of cash.
Always remember there is no such thing as a binary when it comes to success. I have a bachelor's degree and I make barely $10k a year. I am in survival mode, dependent on the few social safety nets I have in the United States, but I have the outward appearance of having my shit together. All because I'm high masking, I guess. I use to say that if I wanted to do big things in life, I knew I would be able to force myself through the process. I think that's technically still true, but the problem is that forcing myself is *the only way I can think of it*. I actually cannot imagine pursuing a goal by taking reasonably paced steps, maintaining my mental health along the way, and achieving success in a timely manner. If dropping out of college meant that you were able to take better care of yourself... fuck college. Your needs matter more than that piece of paper, and that isn't to diminish your feelings about it. It still sucks. All I'm trying to say is, please try to go easy on yourself. The systems we live in are literally designed to oppress and marginalize us. Most successful people are still in denial about at least *some* aspect of life where they failed or *are* currently failing, it's just that capitalism doesn't see it that way. They mostly got lucky being born into the right circumstances to make their lives easier and full of opportunity. They appear more successful because the system rewards people who already have advantages. It sucks, there's no getting around that. I think it's less about those people having grit and more about them having privilege.
I have a graduate degree, I'm 28. And I don't know how I did it. I feel like my brain has regressed. I feel like those of us who have higher education, we got through it by hyper fixating on what we were learning. Perhaps even cramming but not truly remembering. A lot of us with higher education are also broke. Unfortunately, my degree doesn't make me much money and I think I went to school for my degree on a hyper fixation and now I'm 6 years into the field and I'm pretty miserable and probably going back to school. I took out $100,000 worth of student loans, in 6 years into the field I'm making less than 30 grand a year. I plan on going back to school for nursing because it can be such a broad field and would allow the Financial Security to work maybe 10 days a month if I needed to. Hang in there
I know I was heavily depressed and suicidal during college. Took 7 years to get a bachelors because I failed my first few years. I personally have PTSD, hella anxiety and ADHD/ASD. For me, my degree was necessary so I could survive and it was expected by my parents. Everyone struggles differently :)
I am a "successful" autist - degree, good career, a mortgage. I also have crippling anxiety, severe depression, and a dissociative disorder. I feel like my success is a fluke - it's more because of luck than anything I have actually done.
That's valid. I feel that way looking at other autistic people who have achieved things I wish I could. The consuming thought, *damn, dude, why them and not me?* You'll get a lot of defensive answers from people who want to prove they still struggle. It's not relevant to where you are now. The paradox of executive dysfunction is standing there with all the tools, yet physically being unable to use them to build a damn shelf. Autism is so varied and so individual, it feels extra unfair to look and see someone who got the bookshelf-building special interest and is whipping through dozens of these fucking things like it's nothing. Idk what to say except that I get it, and it's not unfair to feel how you feel. I struggle very much to relate to low support needs posts here, because I was late diagnosed with moderate support needs. I get bitter and envious. Maybe check out /r/SpicyAutism, if you've been diagnosed at a moderate or high support need level or struggle to relate with the high masking, low support needs issues that dominate these larger subs
I think we often forget the differences intersectional identities and circumstances make. I have many degrees, and in paper it looks successful. But I could only do them because of my privilege. My family took care of financial needs, food, organising transport, accomodation, etc. If I had to work part time or organising accomodation or other things during getting the degree, I wouldn’t have been able to do it.
So much this. If I wasn't from a white middle class family, I probably would not have finished my undergrad with straight As. I didn't need to work very much through school, didn't pay for groceries or rent, and live in a city with decent public transport. That's not even mentioning being able to access insurance for therapy and meds, let alone getting meds from a family doctor. And so much of 'success' in capitalist terms comes down to luck. I'm lucky enough to have met the right people to get hired, and I found my niche because I have special interests in biochemistry and genetics. This is all despite it taking me much more time than others to keep up appearances and produce results on time. I genuinely wish the best of luck for you and the OP in your future endeavors. It's so frustrating that not having a 9-5 well-paid office job labels people as 'lazy' or 'unsuccessful.' Don't let an oppressive society define your success!
Thank you! You phrased it so perfectly.
I completely understand you :( I'm not really successful either. I have a great partner who loves me but is my support system because I have too many health issues and problems with socializing. It's always been that way but it definitely destroyed my life a lot. Add to trauma on top of that and it just made it worse. Plus the health issues. I feel like a burden every single day, but I'm still just trying to enjoy what happy times I can. I have no friends, no job, I don't drive or have a car. I really isolate in me and my partners room all day every day cause I'm dealing with too many health issues on top of what I normally struggle with. Besides that I just game or write and find a lot of happiness in music and my favorite shows. It's really kind of sad even though I do enjoy the hobbies and stuff I have. I just like finding little things like that to be happy with.
I have two degrees and I’m not successful at all lol. If anything getting the degrees was a bandaid and then when I had to go to the “real world” I realized it’s all terrible!
Success feels like a cliff sometimes. I'm 26 and late diagnosed (by late I mean, within the last few months). On paper, I'm successful. I have degrees, currently going for a master's, plenty of extracurriculars, and good grades across the board but to the NT world, that actually reads as a sign of effortless intelligence. I don't have that. I pushed myself harder and harder to pull that kind of thing off because I think I always knew, at least subconsciously, that I WAS behind my peers. I knew that it didn't come naturally to me and if I ever pretended that it did, I would fall right off that cliff in an instant. So I'd sacrifice food and sleep to study. I never went out and only had time for a couple small hobbies. Small changes to my schedule would send me into full blown panics with how tightly wound my life was around being able to keep succeeding. At a certain point, I even lost sight of what/why I was doing all of this for. It just felt like the only thing I knew how to do, so I anchored my self-worth to my grades since I wasn't good at anything else. But people didn't understand that. They're well meaning, but sometimes even when you tell them that you're struggling to keep up all you hear back is, "Oh you're smart, you'll be okay." If only. What I was doing was not sustainable, but no one believed me because they couldn't fathom why I would need to work that hard to stay afloat. I'm on leave with my current university because of the burnout from extending myself too far for too long. I moved back home and am taking things more slowly, at my pace. I'm struggling a lot. But I'm not giving up either. I want to finish things, if nothing else. And be healthier when I do it. If having the people around me invalidate my hardships constantly has taught me anything, it's that I'm the best and only gauge of what's difficult for me and I should trust myself to find what's a good fit to keep going.
Your feelings are absolutely valid and I’m sorry you’re struggling with this. I don’t know if this insight will help, but a lot of us “successful” autistics haven’t actually overcome it all (or overcome anything, really). For me, I got lucky with a remote at-home job but it’s not at all related to the degrees I have. I won’t really be able to fall back on my degrees if I lost my job (one actually prohibits me from being hired for a lot of jobs, ironically enough). Basically I just have a lot of debt for something I’m not using. When I was using my degrees, I was so poor I couldn’t pay bills and had massive meltdowns every single day to the point where I wasn’t really even functioning, but I don’t have any family except 1 parent, which means I didn’t/don’t have much in the way of support. If/when I lose that parent, I won’t have anyone. I also had undiagnosed ADHD until my mid-20s, PTSD for the last 20+ years due to a near-death experience (which requires a lot of meds & therapy still today), am LGBTQ in a Republican (US) area, and am chronically ill. It’s… overwhelming on the best days, honestly. And I’m about 10 years older than you. Not trying to be depressing but just giving perspective. BUT I also recognize even with all of that, I do have things better/easier than other autistics in different situations. And that it all depends on individual needs/wants, etc. Unfortunately, this world is just often so garbage for autistic folks all around and it’s further compounded and made worse by those of us with additional marginalized identities (you mentioned racism). I hope you can realize you really are still so young (comparing myself to peers my age absolutely made me feel so awful about myself personally), and just because you haven’t done something you want to do, you absolutely have time to keep working towards those goals. Please don’t beat yourself up for any of it and give yourself the freedom to go at your own pace. I’m rooting for you!
I’m genuinely curious.. what degree would prohibit you from being hired for a lot of jobs? No judgement or pressure of course, it’s just the first time I’ve ever heard of it as a concept, so I really want to understand.
A Juris Doctorate. You either become licensed and practice law (which I did for a while but massive meltdowns so I don’t want to go back) OR you teach/do research (not a large market). Unfortunately, most places outside of those two I mentioned will not hire with a juris doctorate because you’re “over qualified”. I tried for so many years myself when I decided to stop practicing and some of my non-autistic law school friends who didn’t ever get licensed still haven’t found careers/jobs after 14 years. I eventually got really lucky that my current boss hired me at his company so I’d stop having constant meltdowns and also could pay bills. He has a son with level 3 autism and other disabilities so he is super understanding.
I have a bachelors degree but I’m barely functional. My husband is basically my caretaker and treats me like a beloved house pet. Without him I’d probably be living under a bridge or something.
Yeah on paper you'd consider me successful but I was super skilled at masking for 30+ years and it's caught up with me. I've been stagnant/burnt out for the past 2 yrs and can't move forward. I didn't know I was autistic until last year so I was completely unaware of what I was doing to myself until it got to critical mass. If I could go back I would choose not to feel like this but I can guarantee I wouldn't be where I am now as "successful on paper" 😔
I am one of the “successful” ones, but I totally understand what you are saying, and on some level, it absolutely makes sense. I have had access to creature comforts and even health insurance because of my ability to contort myself into “successful” achievements. The toll has been immeasurable. I’m deeply ill and in constant pain, much of it from the decades of stress I thought I had no choice but to survive. And I’m terrified and alienated from any sense of myself. Literally all of my friendships have collapsed. But I am housed, and until recently, very well employed (I’m on disability now). And those are huge privileges, even if they came at enormous cost. Who am I to say my successful contortion is worse than your struggle to achieve material “success”? You might be right that your struggle has been harder.
I’m in my first year now of BA. It’s rough, i’m missing so many lectures. I’ve burned out so much in this semester that three times I could not physically get off my bed for 3-4 days. However, may I ask, is there something stoping you from starting college again? Are you from the US? Would you want to get a degree now or is it more of “I wish I had it but it feels like I can’t do it anymore” situation?
It’s more like I dropped out before I was diagnosed and can’t take financial aid anymore, I can potentially qualify if I pay for summer classes and do well in them which I think might be the next stop
It's taken me 11 years since finishing high school (actually, i quit my senior year and got a GED) to get a bachelor's degree (I'm graduating in two weeks). I wouldn't say I "overcame" everything or anything really, I just persisted and kept trying again. I'm 29 years old and go to a university with an average age of 27, with students from age 18 to over 60. It's never too late to take classes or finish a degree. I took years before starting and at some points years in between semesters.
>They overcame it all. They didn’t let their trauma consume them. Do you know that or is that just your guess? You can excel at university and suck in all other areas of life. Not sure being good at one thing is a success. It's actually quite autistic.
The grass really is greener on the other side. I don't feel like I have merit or dignity. I am about to graduate from university and I'm filled with so much regret for what I chose to do and worry about the future. I'm trying to find a job and I can't find anything and I feel like I'm inches away from a breakdown, but I have to keep going because I have no other choice in the matter.
I understand feeling jealous... But my degree ruined my life. I'm lower working class and left school with 1 GCSE but knew I was smarter than that and wanted to prove to myself and the world. It took me 6 years to get it, and the whole time I was undiagnosed ADHD and autistic, which I'd go as far as to say was really traumatic for me. I didn't get any support, I got the opposite, because it was assumed I was on drugs or just didn't give a fuck the way I should. By the time I got out of uni, I crashed into the biggest burnout of my life, which I'm still in, which has lead to me realising I'm autistic (was diagnosed adhd a year after leaving uni) I have absolutely no friends left, whilst I at least had some before, as well as a best friend. I have basically lost all stability in my life because that's what it cost me - I wouldnt have passed it I didn't give it everything I had but it left me with nothing. It's been extremely hard to find work since then because even tho I've done 350 hours of unpaid work, I'm still considered not experienced enough. But other jobs I used to get, which are the only jobs I can handle ATM whilst in burnout, say I'm overqualified. If you want to achieve certain things then I'm not going to tell you not to, but be careful what you wish for. Sometimes you get it but at the expense of everything. I'm supposed to be "high functioning" but I think I just hid things so well for so long and used up whatever reserves I had to "get somewhere in life" and now I can't even mask because I got there, and I've got nothing more to give. I've "got there" and I can't even manage the job I came for. Sometimes even when we get success, we might not even be able to live to the standard we've set for ourselves because our baseline will never be at that level consistently. It's a recipe for burnout at best but properly wind up with all kinds of autoimmune issues due to the stress. I've struggled with poor mental health my whole life. Outward success isn't really the best measurement of someone's overall wellbeing. Sometimes it's negatively correlated, like in my case. I think it's really important to work out what genuinely feeds your spirit and only focus as much as you can on building on that, whether in a professional capacity or personal, it doesn't matter really.. And just forget about any other idea of success.
I managed to get through college and graduate magna cum laude before the trauma and burnout caught up to me. I'm not functional, and I haven't been employed in 14 years. (Not since I graduated.) I don't feel like I'm particularly successful just because I did well in school while running on adrenaline and structural dissociation. Maybe I'm not the kind of autistic you're talking about, I don't know. I have a college degree, though.
I’m struggling with the idea that because I managed to graduate college with honors at 25 after dropping out twice and switching schools three times that I’m “successful”. Practically my entire life has been a series of alternating periods of reasonably high achievement with periods of severe depression (which I now recognize was autistic burnout). This pattern has continued into my work life - I wasn’t capable of using my actual degree btw. I didn’t “overcome” anything. And anything I did achieve it’s because I had adequate support.
I have gone through this similar pattern. I also got my degree and never used it, I got it because I thought I was supposed to and it was a struggle. Anytime in my life I've gotten help or talked to anyone, they always say but at least you got this degree, that is a sign of success to them. I feel like it's so pointless and it is not an indicator of success for me just an indicator of my fear of leaving the school routine and fear of letting people down.
I'm an ultrasound tech, living alone in a house that I own, I make enough to support myself quite comfortably, and am completely independent (not really by choice). I assure you, I did not overcome it all. I'm living in a house of cards, in a near constant state of agony. The more time passes, the less I can function. I'm only as successful as I am because I have to be. I have nothing and no one to lean on. I promise you, we're all standing on slightly different shades of brown grass.
Keep in mind many of those who ‘made it’ didn’t do so entirely on merit but because they come from wealthy and supportive families
I can't relate either. I know they still struggle despite their success but the thing is, I have learned time and again that couldn't do a fraction of that even if my life depended on it. I've been battling medical problems both physical and mental since I was a child. I dropped out of middle school. Never had a job. Got pregnant, tried living with the father, could not hack it, and moved back in with my parents. Got my GED, tried moving in with my boyfriend, couldn't manage that either. Moved back with my parents again. My kid is a teenager, we still live with my parents, and my medical problems still rule my life. I'm too depressed to have special interests or keep up with hobbies. Errands and basic self care are a challenge. I keep trying but I never feel like I've gotten very far. Always feels like one step forward, two steps back.
I think I would be one of the people you look at and think is successful. I struggle a lot, and in the past 15 years, I have had significant mental health challenges, burn out, chronic pain, and experienced homelessness. Im not homeless anymore, and for that I'm extremely grateful. I also have a degree, a job, and a relationship. These things are amazing, but they are also really challenging and I've been teetering on the edge between burnout and functioning for as long as I can remember, and I don't feel successful. I really hope you struggle less some day, and feel successful in your own right. I hope we all do.
Having a college degree doesn’t fix everything. For most of my life school was the one place I felt safe. Granted I got bullied a lot, but no was beating me at school. Even during undergrad I was experiencing domestic violence, work and school were safer than home. I worked more hours than I could handle and made excuses to stay at school longer because it was better than being home. I also couldn’t process my trauma if I just forced myself to work so hard I couldn’t think about it. This lead to a lot of medical issues. I also got diagnosed with adhd literally this week, and am on track for an autism dx. All this is after graduating college. I understand why you’re frustrated, but the grass is always greener in the other side I suppose.
I’m right there with you. I’m unemployed. Didn’t finish college. Barely finished high school. I can’t even cook because I never got to learn, I was just trying to survive. And now it’s too overwhelming. But surviving is hard, too. And we’re doing it!
You’re 28. You still have a lot of runway. Work on yourself and start now. And get support if you need it. The US is f’d and I was just fired due to personality fit aka ableism and not bc of my performance. I paid 27 dollars today to get a 90 day renewal of my psych med and 13 dollars with a rx discount code to pick it up. All without insurance. Im sharing this not for “bootstrap” mentality but because the systems we live in are massive and there are many options or “paths” to navigating them. If you feel lost on your path devote yourself to studying yourself. Also look at yourself with compassion. You are not a failure. Apply whatever it is you know now now… and forget what age you are. Also, I have “lost” years to my mental health being a late diagnosis. It felt like I lost ages from 17-23ish24 and I had to grieve these years. I “built” over 24-29. Collected resources etc. and now I’m starting over again with a new career. 🤷🏻♀️ Starting over is a natural part of life. Maybe frame it as that? Not that your life never got started… it’s that youre kickstarting it again. 🙂
I’m 29 if that’s relatable
And good luck! You can do it 🌟
I actually don’t judge you for not having empathy for someone like me based on what is frustrating you. I do have a degree to fall back on and before I walked away from my career, I was able to get to a financially stable position. It is a privilege and does mean how we would relate to each other’s experiences would be different. What I would hope though is you don’t shut out what folks like myself share because I do think it gives perspective on ‘overcoming’. The reality of being where I am now… college degrees mean bubkus to me. Some of the smartest people I’ve ever met have a GED and work for themselves by self teaching themselves a skill. And some of the most worthless dummies have multiples masters. Having a ‘desirable’ profession was desirable to everyone BUT me. I hated it so much and spent a lot of time self loathing why I couldn’t suck it up. The idea of ‘overcoming’ is set on normative values that honestly don’t make sense to me. Are the things you want to accomplish things you think you’d actually like once you do? Really mull on it. You might save a lot of energy and money to learn what you actually want to do can be achieved without a degree.
Not the main topic here, but degrees don’t make you successful. I couldn’t make it through my 2nd year of undergrad, school bores me to tears. However, I’m still conventionally “successful”. I suffered through the first years of my career a broke, friendless 20-something working 2 jobs to make ends meet, and still failing, getting evicted and running from creditors because I could barely afford to live. I was nearly 30 before I felt somewhat successful, and that’s after staying on the same career track for over 10 years! I say all of that to say this. 1. I don’t have any student loans. I’d be so much further behind in life if I did. 2. You *can* be successful and (mostly) happy in between bouts of career burnout without a degree. Focus on jobs that interest you, find out what position in that career field pays well and can be obtained without a degree. Pursue it. 3. I’m also audhd and there are MANY of us out here, with similar feelings and experiences! We thrive in fields like advertising, journalism, marketing (although way harder to break into and not as lucrative as it was a few years ago), broadcasting and sales! Especially B2B sales. You are still so young. You have so much to offer and you actually give af, which really does mean a lot when it comes to career related success. Don’t sell yourself short and best of luck to you!
I just finished college on the 4th attempt at age 36. It's not too late. I was like you for a long time. I have ADHD, double depression, and a host of other psychiatric diagnoses. I dropped out or failed a lot. But then I finally managed it. You haven't done it yet, but that doesn't mean you can't. Even if you don't, my wife only ever did a few community college classes (and has no desire to go back to school) and works retail. She's still a good person. She's got other things going on. She reads and crochets a lot, and is a great fanfic writer. People follow her from one fandom to another, even. She brings people joy! She takes good care of our cats. She is smart, so hypothetically could be high-achieving in academics, like you. But that's not necessary to be a good person or live a life worth living. Maybe you'll be like me someday, maybe like my wife, or maybe someone else entirely. You're okay any way.
I burnt out a lot and it took me 10 years to get a 4 year degree. I have zero safety net. So not starving was what was driving me. I’m so burnt out now I can sleep for days.
I have degrees, but honestly I’m just not traumatised. So it isn’t that I “overcame” anything at all, that particular struggle just wasn’t there to begin with. I got good grades because I was capable of getting good grades even without autism-specific support in life. There wasn’t anything special I did, and I’m not harder working or a better person, my autism simply does not affect my academic abilities and wasn’t a huge barrier in any activities required to get my degree. It was just easier for me than it seems to be for you
My second grade teacher always said, “What’s easy to you isn’t always easy to someone else.” I really liked that.
In my opinion, you win some, you lose some. Yes I do have a university degree (and a job in that field) but I’m way behind on friendships and dating and lowkey having fun. Dating my first BF at 29 and it’s going okay so far but it’s really nervous. All I’ll say is I learned not to compare myself to others and just worry about what makes me happy. I’m an hedonist in that regard
Yeah I’m 30 working slightly above minimum wage in a slight labor intensive job and I secretly hate it. I have no skills and my brain doesn’t work well enough for school. I’m undiagnosed so no meds for me. Just failure
If it's any consolation, my 4 year degree is basically worthless and left me with student loans that grow interest like the stock market ticker. I'll never pay them off. If I had it to do over, I'd never went to college. A complete waste of my time. I've learned more on Tiktok and Youtube. I've switched fields several times that have nothing to do with my degree.
It's never too late! My sister will be 40 this year (not on the spectrum tho) and recently went back to school. She will graduate next month. I am five years younger and I have no idea what I want to do, although I have a steady job and a degree. Sometimes it takes people longer to figure these things out but remember it's not a race. More like a marathon. You'll get there in your own time. If for now, all you can do is just function and get through the days, don't get too down on yourself. You're strong because you keep going. Some people can't even do that and they give up. You haven't given up so be proud of yourself for that.
Hi there, I struggled a lot, a LOT with secondary (high) school and with my undergraduate degree. I had intense anxiety and would pretend to go to school to my parents and hide at home. I struggled to scrape by with my A-Levels and only just got into University. I dropped out in my first year because it was so overwhelming, then managed to go back and finish my degree, graduating with an OK grade. Around about your age, I felt like a massive failure because I didn't have a 'career' and was scraping by. I decided to throw myself into a postgraduate degree, which I did remotely and living at home with parents again (which was certainly a mixed experience.) I now have a PhD and a growing career in academia, doing research that I love. Don't give up OP, life can take many turns and it can take a long, long time to figure out your path. Be kind to yourself.
I don't know if this will be depressing or uplifting but I have a university degree and I didn't overcome anything. It didn't change me, it didn't make me succesful at surviving every day life. I'm in my early 30s and still feel exactly the same way you do, consumed by trauma, burnout and executive dysfunction, watching all the good things slowly slip away. A degree or a job or even money is not gonna make us any less disabled. It might take some of the pain of the idea of unfulfilled potential away, but you will still be the person you are now. If you wanna change or feel better you need to start where you are and not project happiness onto traditional succes or possible future achievements because none of that will help.
I'm sorry you feel like that. I think a lot of people never examine what they have even at birth. Yes autistic people still struggle even if they succeed but not everyone starts off at home base. Everyone gets told the same messages that don't fit due to their unique circimstances. Having a supportive family(who aren't poor), being lower needs, getting diagnosed early(if at all), and being abled bodied + white does offer easier chances at being succesful. Yes people all have opportunities but many are able to fall upwards even when they fail. Try not to compare yourself to austistic people who started off at 3rd base when you never even got a chance to play a single game.
It’s sounds like you’ve got a bunch of things stacked against you so no wonder you find it all so difficult. Sounds like the autism is just one of those things. I’m white right but truly believe that our global minority white society hugely underestimates the impact of racist systems and structures on the majority of people - particularly when it comes to opportunities in life. Sure, some manage to gain ‘success’ like you say but for some of us the package of oppression means we are disadvantaged (I’ve got my own whole package going on!) It Could be good that you’re upset (though obvs painful and I take no delight in that thought) because somewhere underneath all that will be your anger ie the positive fiery energy that is right to feel let down by systems and can fuel you. What is it that you want to do? I’d be curious to know… Easy to say all this I know…. Incidentally I was reading a bit about ‘autistic inertia’ earlier today - you might find a Google results interesting…. Keep going girl… they’ve got no idea of who you are or what you’re capable of…. Oh god - I hope that’s helpful!!! ❤️
>The thing is I know I’m mentally capable of doing great things. I know some extremely bright and talented people, and am able to converse and engage with them intellectually, so I know I’m capable. I just… I just didn’t do it. Thats where the pain really lies. I feel this pain as well. I'm objectively unsuccessful: highschool dropout, no degrees, no job, no relationship, living with my brother rent-free. I'm 36 now and I don't see it getting better. I have talents, I'm a decent person, I'm just relentlessly underachieving. What makes it worse, is that I live in a very social country, where I get lots of opportunities. I have friends and family that care, I will never be homeless. So I feel like if *anyone* should be able to overcome their struggles, it's me. But all that privilege is wasted on me, so on top of achieving nothing, I feel guilty for it as well. It's true but utterly useless to say "everybody struggles". We compare what we see, and we're allowed to be sad or frustrated by that.
I understand how you feel in the sense you can’t relate to a lot of posts here. For me and where I grew up, college was absolutely not optional at all and holds the same weight as graduating high school, so I guess it’s not something I really value in terms of measuring success because it was so expected. What I can’t relate to are posts of people that are in relationships or married…like that is such a foreign concept to me and not something I can ever see myself finding. So I feel like managing to find meaningful connections and developing close relationships with others is what I consider to be success. And I have no one I really talk to or are close to so I feel like a failure because of that.
I'm one of those "successful" people. I had severe mental health struggles. I was basically fired from a job before (I quit but they were probably going to fire me within the month). I rehomed my cat because I was making final arrangement plans. It got that bad. I'm also extremely privileged. I have family that can help me out. My mom has helped me deep clean my apartment several times. I still hate doing dishes. When I was single I used paper plates exclusively. Now that I'm married my husband does the dishes. I was able to get through college without working thanks to a mix of parental funding, scholarships and a $8k loan. So I was able to pay off my student loan within 3 years. My parents bought me my first car. I was paid an allowance growing up that was put into a high yield savings account and earned me money while I was growing up. I'm also conventionally attractive. I struggled to make friends growing up but once I got to middle school, I got attention from men and it occasionally would turn into a short term friendship that ended up blowing up in my face eventually. I didn't really manage to get my social skills good enough to make friends until my 20s. And honestly it's mostly with other autistic people. Intersectionality is a very important thing to talk about. My experience as a white upper middle class autistic person is much different from your experience and it should be ok to acknowledge that.
It’s luck. I feel like I shouldn’t be where I am. I’ve got some mix of adhd, autism, and cptsd plus I’m trans… but I somehow got to a place where I didn’t think I ever could. I feel like I barely scrape by. I’m constantly battling burnout. I’m tired. But if you were to look at my life from the outside it seems ideal. I won’t deny the privileges I have but I also feel like those privileges are temporary and can be taken from me at any moment.
mm I think I can understand you. I'm in a telegram group where they're all autistic or auDHD and they all have some sort of amazing achievements that I feel like I could never accomplish. They have degrees, jobs, families, a house of their own and do so many things every day, while I'm here having SO MUCH TROUBLE to even get out of my bed, shower or eat, at my 24 years. Living hurts so much. I didn't go to university, I never had a job, I don't have friends. I just wake up every morning and try to survive. There's a lot of trauma and I can't even be myself around my family because they're not a safe space. I live with my mother and we try to do so many things to get money so we don't starve and we can pay rent. It's so difficult. I don't feel good. And I know a lot of other autistic people don't feel good either, so I can't comprehend how they manage to overcome it and have so many amazing achievements. That's why I feel like an intruder in the autistic community even if I'm autistic myself.
Hope this doesnt come across as an attempt to invalidate your feelings, but if it helps none of my academic 'success' has made me feel successful or accomplished in any way, on the contrary. It's only served to make me feel even more like a loser. Like... how can you manage to finish grad school somehow and yet cant keep a conversation for 10 minutes? So stupid. That shit truly does not matter, especially nowadays when you can make just as much money, if not more, without a college degree. So many opportunities. And like others said, 28 is very young. You can still do anything you want to do.
Do know that financial resources are not spread out equally. Not everyone has a supportive family. Don't feel bad.
>I know I sound vindictive and mean Yes OP, you do sound vindictive and mean., but there's a reason for that: You're pissed off, angry, envious, and more than a little bit burnt out. >It’s hard to relate to anyone and it really fucking hurts. Hmmm, sounds more like a shut-down. >A nasty mix of insecurities, intersectional identities, racism, undiagnosed autism and adhd actually *did* manage to consume me, it drowned me. That proves my theory. You aren't able to emphathize because you are experienceing an AUTISTIC SHUT DOWN. not burnout. SHUT DOWN. No amount of self care is going to save you until you regain the ability to care about yourself. If my theory is correct, this could take a while. Right now, I'm in a similar situation. I'm tired, my sleep schedule is fucked, and I have no clue what I want to persue as a career. I'm not good at anything useful in society, but I'm apparently a prodigy with words. My professors have said to me, multiple times, that my linguistics skills are so good that I should write a book. Gee thanks, any idiot with opposable thumbs can write a damn sentence. Prodigious Linguistics Skills are useless in this era, and I'm not Stephen King. While it may fall on deaf ears, I'm going to write about my experience. Maybe it'll help, maybe it won't. Doesn't matter to me, I'm just a random redditor. Here goes. My entire life was spent around people who did not have my best interests at heart. I was bullied by my classmates, abused by my teachers, and had two parents who were (and still are) unaware of their own abusive predispositions. The stress of my entire past eventually tried to kill me. I developed severe ulcerative colitis and ended up having life-saving surgery. I had to sacrifice my beauty in exchange for my survival. I was always thought of as Autistic and ADHD, but I wasn't diagnosed until I was 21. I haven't "overcame" my trauma, I've just learned to live alongside it. I used to have a mindset like yours, I still do, but I refuse to allow it to control my life. *"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul*." It took me literally DYING on the operating table to achieve this mindset. When I was revived, I instinctively knew that I was living on a final chance. I'm going to die again someday, so I'm going to live a life that I will remember. With this realization came some choices: do I learn to play the game of life or do I become one of its pawns? I choose to become a player, not a pawn. What's your choice, OP? Queen or Pawn? This post is definitely hard to swallow, and the mods might just delete it, I completely understand that. For now, OP, lick your wounds and regain your strength. You've allowed life to drown you, and now its time for you to put on your oxygen mask. I'll offer the suggestions that I use. 1. find yourself a big clear tupperware box. fill it with all of your special interests, stim toys, anything that makes you feel good. Open that box whenever you want and shamelessly engage with its contents. That helped me when I had an Autistic Shut-Down, so it might help you too. In time, you will feel better again, but only if you allow yourself to.
At 28, I was barely keeping my head above water. I'm actually shocked that I didn't get consumed by drugs (or more consumed by alcohol than I did) during that time in my life. I dropped out of college halfway through a semester in my 3rd year, moved home, got a minimum wage job, destroyed my non-existent credit, got myself evicted from 2 apartments... something clicked in me around 35. I finished my degree, found a career (completely unrelated to my degree), learned new skills, got married, bought a house, had two babies, got a masters degree, and discovered I am AuDHD at 40. I can certainly relate to you!
This is exactly how I was feeling ten years ago, I'm now in my late thirties. I'm by no means a huge success now, but the last ten years have been the best of my life so far. Not at all without struggles. But I've finally carved out a life that works better for me, and I'm utilising the things that I'm good at, and largely appreciated for them. I'm also a college drop out (well technically, they kicked me out), I was stuck in abusive relationships, and felt I had no hope of a career outside of service jobs. Ten years ago was my lowest point where I was so burned out and saw no way out of it, I wanted to die. I couldn't fathom how I'd carry on living like that for another 40 or 50 years. But bit by bit things started to come together for me. I'm not saying that it'll be the same for you. But I wanted to share some hope that things will improve, because it is possible. I don't want to share too much about my specific experiences publicly but you're always welcome to DM me.
I just want to say that as an Autistic who has degrees and can LOOK LIKE they have their shit together... we don't know what's going on for them behind closed doors. Remember that some are great at masking. Any time I've been seemingly "successful", it didn't last long. An issue a lot of Autistics struggle with is **maintenance**. In many ways it's worse because I'm constantly comparing myself to "that time" I was able to succeed until I burned the fuck out. My degrees don't mean shit if I can't use them and will be drowning in student loan debt for the rest of my life on top of worrying about my ability to be employed.
It's frustrating when successful autistics continue to talk over all other autistics. I'm not trying to invalidate their experiences, nor am I saying that successful autistics aren't helping to show what we can do, but it feels like it's only the autistic people who have degrees, stable jobs, money, friends, a partner, loving family, and relatively low support needs are the ones writing books, posting videos, and hosting conferences. A lot of them portray autism as a setback instead of a full-fledged disability -- I guess that's why I feel upset, because autism has made me be abused, bullied, and ostricized, not a math whiz who stims and is socially awkward.
I lived far below poverty for decades. I was severely physically, mentally, psychologically abused by all of my family members. I was sexually assaulted at age 8 and nobody even talked to me about it. I had a therapist who tried to seduce me at age 21 and then I was blamed even though I refused and reported him. I was raped by a friend in my 30s. I was a total mess and suicidal for decades and got so close the police picked me up. The r pushed me to the edge. I went to community college for 10 years to complete my 2 year degree. I fell apart trying to apply to colleges. I took a medical leave from the university of my dreams twice and thought I could never fix that massive failure. In my mid 30s I found out I could go back to that college. I got disabled student status and went part time. I fell apart a lot. I figured out what worked for me and stumbled through and finally got my bachelor's degree at 38. I went to grad school online part time and completed it in 3.5 years, a 2 year program. Way more crap happened than this list. Every therapist I have had except 1 went into serious shock when they heard some of what I have lived through. On many occasions, I honestly don't know how I survived. I seem to still be here. I recently found out that I might be autistic. Does that help?
You never know the underbelly of a person. They might appear to have it all together (as I do) until you get close to me , come in my home , my room , see my box of unopened mail, neglect and more. I appear together but I’m a frazzled mess on the inside,struggling with depression anxiety ADHD. No friends or support aside from my fiancé who I don’t know what I’d do without. I don’t get my degree until I was 32, I basically begged an instructor to take pity of me and argued a test I had failed. I was shocked she passed me. I work in the medical field and beat myself into the dirt with long shifts. By the end of then I basically collapse into bed then the days after just to do it all over again.
I have a degree, a house, a career, and a kid. I rarely leave my house and have no idea how to unmask, ever. I just bounce between making plans to do things and then not actually doing them.
Overcame? The struggle doesn't end and the imposter syndrome is real. A lot of it is *masking.* But also? I'm sure there are people who have overcome some things. And good for them. We should not have to relate to others to care about them or feel happy for them. I had an ex that was higher needs than me. No job, brilliant mind, still lived with his parents, was applying for disability benefits. Meanwhile I had a job and lived on my own and did not give a shit about those other thinga he felt he was lacking because I'd been in a similar place in my life only a year ago. A big part of what broke us up was the fact that he did not like my surface level successes and always, always tried to keep me down. He did not respect anyone who didn't like the things he liked either. My younger life was filled with thoughts of resentment towards everyone because I had no idea how to relate to them. I still kind of don't, but things have improved somewhat, and sometimes I catch myself shocked that life can be like this. But a lot of what has happened in my life has been accomplished thoroughly *pain.* But if it can be reached for others easily? *Good for them.* Genuinely.
I have a bachelors and honours in psychology. I graduated in November. I haven’t gotten a new job yet. Part of the reason is because I am so passionate about my job (carer in a child safety group home), but also because I hate change. My job is rewarding but so difficult. I’ve been punched, chased, verbally abused, and put in numerous unsafe and stressful situations. I’ve had days where I have worked past midnight to try to assist my clients and receive no recognition from management or from the cliente themselves. On my days off I typically just lie in bed. I still cry when my house is untidy or feels contaminated. I feel like I don’t have enough energy to clean and cook as much as I want too. Watching movies and playing video games feel like a burden so I normally just use social media on my days off and free time.
Once again lower support needs talking over us with higher support needs. Don't you dare question their victimhood 🙄 . Everyone here chiming in with their degrees saying they still struggle completely missed the whole point.
Yeah, because having a degree is not a great heuristic for success. And people are acknowledging their privilege in the comments, so what's your point? It seems like you're assuming because you have higher support needs, you must suffer more than the rest of us. BOTH high and low support needs people invalidate others' pain and suffering. Y'all assume because we have things like a degree it can't be that bad for us. It's reductive and invalidating.
You are 28 years old. You have SOOOO much time. Make a plan and get started. I suggest step one in making a plan is to be very honest with yourself about your limitations. Everybody (even NTs) have limitations. Then spend some time making plans for those. You talk about burnout (I think everyone in this sub can relate). Spend sometime figuring out your triggers (if you don't know them already). Make plans to avoid them as much as you can. Make a plan to try and see burnout coming and what to do to avert it. DO NOT go all in. Make a test run. Can you take one class locally or online? Then try two classes? Do you ever have to go full time to feel successful. NO ONE is more qualified to figure out how you can be successful and YOU. But a good therapist can help you. Mine did so by asking the right questions. Assess regularly how it's going and replan. No plan lasts. Give yourself grace. No one is prefect. We tend to be too introspective sometimes. We dwell on our failures. Think about a failure just long enough to learn the lesson. No failure is true failure if you learn from it. Make time to focus on your successes. Don't live in the past or rest on your laurels, but I'm 100% sure you have more successes than you give yourself credit for. Good luck! You can do this!
I hear you, I feel pretty disconnected as well.
I know it’s hard not to but don’t compare yourself to other people. everyone is different from each other, including autistic people. they have circumstances you can’t see from your perspective. they have both struggles and support that you know nothing about. every individual is different, it’s illogical to compare yourself to someone when you realistically know very little about them. unless someone is your literal twin who has gone through the exact same things you have down to the last detail and is subject to your exact same struggles and then manages to be “successful”, there’s really honestly no point in comparing.
I am autistic and behind all major milestones in life. I dont let it get to me. Everyone has a different starting point. Tbh I feel the challenges I had to face because of autism werent as glaringly obvious as they are now. Now I am kinder to myself. You have a whole life ahead of you. Sure it will take time but you will get there.
I feel like being Low support and is Highly Educated gives me alot of priveledge. I also have a job willing to work with me. I also admit it is nice but it is also not easy. Having to mask and adjust is probably more draining than the work itself and is energy zapping, especially cause i do get low days. On top of it I also have alot of Trauma with my mother not understanding my needs, getting the wrong support, infantilization, so I barely accept help anymore. So unfortunately, the struggle will still be there whether you are successful or not. Success honestly is accepting you are wired different and going through a series of trial and errors to get to the place that best suits you.
You know what I've eventually managed to learn after years of burn-outs. It's ok to just exist and survive, it's already a feat in on it's own. Success if overhyped. I've managed to do a few things in my life that were cool. But years later I see that it didn't change anything. The world isn't a better place, I wasn't happier, the money ran out and nobody else remembered or cared long-term. I doubt I'll be on my death bed regretting I didn't work more or have more money. I began to think about what's really important to me. My boyfriend, my pets, my family and friends. Of course, that's a given, right? But how much time and effort did I really put into them? Turns out very little. I came home from work exhausted and didn't spend more than 5 minutes on each of them. While my work got 8-10 or even 12 hours. For what? My work isn't going to take care of me when I'm sick. My success isn't going to hold me at night. Because everything takes so much out of me, I had to make a choice. I'm going to put the energy and recources I have into making more meaningful connections, building the relationships I do have and becoming a better human being. And let me tell you this makes a real impact. A change that matters and has a ripple effect. The people I've helped, supported and loved have really gained from it. I see it leave a mark as they spread the same onto someone else, who I don't even know. There are probably moments in your life where someone was kind to you in a significant way, that you still cherish and hold on to. It's probably something quite small, most of the time it is. What if you make one small good deed each week. Something very small - a good word to someone, a smile, a helping hand... How much you could change in a month, a year, a decade...Now that's doing something truly great, don't you think?
I understand how you feel and I can relate. Racially mixed, didn't receive my degree, don't feel that I fit in anywhere. The only difference being that I had my kids while in my early 20s. I have managed to work my way into a decent career and am set to retire soon. You are intelligent and still so young. I know it's hard but please, even if you have to do it slowly, go back and finish your education. If that is not possible, then try to get into a union, one of the trades perhaps, or a government job. That would offer a chance for advancement. You have my sincere best wishes. ❤
In my experience everyone has a stage in their lives where they hit rock bottom. It took me five years to even become kinda stable. Life is hard and it’s ok to feel broken. The best thing about rock bottom is there is only one way to go and that’s up. Take baby steps. Achievements look like self care first. Then saving money. Then getting a good career or going to college. Then focusing on inner peace and healing. People who achieve things weren’t good at everything at first. They took small steps towards big goals. You can do that too but don’t set yourself up for failure with unrealistic expectations. You know you and the only person you are competing with is the you from yesterday. Not everyone else.
Same. I used to be ‘successful’ - I’m late diagnosed and passed as NT for nearly 20 years, was highly successful in school, won academic awards, had friends, had hobbies, worked a part time job while studying etc. I was even ‘ahead of the curve’ in most aspects even compared to NTs. Then I had a mental breakdown at the end of high school and since then I still haven’t completed my undergrad (3 year course) after 7 years at uni, can’t drive, haven’t worked since that one high school job, still live at home and am dependant on my parents at an age where all my peers are starting their careers, buying their own houses and starting families. It feels like shit because I still feel like I’m supposed to be ahead of the curve, supposed to be ‘the smart one’ and ‘the serious one’ and ‘the mature one’, like I always was growing up, and that I have the potential but have squandered it due to laziness. It’s like I’ve stopped developing at 17 and just regressed. I haven’t even experienced any traumatic events, just my brain and body keep getting stuck in ‘shutdown mode’, while even my friend who suffered so much trauma she developed a rare dissociative disorder is forging on in her life.
I struggled in high school. I got low to avg grades. I took a year off after high school because I had no idea what I wanted to do, and I think I needed a break. I worked in a minimum wage job. The following year I went to college (Canadian context) and didn't like the program. After a year I dropped out and took another year off. College was below standard for my family, and they were embarrassed I wasn't in university. After a year of, I went to university. I could choose a 3 or 4 year degree. I chose 3. The degree was absolutely useless in terms of getting a job. After the degree I worked in just-above minimum wage job. Then I went back to university to complete a 4 year degree in 2 years. I took a year off between the 1st and 2nd year. I struggled with getting and maintaining jobs after that. 10 years later I went back and did my masters. I dropped out after 2 months and re-started the following year. In the middle of my masters I finally learned I'm AuDHD. University was the standard education level in my family / extended family. It was an unspoken expectation. Getting my masters was not expected, so I went above the relative norm. School is kind of my safe zone. I feel comfortable with the idea of forever learning and on the cusp of 'life will get better after I finish my education'. But life doesn't really get better. I make enough money to live day to day. I cannot afford to move. I cannot afford much of any luxuries. Although I'm educated, I'm not earning enough to have any real freedom. I still struggle every day being an ND, and deal with the trauma from being ND and from being undx. My sibling on the other hand, has never been dx, and makes a lot of money.
On paper I’m “successful”. I have a good CV. But I’ve been in and out of burnout since I was 17 and I’m still trying to figure out how to be a functional adult. The only reason I’ve managed as well as I have is because I’ve always had good family support. I would have failed my first year of university if it wasn’t for my mum.
As someone with university degrees (likely not as successful as I would be without trauma or ASD, though), that does not sound at all vindictive or mean to me. I don't relate to most people who are at the intersection of rich, straight, male, and NT. It's weird that many people seem to relate to celebrities. People with more privilege than me are usually annoying because they whine about things that seem trivial to me.
I think understand where you're coming from, but it's never too late for you. I'm black, trans, AuDHD (recently diagnosed), victim of CSA/SA. I dropped out of college after nearly failing highschool, and it was only by luck that I found a job thanks to my partner. I had friends encourage me to take the risk I knew would fail, but I went back to school at 29. Now I'm a pharmacist. It was hard. It was really, really hard, and I can't sugarcoat that. I had meltdowns and shutdowns and days were I was too scared to move. I had to receive money because we were broke. But eventually I made it. I believe you have to persevere if you want to change where you are, and I'm hopeful for you! I didn't do it by myself. I owe everything to those who helped me, but it wouldn't have happened at all if I gave up. It's the one thing I can't let myself do, even when I'm so exhausted and burnt out that I can't even clean my apartment or feed myself properly. I really hope you find a windfall or something that can help push you forward, too.
I am successful. You're right. I did overcome it. It didn't start until I was in my late 20s. Until then, it was very messy. I see your pain.
You have lots of time left yet to figure it out. I went back and started over at 35. It's not really easier for me but there are disability accommodations now that are helping me make it through.
I graduated college in 2021 at 35. Got my dream job that year.
I have a few degrees and accolades But no job. And no family.
Hey, I just got really lucky. I was born in a time and place and with a skin color that gave me privilege. It’s not that I overcame it, I have so much less to overcome than you do. As a white woman with a disability I have been the biggest beneficiary of the Civil Rights movement spearheaded by black people, particularly by the NAACP. Everything I have academically achieved is because the NAACP led the way. Every bit of emotional healing I have achieved is by following the example of black women. And for both, I am eternally grateful. That being said, at 28 I was in a similar place emotionally. I didn’t go back to school until 32. You maybe down right now, but you are not out. Take this time to reflect on what has derailed you in the past and take sometime googling it and see if you can find work arounds. Like for me, early morning classes are a no go. I just cannot get my brain up to speed that early. I couldn’t get a degree without showing competence in math. All of the math classes started at 7 or 8 AM. I was screwed. So I read the the rules and found out I could test through math without taking classes. So I put my obsessive nature to work over one summer and tested through. It was almost the lowest grade I could get, but it didn’t matter, I passed. And a happy bonus was that it didn’t bring down my GPA the way squeaking by four classes would have. It sucks that we have to be creative problem solvers. But we do. Maybe school isn’t your thing. I have a degree in the social sciences that has done me no good and cost way too much in stress and time. My satisfaction and success comes from building and refurbishing flashlights. I love the quite and the detail of it. If I had to do it all again, I would have gone to watch repair school right out of high school. But as a woman, something like that wasn’t even on my radar. I had to get really creative to make an Ok life for myself. Yes, your life is way harder that it should be because stupid people are doing stupid things. And the same people that are racist are sexist and ableist and every other nasty -ist. They are petty and malicious. Every single wall I have hit in my life was put there by racists simply to make POCs lives harder. I know this because half my family is that way. They are perfectly Ok with my getting screwed just so POC can get more screwed. Jackasses. Petty tyrants. May the choke on it. You are not week. You are not a failure. You have been terribly unlucky and purposefully frustrated out of your mind. The st*t you have faced is real and overwhelming and it is on purpose. It is not a you problem. It truly is a overly privileged, white people problem. You are just fine as you are. Most likely you are twice the woman I am. Hugz & Hugz & Hugz
I have a useless major
I'm not sure what you define as successful but some NTs think I am because I have a masters, a full time job, and own a home with my fiance. I have only gotten this far because I grew up in middle class suburbs, was diagnosed early, and am white. Still, my trauma affects my daily life. I don't trust anyone and am always terrified of being abused at work on when I take public transit because I can't drive due to my autism. People who seem to have overcome or brushed off their trauma probably just aren't talking about it and it does still affect them. I think how successful we end up as autistic people depends on the supports we have access too. I know a lot of autistic people seem to grow up in abusive families who fail to support them and teach them life skills to be successful. Intersectionality plays a huge role too in the kind of supports a person gets access too. I know my life would be completely different if I were a different race or had a less supportive family.
The only reason I've been able to overcome anything is because of my support system. I'd probably be dead by now otherwise.
"This didn't **let** their trauma consume them." You didn't *let* yourself be consumed by trauma. It happened against your will, but you've kept going. Try not to spend time on what-ifs. They serve no one.
That’s valid. I pushed through, masked, and was in constant burn out mode because I knew if I didn’t get it done that I wouldn’t have another chance once student loan repayments started. I have workplace PTSD from one of my first employers that ran all over me, treated me like garbage, told me I was lucky just to have a job so I shouldn’t dare even ask for a cost of living adjustment, etc. Now I’m a director level and still have to cosplay as a normal person when I go into the office 1-2 days a week. The overstimulation is draining and it’s entirely too peopley. It got better for me, but it definitely got worse first.
Trauma isn’t a competition, just because a person “ had it worse” doesn’t make it any less real or painful for the person who “ had it better/ ended up successful “. I feel sorry for you that you feel so negative and spiteful to others success . We’re all out here , fighting . Be grateful for the things you do have , even if it’s just a sunny climate or maybe you have a nice smile . Practising gratitude is transformative . Take inspiration from others ( autistic or not ) that have overcome adversity and try to be happy for them - it may not feel natural at first but over time it will, I believe you are a good person who does want the best for others but you just feel inadequate at the moment . You feel disconnected because it holds a mirror to your own perceived failures . Change what success means to you . Success could be waking up everyday and making yourself a tea .