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Thanks, everyone, but this really is depressing me a little. I think I'm going to join an ASD forum and see if anyone has a more positive outlook on my situation. I'm still planning to take the advice given to me here, though, including taking my therapist's advice even though it makes me afraid, not just uncomfortable. I also called those other therapists. I guess I should write something out so that I know what to say. I usually don't take little steps like that. I think they all have a purpose for me, the psychiatrist could prescribe me medication that may help alleviate some of my inattention issues. The ASD life coach might be able to help me come up with a workable career plan.
I think an ASD forum is a great idea, but please go there for help, not just validation. I don't know the sites, but make sure it's not just a rant-fest, make sure it is moderated by professionals and geared toward helping you, not putting a positive spin on chaos.
This is that gremlin in your head that is going to try to convince you to run and hide because it's getting scary....don't listen to it.
I am happy to hear you will open up to your therapist...it is okay to tell her you're afraid, again it is a safe space for you.
I just want to let you know that what you described is classic OCD. There are many people who think EXACTLY how you described. You can have OCD with or without ASD. What you described is very typical behavior, including the thought cycle. Many people with OCD are very susceptible to over-reacting or taking things out of context when someone of authority prescribes certain lifestyle dictums.
There are a number of medications prescribed for OCD, not just anti-depressants. Most people with OCD are not psychotic. They are aware that their thoughts and behaviors are not normal and they are very aware of reality. It's tricky to treat OCD with medication, but many people respond positively with some sort of combination of medications. The medication is to make you feel a little calmer while you change behavior through therapy. The medication, by itself, does not do much, but changes your brain chemistry so that you can handle the therapy. After the therapy has had an effect and no longer necessary on a regular basis, some people like having a small dose of the medication as maintenance and to keep the symptoms from coming back. I'll bet your therapist brought up the idea of medication. The trick is to start with teeny, tiny doses, stay on that tiny dose and work your way up until your body can handle any side effects. It takes months. No one is ever cured from OCD, unless you have a very mild case of it, but it can be managed. There are also different therapeutic approaches for OCD, including biofeedback. What works for one person, may not work for someone else. You need to be willing to be the subject of your own experiment.
You have complicated multiple issues, which is why it makes it so hard to improve. The key is to set very small goals for yourself. Very small. Otherwise you will be easily discouraged and feel depressed and kick yourself over and over.
I think an ASD forum is a great idea, but please go there for help, not just validation. I don't know the sites, but make sure it's not just a rant-fest, make sure it is moderated by professionals and geared toward helping you, not putting a positive spin on chaos.
This is that gremlin in your head that is going to try to convince you to run and hide because it's getting scary....don't listen to it.
I am happy to hear you will open up to your therapist...it is okay to tell her you're afraid, again it is a safe space for you.
I might have to keep looking. The ASD life coach whose contact information you posted emailed me back; she mentioned that I contacted her once before already and said that it looks like I'm not really in a position financially to hire a life coach. She recommended I do a lot of reading on the subject and break my dreams into tiny achievable goals. Well, I guess I need to start somewhere.
You have complicated multiple issues, which is why it makes it so hard to improve. The key is to set very small goals for yourself. Very small. Otherwise you will be easily discouraged and feel depressed and kick yourself over and over.
This is what everyone else said, too. Where would you recommend I start? Others have recommended I focus on the inattention by making lists and setting alarms for myself (which is also what you recommended). A few people in the online ASD group said they also have issues with focusing at times. Some use apps to help them keep up with their schedules. One person suggested I find a local professional organizer; a pro might be able to help me start a schedule and develop a routine.
Most women in this area brag about being able to be professional organizers, and here I am perhaps needing to hire one just to help me keep up with myself. I feel like a total failure. Why am I so ill equipped to do the jobs I most admire? This is something I don't think I yet understand. If people don't just go to school to learn skills like these, where and how do they learn them? I thought getting a degree would give me qualifications, in my case, teacher, and I would be able to do the job I was trained to do, but that's not the case, and I'm depressing myself thinking about the things I've literally "always wanted to do" that are easy apparently for other people to start doing and getting paid for. For example, one of my friend's nieces cleans houses professionally, and she's just a few years out of high school. I don't get it. I'm upset that no one ever trained me to do those things, not even for myself. I would like to get training; I don't want to be worthless and unskilled.
I thought about starting out with a maid service, because they would provide training, but the last time I checked they weren't hiring. I really can clean and organize, but the steps have to be laid out for me. I'm very bad at coming up with my own steps and often get confused when a task contains multiple steps that I have to figure out. When I know the steps, though, I can shine like a true professional, if I'm working with a more experienced coworker or a checklist.
Should I contact that life coach again and request to make an appointment, even though she knows my financial situation and doesn't think I can afford one?
I might have to keep looking. The ASD life coach whose contact information you posted emailed me back; she mentioned that I contacted her once before already and said that it looks like I'm not really in a position financially to hire a life coach. She recommended I do a lot of reading on the subject and break my dreams into tiny achievable goals. Well, I guess I need to start somewhere.
I didn't give you any life coaches, I gave you licensed therapists from the Psychology Today website who specialized in ASD and had sliding fee scales. I think you need a real professional not a life coach. And call them, e-mailing is just another fear/avoidance technique and you know this.
I agree with ocnjgirl about the life coach. Anyone can call themself a "life coach." You don't need training or a state license to be a life coach.
As for your other question, set a very small goal. Not "to be more organized." That's too big and vague. Something like I will organize the middle drawer in my dresser and keep it neat for a month. Later, add organizing the top drawer and keeping that one neat too. Very small goals. Start with the ones that seem "easy" or the ones where you will be more successful. As you proceed, you can start with more difficult or anxiety provoking goals, but not at the beginning. Learn the skills on a small scale and then later you can apply those same skills to larger projects. Give yourself a homework assignment. And don't forget to reward yourself for accomplishing a goal.
How do people learn these skills? Not from school. Some of it is in-born common sense. We all have an instinct to survive. A lot of this stuff is learned from family life. Most mammals learn from their parents basic survival skills-how to get food, where to live, how to defend yourself from being eaten by a predator, how to get along with everyone in the herd/flock/warren. Every once in a while, an animal is born with a malfunction. There are animals with ADD and OCD. Birds, especially can have OCD. Unless, there is human intervention, most of these animals don't live all that long.
I didn't give you any life coaches, I gave you licensed therapists from the Psychology Today website who specialized in ASD and had sliding fee scales. I think you need a real professional not a life coach. And call them, e-mailing is just another fear/avoidance technique and you know this.
No? Maybe I looked at the wrong post, then?
Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by ocnjgirl
You;re already going to a counselor, you need people who SPECIALIZE if your disorder. Here's just one I found googling "Life coach for aspergers near Mobile AL"I took the phone number out, but it's easy enough to find.
"I want to work with people to find new ways of understanding their lives so they can DO things differently in order to realize their goals in a healthy manner. My therapeutic approach is active, practical, caring, solution-focused and values-oriented. I engage people where they presently are in their lives in an effort to help them get to a new and better place."
Asperger's Syndrome
Mobile, Alabama 36604
Here is a life coach that specializes in Aspergers and does over the phone coaching: http://coachingasperger.com/ She as well has a sliding fee scale: "A sliding scale fee is available; for those whose household annual gross income is below $200,000, a 25% discount is offered, and for those whose household income is below $50,000 per year, a 50% discount is offered."
The point is, all these resources are out there and yes, it will take some perseverance to find the right help, but it would serve you much better than all the distractions you create to try to escape/avoid your issues.
Even if they are not on your insurance, most have sliding scales, and if you can afford to pay for even one course a semester, you can pay for at least several sessions with one of these guys.
Help is out there, but you have to be determined to seek it out and ask for it. You've been ignoring this advice for years now and you're not in any better of a position, nor any happier with your life (which is the most important thing) than you were when you first joined. No more excuses, your life is whooshing by and you're not even trying to steer it, just going along for a ride to nowhere.
I will try to answer these questions you keep posting in one form or another.
Quote:
Originally Posted by krmb
... Most women in this area brag about being able to be professional organizers, and here I am perhaps needing to hire one just to help me keep up with myself. I feel like a total failure. Why am I so ill equipped to do the jobs I most admire? This is something I don't think I yet understand.
Most people are not able to be professional organizers, no matter how much they brag. That's just brag, not fact. So stop listening to them. Your ASD is a big part of your problem, but not the only part. The other part is you spend a lot of time in avoiding things that look like work. You like academics because it's safe. Work is big and fuzzy and uncomfortable and risky so you look to avoid it. Besides the need for professional help with your ASD, you have been given a lot of advice to take small steps. But you seem to keep coming back explaining why you can't rather than actually doing what has been suggested many times.
If people don't just go to school to learn skills like these, where and how do they learn them?
They learn by failure. That's right, people aren't magical. They learn to do things by trying and failing. Then when they fail, they say "well, that didn't work, I'll do it differently next time." And through experience they learn what works and what doesn't, gradually getting better over time. You aren't seeing all the messy failures, just what you perceive as the successes.
I thought getting a degree would give me qualifications, in my case, teacher, and I would be able to do the job I was trained to do, but that's not the case, and I'm depressing myself thinking about the things I've literally "always wanted to do" that are easy apparently for other people to start doing and getting paid for.
This is part of your problem. You seem to believe that just getting the right magic training will make everything fall into place. There is no magic training and things are not easy for others to start doing and getting paid. Your beliefs about others are simply not reality. And comparing yourself to an unreal imaginary world just isn't helping you. You have to take risks and accept that you will fail along the way. This is nothing to do with you because every single one of us has failed to get where we are. So accept the failures, learn from them, and change tactics. If someone, a supervisor, friend, or whoever tells you something, take it, learn from, it, and stop rejecting everything that doesn't fit your world view. Stop spending so much effort trying to prove everyone else wrong and spend that effort on where you need to spend it.
For example, one of my friend's nieces cleans houses professionally, and she's just a few years out of high school. I don't get it. I'm upset that no one ever trained me to do those things, not even for myself. I would like to get training;
To reiterate, there is no magic training. Just stop saying no one ever trained you. Learn by doing. Get professional help for your ASD to learn the skills you need to learn from life. But quite looking for the magic training you think everyone else but you got. They didn't. They learned from life experience.
When I was a child, I had big dreams and lofty goals. Even now, I often daydream about becoming a zookeeper, a famous writer and traveler, a model, and perhaps a private teacher with her own tutoring service. The problem, though, is I'm thirty years old, and these are still just dreams. Now, I went to school and got a couple of degrees, but it's still not that easy to find regular entertaining work. I majored in Education, but I work in a detention center, and I often find myself on the receiving end of reprimands, and I have been threatened with termination. I'm wondering if it's time to move on or if I should try to keep this until I find something better? I know it's not a good idea to quit with nothing lined up, and substitute teaching actually pays less than the job I have, but I need to do something.
In this economy, it's very easy to feel "unemployable"
It's because there are no jobs. Yes there are part-time administrative assistant, medical receptionist, etc.
No real jobs.
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