Recently my Mum ran into the mother of a friend from school. I hadn’t seen her for awhile, but at the time we and our parents had bonded over the fact that we were both on the spectrum.
We were similar in a lot of ways. We had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome around the same time in year seven. Both of us were gifted academically but struggled with our concentration and motivation. We had no idea how to deal other teenagers, and were each others only friend, ostracised and bullied by all other students and teachers. Then from about year nine onward, we drifted apart. Personality wise, we were chalk and cheese. She was happy to languish in her anxiety and depression problems. She never wanted to go out, talk about positive things or put effort in her schoolwork or relationships. She saw no reason to be giving back to the world that had hurt her so much. As for me, I wanted to try and fit in, learn how to study properly and create a network of neurotypical friends. She saw my foray into the world of ‘normal’ people as a betrayal and I thought she was being a coward. After high school, we lost contact.
I knew that we graduated from our respective university degrees at the same time, and I was worried about her. I can’t see her having the presence of mind to search for jobs, practice for interviews or take the time to write a professional looking resume. It doesn’t help that she has graduated from a program that has very few jobs available, and I just don’t know how she would handle the corporate world.
As Mum relayed back to me what her mum had said, it seemed my fears were accurate. Turns out her lack of pro-activity was not just a phase. Seven months out of the degree, she is unemployed, living at her parents’ house, with no car, no money of her own, and no friends. The problem, her mum lamented, is that she really isn’t qualified for her dream job. Her grades were not good enough to get into the post graduate program that she needs. But she won’t consider another direction, or get a lower position to work her way up. She did take a counselling job, but she kept getting in trouble for discussing her own mental health problems with clients. She was told to adhere to the guidelines set out for her, she refused and they let her go. Her view of life is just too rigid. Modifying her behaviour would help her out of her rut but she won’t change. If I’m a Voyager, she’s more of a Houseboat.
Let’s look at where I am comparatively for a minute. While I feel like I’ve learned some life lessons that she has yet to realise, I would not say I’m faring a whole lot better than her. Since my early teens I’ve tried denying I had a problem, desperate to live the ‘neurotypical dream.’ The result was a breakdown in which I was forced to face the reality of my disability, and get realistic about my future. The Houseboat – yes, I’m making that stick – needs to start thinking this way too, hopefully sans nervous breakdown
Having Asperger syndrome might have seemed quirky and subtle while we were at school but both of our futures are in question now. All of the other kids with AS that I know are still in school, so I can’t compare any further. In the meantime, I worry. We may be intelligent, and certainly capable of being valuable employees. But are our impaired social skills preventing this intelligence from being applied to finding and keeping a job?
I want to change to become easily communicative. I want to change her so she wants to change her outlook. But longing to be normal has done no good for me in the past. All I can do is hope that somehow, someday, we’ll find a way to be ok.
Voyager
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