Gamera3000
Silver Member
Okay so I'm on both SSD and long term disability and don't have to work. But I'm always bored and feel better when I'm helping people so I'm finishing a MS in the next few weeks and starting a PhD. I'm an unfunded adult autism researcher. I volunteer taught refugees years ago before I was a mom and I had more spare time. And I was a low-level manager in a software development company when I was working. That's the back story.
I created a seminar series modeled after something popular I used to do for refugees to help them adjust to American culture and pass job interviews. Many autistic adults reviewed my materials for the series, including autistic adults who I would have to call "sir" or "ma'am" because their jobs were so important. I was pretty excited and confident. What I had was GOOD. Really good. I'm sure it would help a lot of people.
NO ONE in my local community, say within an hour drive of my city, will host or support the series. I am getting the feeling that people find the series threatening. I suspect that the people who work with autistic adults don't like them on a base level and so don't want to empower them. I think, added to this, that they are afraid that my "program" (it's not a program, I'm not funded, I'm not an entity) will threaten whatever they already have going.
I know these are harsh things to say, but many people who work with autistic adults still would not put them on the same level as them, or above them. A person standing in front of you, who could be drooling or otherwise unpleasant to you, could be smarter than you. You don't know. They may not need the kind of help that you think they do. It may be that you need their help. And I strongly feel that I was trying to do would only accentuate and drive people toward existing social programs for autistic adults. But every time I put forward this latter point (I stayed away from the former) I got shot down.
I feel crushed by this. I feel deeply depressed. I don't want to work on anything anymore. I don't want to talk to anyone in my research community. All I want to do is clean my house and mow my lawn, which are, like, my comfort activities.
My PTSD therapist is always asking me to connect recent things that bother me to old things that happened, but I'm not sure what old "failure" this could be bringing up. I think maybe it just sucks and I hate all these people who crushed the helpful thing I wanted to do. And I'm avoiding people in my research community because I know they want me to be Erin Brocovich and fight to the death for an ideal, but I'm not into that.
I created a seminar series modeled after something popular I used to do for refugees to help them adjust to American culture and pass job interviews. Many autistic adults reviewed my materials for the series, including autistic adults who I would have to call "sir" or "ma'am" because their jobs were so important. I was pretty excited and confident. What I had was GOOD. Really good. I'm sure it would help a lot of people.
NO ONE in my local community, say within an hour drive of my city, will host or support the series. I am getting the feeling that people find the series threatening. I suspect that the people who work with autistic adults don't like them on a base level and so don't want to empower them. I think, added to this, that they are afraid that my "program" (it's not a program, I'm not funded, I'm not an entity) will threaten whatever they already have going.
I know these are harsh things to say, but many people who work with autistic adults still would not put them on the same level as them, or above them. A person standing in front of you, who could be drooling or otherwise unpleasant to you, could be smarter than you. You don't know. They may not need the kind of help that you think they do. It may be that you need their help. And I strongly feel that I was trying to do would only accentuate and drive people toward existing social programs for autistic adults. But every time I put forward this latter point (I stayed away from the former) I got shot down.
I feel crushed by this. I feel deeply depressed. I don't want to work on anything anymore. I don't want to talk to anyone in my research community. All I want to do is clean my house and mow my lawn, which are, like, my comfort activities.
My PTSD therapist is always asking me to connect recent things that bother me to old things that happened, but I'm not sure what old "failure" this could be bringing up. I think maybe it just sucks and I hate all these people who crushed the helpful thing I wanted to do. And I'm avoiding people in my research community because I know they want me to be Erin Brocovich and fight to the death for an ideal, but I'm not into that.
