I'm not annoying, but I fear I am

I find myself wondering rather frequently if I'm annoying.

I know it's a big part of the social anxiety I've developed as a result of being rejected by most of my peers growing up, but it plagues me to this day. I'm afraid to open up to my friends because I don't want to annoy them with my problems. I'm afraid to talk about my own interests with people because I'm afraid of boring them and not being a good conversationalist. People avoided me as a kid because I would do that, and I was aware of it. Now I'm worried about info-dumping, even with people I'm close to. (Writing is a great outlet for me in that regard.)

I'm realizing that it's exhausting to try to pass as neurotypical all the time. I'd love to live in a world where I don't have to and I can comfortably be myself, but I don't live there yet. I live in a world where I have to seem "normal" in order to be accepted, a world where my 2009 OCD-related mental breakdown is stigmatized and makes people think I'm "crazy." It's a world that's decidedly against people like me.

Asperger's aside, I do indeed have OCD and social anxiety as comorbid conditions, and they feed off of each other. I'm terrified of any potential social missteps, and my OCD amplifies them significantly to the point where I regularly lose sleep over the fear of upsetting my friends or irritating people I'm trying to get a point across to. And at my tour guide job, I would email my boss regularly about goings-on that were in my mind relevant, but when she didn't reply very often it reinforced the idea in me that I was annoying and had to deal with everything myself.

And that's usually what I end up doing - internalizing my problems and dealing with them myself, because I end up thinking that I annoy everybody. I know it's my brain telling me this and not necessarily me, but so many things in my life can trigger this feeling - my family being busy, my friends not sounding interested in what I'm talking about, a superior not replying to messages I send - and the OCD makes it linger for hours and hours. I'll often end up with anxiety headaches and nausea and end up feeling like I'm back in 7th grade being rejected and ignored by my peers.

In 7th grade, I didn't really have friends. My elementary school friends were more acquaintances to me by that point, and nobody else wanted to be my friend. I was being bullied horribly, too, and to this day, I fear being rejected - not just by men, even though boys were my primary bullies, but by everyone for everything social.

I know I'm not an annoying person and my friends and family love me very much, but my brain can't help but make me feel that way sometimes due to how it makes me perceive things, and it's a genuinely frustrating, awful thing to have to live with.

The Asperger's Job Hunt Is Kind of Scary

The good news is the library temp agency has my resume and is actively working to find me an entry-level library position!

The bad news is that I'm in the grace period of my student loans, so I'm going to need to find something quick.

It's a scary time for a lot of people in my age group - nobody's retiring and we're all horribly in debt due to our college educations, so we're all struggling to get by and a large number of us are still living at home, myself included. My parents are totally cool with me staying at home until I can move out (and even have told me it's okay if I ever have to move back in), which is great, but at the same time I'd love to start taking over my own bills so they don't have to pay them. The problem, as usual, is getting a job.

I often worry that potential employers see this blog and decide not to hire me on account of my disability, which is actually illegal if I find out about it. I fear that misunderstandings about the autism spectrum will make people see this blog and decide that I can't operate in the real world the way they'd like me to, so they actively decide that my resume isn't worth keeping around. On the other hand, my resume states that I have a Master's degree and am fully qualified and points out that I honed my social skills as a tour guide. In an interview, I can do what's called "passing," wherein people who meet me and get to know me at face value think I'm neurotypical. I've become good at pretending I'm not disabled, and I hate living in a world where I have to pretend to not be disabled just so people will think I'm normal enough to hire.

The truth is that jobs where I have to do a lot of social interaction are stressful for me and make me really tired, whereas jobs where I can do more solitary work and interact with my co-workers on my own terms (or whenever they pop into my office for a quick chat) are much more suited to how my brain works. I'm extraordinarily productive when I'm working - every archival job I've ever taken on (volunteer or not) has commented on how quickly and efficiently I get things done (and get them done well). I've discovered that in the right workplace, I, as well as many other people on the autism spectrum, will positively flourish as long as we're given the opportunity to play to our strengths.

I just wish someone would see that and take a chance on me instead of dismissing me. I know it's likely due to lack of experience (i.e. I've been archiving as a volunteer only since 2009 or so), but there's always that nagging voice in the back of my head saying that people are aware of my disability.

Keeping my fingers crossed that something works out.

(I do take commissions, so in the interim between jobs, if you'd like me to draw something for you, check out my portfolio and prices here!)

Anxiety is a cruel mistress

I haven't written here in a rather long time due to graduate school, and I sincerely apologize for that. I was just so busy finishing up my final semester and balancing that with an archival internship and my part-time job that I haven't had much time for anything else!

It's been a little over two months now since I finished my grad school coursework, and I'm officially going to be handed my degree in May. It'll be nice to officially be done with another part of my life, but now I'm in a particularly horrible limbo of not having a job yet and loans looming over me.

No regular work means no regular schedule, and in addition to that, my doubts and fears about not being able to get anything have crept in. Am I qualified? Am I competent? Is something wrong with how I interview when I do get those rare opportunities? Why don't employers want me? Does ANYONE want me?

My anxiety is naturally on the rise at the moment. I've been having panic attacks over things I don't normally have them over - yesterday I had one when trying to explain to a friend that I wouldn't be able to drive due to the hail completely icing over my car, and I'm still thrown off by that one today. I know having a library job won't solve everything, but it would go a long way towards calming me down and getting me back into a routine, something we Aspergian people thrive on.

A temp agency has my resume and I filled out and sent their form back to them yesterday, so hopefully I'll have a placement soon. In the meantime, I'm going to keep applying to every open library position in the greater NYC area and try not to lose my head.

I've got an internship!

I've been too busy to write here for over a month, and that's because besides work and art (and watching sports), I've actually been preparing for an internship that I managed to get! Today's my first day of working at the American Museum of Natural History - which I've wanted to do since I was four years old. I'm now 25.

I'll be doing archival work during this internship, which I'm really excited about because it's nice to really do something properly archival, and I just can't wait to get started and help out the institution I've longed to be in the employ of since 1993. The whole thing still feels surreal to me, so maybe really getting to work will help me realize that this is for real.

In the meantime, I'll go back to crying because I still can't believe this.

[You can see the blog for the archival project the other interns and I are working on here! I'll be adding blog posts of my own at some point down the road.]

Neurotypicals won't always understand certain elements of Asperger's, and that's okay

It's starting to dawn on me that people in my life who aren't on the spectrum are never really going to fully understand what it's like to be on the spectrum. They can try, certainly, but they won't fully get it, and that makes it a bit more difficult for me to explain things I do to them.

My kid brother thinks I focus too much on my Asperger's and says so every time I mention having it. The problem is that I only mention it if we're talking about disabilities at all or if I happen to see something related to it. According to him, I talk about it constantly, which I don't because as anyone who actually has Asperger's knows it's much more fun to talk about your special interests constantly.

It hit me tonight at dinner when I made a joke about my Asperger's and he implied again that I discuss it too much that he must not understand how much work I have to do just to survive in a world that he can navigate without thinking. He was born with a normal brain that allowed him to naturally develop social skills, make friends, and avoid being mistreated. I was not. I had to struggle just to make friends. I had to develop a highly sophisticated, self-deprecating sense of humor to fight off bullies from the moment I entered kindergarten until the moment I graduated high school. I didn't even know I had Asperger's until I was 20 years old.

As an adult, I need to actively make sure that I don't put myself in situations that would be overwhelming for me. I need to manage my condition constantly to keep myself safe. I need to overthink social situations so I don't say the wrong thing or embarrass anybody - naturally, this is extremely tiring, and the social anxiety I developed from being bullied doesn't help matters.

And all that work is just to make sure I don't have a panic attack or a breakdown whilst going through an average day. My brother will never have to worry about that, so he can't possibly understand why I have to do this. And I've accepted now that he can't understand and that I can't explain it to him - and that's okay. Even though he's my best friend because we grew up together and always had each other, there are going to be certain things that happen to one of us that the other one can't comprehend.

I should probably just discuss the Asperger's stuff with my parents and not him, though, just to be safe.

I'm alive!

Today is Autism Positivity Day, but it's a bit difficult to be positive when it's pouring outside. Actually, it's not difficult to be positive, but it's really hard not to be lazy. (I also have a sensory issue with rain. Strangely enough, I can take and very much enjoy hot showers, but rain bothers me for some reason. Maybe it's the cold.)

I'm actually working on a subject guide on Asperger's in adults for one of my grad school classes, and I'm going to host it here on a page on my blog so everyone can use it as a resource. I really do think that one of the biggest problems with so-called autism awareness campaigns is that they so often forget us - the adults on the spectrum. Autism doesn't magically disappear when we turn 18, and so I think it's valuable for us to pool our resources and help each other self-advocate as best as we can.

It's been a while since I last wrote here. In that time, I did not get the job I interviewed for, nearly finished my third semester of grad school (I have about two weeks left - and then just one to go before the Master's degree!), turned 25 years old on April 25th, and have one sensory overload less in my life because for six months my grandmother is living with my aunt in Rochester. (It's a real relief and my mood's improved considerably because I'm not constantly being barraged.) I've also applied for another archiving position and an internship, so hopefully one of those two will go better and I'll get some proper experience!

Anyhow, it's back to working on that subject guide/resource list for grad school, so I'd best get to that! See you all soon!

Wish me luck tomorrow - interview time!

I've been extremely busy as of late between catching up on my massive art backlog and starting up school again, but I'm writing here today because I'm nervous. I've got a job interview in my field tomorrow morning and I'm hoping beyond hope that it goes well.

I don't think I've ever been this concerned with making a first impression in my entire life. I'm actually getting my hair blown out before I go at a salon and I've picked out a pretty nice outfit, things I generally don't do normally which may be why I'm still single, but that's for another post. It's only a part-time position, but the experience is what matters here - I need to get real archival experience and this would be a great place to start. Do keep your fingers crossed for me, everyone!