I have an alarming tendency to absorb my friends' problems and make them my own somehow. I suspect it has something to do with the specific sort of empathy autistic people are reported to have - that we feel things more intensely than neurotypical people - but it's been happening as long as I can remember getting involved and trying to help friends out.
As of now, a few of my friends are going through really, really rough periods in their lives, and I've been doing my best to listen to them and help out and give advice when I can. I put a lot of time and effort into being a good friend to the people I'm close to because I remember not having friends and I'm extremely defensive of the friends I have. I really, really don't like it when someone thinks it's okay to hurt a friend of mine. It sometimes takes everything in me to not give people a piece of my mind when I'm not involved in a situation at all.
The downside to caring so much is obvious - because of my emotional investment and how intensely I feel everything, I spend a lot of time being anxious. I go about my days constantly worrying about how my friends are doing, getting angry to the point I can feel the adrenaline in my body on behalf of them, and not sleeping very well. I'm fairly sure this is part of what led to the situation that caused my mental breakdown in 2009, in fact, because I felt a sort of responsibility for my then-future roommate's safety since I was the only one who knew that she was severely struggling with depression in the wake of her mother's death. Because I felt responsible for her, I plummeted downwards into a horrible state of anxiety of my own, and the seeds for the OCD to thrive had been planted.
I'm sure I can't be the only autistic person with this problem due to the way we feel things so intensely, so I doubt I'm alone in feeling this way. It's a bit of a difficult concept to put into words, but I'm trying my best here.
At any rate, I also have a bad habit of prioritizing my friends' problems over my own that I'm trying to break, which is a story for another time. I just felt that this feeling was something I ought to try to vocalize.
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Friday, March 11, 2016
CareerQuest Continues...
I had my first job coaching session on Wednesday. As this was my first full session, a large part of it consisted of my coach getting to know me and my situation better, and so I recounted my backstory and explained why I chose the field I went into in the first place. The problem for me, as usual, is that archiving is a highly specialized field - it's very specific work, and as such there are less available jobs than there are candidates, which is really frustrating, especially when you don't really have the budget to relocate for your career yet.
Of course, there's the second problem of being autistic and as such having issues with networking at events. I enjoy going to archival talks and taking notes. I learn a lot about the industry just by listening and absorbing information since I'm very observant. That will only get me so far, though, because like any other field I have to know people. My social anxiety kicks in when the events reach the networking portion, however, and I often find myself leaving early or hovering around the few people at the event in my age group (who likely don't have many contacts themselves). My career coach suggested that I try one-on-one networking, where I can contact people privately and ask if I can meet with them to get advice about breaking into the archival field, and this idea really resonated with me. I do get scared about meeting new people in general, but if it's one-on-one, there's less sensory overload, and since it won't be a job interview it'll be a lot less stressful since I tend to put way too much pressure on myself during job interviews.
I think this is definitely something I can manage, too, since I'm trained in conducting oral history interviews. If I treat it like an oral history interview, I can ask questions that allow the other person to elaborate in depth about things as I listen and take notes. You can learn a ton about people and history if you know how to ask questions that give them a chance to really explain things and tell stories, and although I haven't done an oral history in a few years I definitely still remember how to do it. I think I can adjust those skills and use them in an informational interview setting.
In the meantime, I'm officially doing some work at a film repository packaging films to be sent off to AMPAS and their archives in the city (it's paid training, too!), so I'm staying sharp and actually archiving things. I should be starting next week barring an NJ Transit strike, so hopefully they reach a deal and I can get started right away. (Side note: as someone who's used NJT for many, many years, I don't blame them for threatening to strike.) It feels really nice to be helping preserve things again - not only is it absolutely what I want to devote my life to, but it's also helping indie filmmakers and making sure their work endures!
Also, I got to go inside a nitrate vault, and if you know what else I blog about in my spare time you'll know why I was so excited about that.
Of course, there's the second problem of being autistic and as such having issues with networking at events. I enjoy going to archival talks and taking notes. I learn a lot about the industry just by listening and absorbing information since I'm very observant. That will only get me so far, though, because like any other field I have to know people. My social anxiety kicks in when the events reach the networking portion, however, and I often find myself leaving early or hovering around the few people at the event in my age group (who likely don't have many contacts themselves). My career coach suggested that I try one-on-one networking, where I can contact people privately and ask if I can meet with them to get advice about breaking into the archival field, and this idea really resonated with me. I do get scared about meeting new people in general, but if it's one-on-one, there's less sensory overload, and since it won't be a job interview it'll be a lot less stressful since I tend to put way too much pressure on myself during job interviews.
I think this is definitely something I can manage, too, since I'm trained in conducting oral history interviews. If I treat it like an oral history interview, I can ask questions that allow the other person to elaborate in depth about things as I listen and take notes. You can learn a ton about people and history if you know how to ask questions that give them a chance to really explain things and tell stories, and although I haven't done an oral history in a few years I definitely still remember how to do it. I think I can adjust those skills and use them in an informational interview setting.
In the meantime, I'm officially doing some work at a film repository packaging films to be sent off to AMPAS and their archives in the city (it's paid training, too!), so I'm staying sharp and actually archiving things. I should be starting next week barring an NJ Transit strike, so hopefully they reach a deal and I can get started right away. (Side note: as someone who's used NJT for many, many years, I don't blame them for threatening to strike.) It feels really nice to be helping preserve things again - not only is it absolutely what I want to devote my life to, but it's also helping indie filmmakers and making sure their work endures!
Also, I got to go inside a nitrate vault, and if you know what else I blog about in my spare time you'll know why I was so excited about that.
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Job Coaching? Job Coaching.
I haven't written in a while again, and that's because I'm once again unemployed due to my library gig being a temp position. I'm back in the job hunt again - as of now I have nothing and I'm really hoping I get something soon because my student loans terrify me and I have to pay for my health insurance - and it's been very difficult. I can't exactly bring myself to write when I'm this stressed out most of the time. It just doesn't come out right.
I'm actually starting to work with a job coach who specializes in helping people on the spectrum acquire and retain employment. I should be starting in the upcoming week, so I'm really hoping that this is what helps me to succeed since I often find myself reaching the interview stage and then not being the one who gets hired. I never know what I'm doing wrong, if I'm doing anything wrong, and I suspect that people aren't getting the idea that I'm incredibly confident in my skills as an archivist.
In the meantime, I'm doing some volunteer work again in order to keep my aforementioned archival skills sharp and it feels so nice to be doing what I actually went to school to do. Being an archivist is absolutely what I was born to do with the way my brain works - I'm good at it, I can focus on it, and I'm both efficient and accurate. It's the job that was meant for me, but I just don't seem to be able to convince anyone else of this. I wonder if I feel like I'm bragging and sell myself short - I've never been one to talk too positively about myself because I always feel like I'm bragging, so it's very possible that I hesitate to sell myself in interviews, too.
I find that when I write about these things I start to get teary-eyed and choked up. I'm very hard on myself, and I often find that I tend to equate my own traits with failure. It's a horrible habit, one that's likely a combination of high standards I have for myself and social rejection as a kid, and it's one I need to break considering that it's those same traits that have gotten me this far - my determination, my work ethic, my natural inclination towards archiving. These things are who I am, and they're going to help me succeed, but I just don't always project these things in ways that people can connect to and it's really frustrating.
So here I am, volunteering in my field because it's nearly impossible to get hired (and even harder when you have the obvious social struggles I do) until something turns up and someone takes a chance on me. Because believe me - it's a chance that people really ought to take, because I've got the potential to be the best damn archivist they've ever seen. I just don't know how to show them all.
I'm actually starting to work with a job coach who specializes in helping people on the spectrum acquire and retain employment. I should be starting in the upcoming week, so I'm really hoping that this is what helps me to succeed since I often find myself reaching the interview stage and then not being the one who gets hired. I never know what I'm doing wrong, if I'm doing anything wrong, and I suspect that people aren't getting the idea that I'm incredibly confident in my skills as an archivist.
In the meantime, I'm doing some volunteer work again in order to keep my aforementioned archival skills sharp and it feels so nice to be doing what I actually went to school to do. Being an archivist is absolutely what I was born to do with the way my brain works - I'm good at it, I can focus on it, and I'm both efficient and accurate. It's the job that was meant for me, but I just don't seem to be able to convince anyone else of this. I wonder if I feel like I'm bragging and sell myself short - I've never been one to talk too positively about myself because I always feel like I'm bragging, so it's very possible that I hesitate to sell myself in interviews, too.
I find that when I write about these things I start to get teary-eyed and choked up. I'm very hard on myself, and I often find that I tend to equate my own traits with failure. It's a horrible habit, one that's likely a combination of high standards I have for myself and social rejection as a kid, and it's one I need to break considering that it's those same traits that have gotten me this far - my determination, my work ethic, my natural inclination towards archiving. These things are who I am, and they're going to help me succeed, but I just don't always project these things in ways that people can connect to and it's really frustrating.
So here I am, volunteering in my field because it's nearly impossible to get hired (and even harder when you have the obvious social struggles I do) until something turns up and someone takes a chance on me. Because believe me - it's a chance that people really ought to take, because I've got the potential to be the best damn archivist they've ever seen. I just don't know how to show them all.
Friday, September 18, 2015
Quick Ableism Story...
Sometimes I see just how entrenched ableism is in society and it actually hurts no matter how used to it I get.
I was in a group chat once with some friends and the administrator of a group I was a member of. We were trying to sort out a problem in there with another member (which is a story for another time). At one point in the chat, the administrator referred to someone else in the group (but not the chat) as a "fuck-up" because he had mental health issues and an Asperger's diagnosis.
Bad idea.
When I came out immediately as also having Asperger's, he backpedaled so quickly that it astounded me. This was a man almost twice my age trying to save face because he'd made an erroneous assumption about disabled and mentally ill people. He didn't know how to handle the fact that not only did I reply politely but I also offered advice and linked him to this blog. I think he was surprised that I had the same diagnosis as this kid and yet had a Master's degree and was living a seemingly productive life.
I still think about this a lot because it's apparent that we deem people's worth based on how much they can contribute to society or exist "normally," and that's a really harmful attitude to have. I don't think he realized how much that comment hurt me and how angry it made me because I handled it calmly, but I raged internally and my friends knew it (and saw me ranting in all caps in another chat we were in about it). It's really, really painful to be dismissed by someone just because of your mental health and your disability.
And autism is a spectrum, too. One autistic person is one autistic person. Categorizing us as all being one way? If you do that, that makes you part of the problem.
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Hired!
I've been meaning to update the blog for the past two weeks, but I just haven't had the time - the reason being I got a library job! I'm currently working reference, but as I settle into my new position more I'm going to also be taking charge of doing stuff with the local history collections, which is what I'm really trained in because I'm an archivist.
It's a part-time job, but I'm still working enough hours and being paid at a high enough rate that I can handle my student loans, and that's what I was looking for, so I'm relieved! Everyone's really nice and they've been patient with me as I learn everything - they've told me it'll take months before I really have everything down because there's just so much to learn, so they've been teaching me new things a bit at a time until I have all my responsibilities understood instead of just piling everything on at once. It's a much better fit for me than being a tour guide was, since that just involved constant socialization. At the reference desk, I get to talk to people, too, but it's far less often and the conversations are much shorter, and I also have a lot of other work to take care of. The patrons who I've helped so far have all been kind to me and many of them have even welcomed me aboard - they're very sweet!
A couple of my co-workers know that I have Asperger's because it came up in a conversation (we have a regular patron who is also on the spectrum), but my boss doesn't know yet, and I'm not planning on bringing it up unless it actually does come up again somehow. Although it's a core part of my identity as a human being, so many people don't really understand what being on the autism spectrum really is like (and when they do, they often just assume my experience is like the male experience, which it's not), so I generally don't go around telling everyone I meet about it. It's not something I necessarily feel like I have to hide, but I also don't loudly announce it because I know it's not quite understood fully yet. At any rate, people will probably find out over time, especially since I'd love to do a program to help teenagers on the spectrum out since I'm in charge of YA books. (Which has more or less put me in charge of the manga and graphic novel collection. It's going to be so good now, just sayin'. I have great taste.)
I ought to close this out here since I have some other things to attend to today, but basically, things feel really nice right now and I'm so thankful and relieved that I'm going in the right direction. It got scary for some time there, but now that I've got a job - with a regular schedule - I think I might just be able to handle this 'adulthood' thing.
It's a part-time job, but I'm still working enough hours and being paid at a high enough rate that I can handle my student loans, and that's what I was looking for, so I'm relieved! Everyone's really nice and they've been patient with me as I learn everything - they've told me it'll take months before I really have everything down because there's just so much to learn, so they've been teaching me new things a bit at a time until I have all my responsibilities understood instead of just piling everything on at once. It's a much better fit for me than being a tour guide was, since that just involved constant socialization. At the reference desk, I get to talk to people, too, but it's far less often and the conversations are much shorter, and I also have a lot of other work to take care of. The patrons who I've helped so far have all been kind to me and many of them have even welcomed me aboard - they're very sweet!
A couple of my co-workers know that I have Asperger's because it came up in a conversation (we have a regular patron who is also on the spectrum), but my boss doesn't know yet, and I'm not planning on bringing it up unless it actually does come up again somehow. Although it's a core part of my identity as a human being, so many people don't really understand what being on the autism spectrum really is like (and when they do, they often just assume my experience is like the male experience, which it's not), so I generally don't go around telling everyone I meet about it. It's not something I necessarily feel like I have to hide, but I also don't loudly announce it because I know it's not quite understood fully yet. At any rate, people will probably find out over time, especially since I'd love to do a program to help teenagers on the spectrum out since I'm in charge of YA books. (Which has more or less put me in charge of the manga and graphic novel collection. It's going to be so good now, just sayin'. I have great taste.)
I ought to close this out here since I have some other things to attend to today, but basically, things feel really nice right now and I'm so thankful and relieved that I'm going in the right direction. It got scary for some time there, but now that I've got a job - with a regular schedule - I think I might just be able to handle this 'adulthood' thing.
Monday, April 13, 2015
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.
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.
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
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!)
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!)
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