What I have found in these weeks since my psychiatrist took me off of work and placed me on medical leave, is that I need to have the freedom to form my own routine.
For 17 years, plus all of my years of schooling, I have tried so hard to form my life on another person’s schedule. I have been told that is what is “normal”, and that I have to find a way to make it work.
The truth is that I can’t make it work. Not that I won’t. I really have tried very hard. I can’t. I can’t live, and find peace on another person’s timetable. I can’t go out to work for so many hours a day, and then come home to my own routine.
Always I am overwhelmed. Always I am anxious, depressed, and unable to really “live” on my time outside of work. I cannot take care of my home. I cannot maintain what relationships I do have. I cannot find a place of calm. I cannot keep going for long without falling apart. Not when I am working like that.
So in these weeks of medical leave, I am going to have to find a way to work on my own. It is not that I am unable to work. I can do my work, and do it well. What I need is to find work I can do as I am inspired, such as this blog. Only I do need the income, and I haven’t the imagination to come up with the ideas.
How many unemployed people with Autism, or other types of social disorders, would be able to work if we had someone to guide us and give us ideas of things that would truly work for us? Maybe we don’t fit in to society in the way that it has been created, but that doesn’t mean we have nothing to contribute.
autismalifetimeundiagnosed 