Good Christ why am I such a rotten bitch

[Mirrormirrorinthecar]

I got my return to work date today and I just can't bear it.

I haven't enjoyed lockdown, but it's been bliss to be away from people. I want to be good at my job, but I am so shit at it. I am overqualified for it. I have a degree I never use. My colleagues hate me and I don't even know why, except I always seem to say the wrong thing, though I couldn't tell you what the wrong thing is. I have no compassion for anyone any more, I just think they should get the fuck on with it and stop moaning, because that's what I have had to do. I have had plenty of difficulties in my own life, and nobody has given me shit all sympathy or understanding. I'm utterly crap at my job, I never seem to understand all the unspoken rules and etiquette. I'd like to retrain but I've wasted my student loan on the shitty degree that everyone told me I should do. I would be no good at anything anyway. I'd fuck it up. I'm too blunt and impatient. I'm no good to anyone. I'm just twisted all out of shape I suppose. All my life I've felt as though I'm on the sidelines looking on at normal people having normal lives, but I never knew what was actually wrong with me. I've tried desperately to have a normal life, and for a while I can mimic it, but then I fuck it up again. I wish I could work from home forever and then I wouldn't have to inflict myself on other people any more.

Thank you all so much.

God, I think I'd be terrified of going to the GP I think. I'd be worried she'd laugh me out the door. I imagine mine already thinks I'm a neurotic twat, I went some years ago about anxiety.

*can never only understand

@JoyFreeCake

Oh OP your posts just scream autism to me. I was diagnosed at age 42.
I had such similar difficulties to you at work, always seeming to say the wrong thing or just silence when I made a joke.
And years of struggling with my performance, and not understanding why, as I am on paper highly intelligent. Then I found out about executive function, please have a read about that, how hard focussing and task switching can be. Also autism can be co-morbid with ADD/ADHD.
I know some people are asking what the point of a diagnosis is. I cannot emphasise enough how much permission it gives you to accept yourself and have compassion for yourself. Instead of feeling like this freak that has some unnameable thing wrong with them, there's a word for it, and other people out there like you. It's priceless.

that was to the Cunts remark

op i do know a diangosis for autism in adults has an extremely long waiting list, but do some research, as suggested, into resources that help you cope with day to day work life/home life

*I could have written your post myself but I am not autistic. Actually the opposite: I am perhaps too empathetic and am hyper-aware if I've annoyed someone. I wish I could barrel through live a bit better.

This describes me to a tee and I have a diagnosis of Autism.*

It describes me too. I have definite social anxiety which have worked hard to overcome on the surface but dealing with which utterly drains me on occasion. I constantly wonder why I can’t just easily fit in I am very idealistic and often stuck to my principles when maybe a better way might be to go around them slightly. I have a 15 yo daughter who I see exhibiting many similar traits who gets completely bent up in anxiety before meeting up with school friends for example and retreats in herself a lot. Lockdown was definitely our happy place. This remark about it being possible for empaths to also be on the spectrum is a revelation to me.

What a fascinating thread. OP I agree you are waaaaaaay too hard on yourself. Maybe some mindful self compassion training would also be useful. I’ve used it over past 15 or so years and it has helped me be somewhat less harsh on myself at times. Though I do understand also what you say about it feeling self indulgent. Kristin neff is a good one to start with if you can bear it.

Personally i leap from task to task, I can't help it, a huge amount of started tasks, and avoiding some too,
takes me ages

About two years where I am.

Could you suggest that you'd like to continue to work from home, even if only for a few days each week? It may work out happily for all concerned especially if you ensure that your standards and workload are kept up.

In the meantime try to find out what sort of work you'd be happiest with. Don't worry about being 'different' - many of us don't fit into the usual boxes but we muddle along just fine.

Executive function too. I get utterly exhausted at work trying to juggle all the spinning plates and multitask. Feel I am always trying to catch up. Off to google that immediately.

@OceanDweller

This remark about it being possible for empaths to also be on the spectrum is a revelation to me

Me too. I feel really quite stunned by that.

I don't have autism but I love my own space and have enjoyed the space lockdown has given me.
I would be happy in many ways for social distancing to continue.
I can't stand 'dirty people' sorry if that offends anyone. I can't abide anyone touching my personal equipment .
For many years I worked in a job I was over qualified for. If he. The more senior staff would sometimes think they were above me and others of my grade.
Lots of people don't use their qualifications.
As for the general work talk, I can't help you with that.

There are definitely a few cunts in work, and I think the rest are probably OK but scared of the cunts. I call one of them BNP Tina, to give you an idea of what I'm dealing with

The happiest I've ever been in a job was the year I spent as a primary school whole class TA. It's the only time I've ever felt relaxed about going to work. I find children easy to work with, they all seemed to really like me, I think I did a good job, and the teacher whose class I was in was the nicest, sweetest, most understanding person ever, like Miss Honey from Matilda. I must have done a good job, actually, because those children are almost teenagers now and still come up to me when they see me out and about. I think the other staff found me odd, but I wasn't around them enough to make a difference. They lost funding though, and that was the end of my job. I actually feel a bit tearful and homesick when I think about it. Primary TA jobs are rare as hen's teeth round here, I'm always on the lookout for one again

is empathy due to mimicking though?

op never mind what the doctor thinks, that is there job, they wont judge

I don't think I'm empathetic but I'm definitely hyper aware of what people think of me and if I've said the right thing, I'll be awake at 3am tying myself into knots thinking of it. Though I probably have a point, given I do seem to piss people off

The lack of compassion thing - I think that is more how it looks to outsiders then they assume that autistic people lack it. It's not the case necessarily at all.
I can't speak for everyone but I also tend to just shut down emotionally in certain circumstances that are too hard to deal with.

I have two lovely friends who have only had their Aspergers diagnosed recently, in adulthood. One of them says that she has felt out of kilter her whole life. When she told me about her diagnosis I could see why she found certain things hard. For her it was a revelation, she has felt better about herself since the diagnosis. I think it has made her less self-critical. She is 58 and was diagnosed at 56.
So definitely worth getting a proper assessment if you think it might apply to you, as for both of my friends ( the other is in her sixties) it has helped them understand why they might find some things more arduous than other people. Friend A had been labelled as incredibly shy, which she isn’t at all.

I've been on MN for a few years and only reading about other people's difficulties with life I've realised there is a reason for me being me. I've just taken the test mentioned earlier and I scored 40. I've also suspected recently that my Dad aged 80, who my DM has been complaining about even more recently, is probably autistic.

I'm also crap at maths, can't work anything out in my head. I have to put coins in order of size before handing them over.

Technology, if it's something that benefits me eg at work or crafting I love it but my DP trying to show me how to work our Kodi box I blank out and the number of controls he has for the tv I can't cope with them. If we are watching tv I google the actors to find a bit more about them. I can't help myself.

My colleagues sometimes frustrate me because why can't they get procedures right?

I remember names, faces, voices, things about people, my memory is vast and if I applied it when I was in school I could have probably achieved things. As I result I found swotting for exams impossible and I failed academic exams but I passed Home Economics, childcare, typing and word processing. . Apart from childcare, the others I've used daily.

I don't think I've ever read a post and thought so strongly that I could have written it word for word. These few sentences particularly stood out for me as ones I can identify with:

"All my life I've felt as though I'm on the sidelines looking on at normal people having normal lives, but I never knew what was actually wrong with me. I've tried desperately to have a normal life, and for a while I can mimic it, but then I fuck it up again"

That pretty much sums up exactly how I feel about my whole life particularly when I was at school and in my early 20s. I have also worked in jobs where I am overqualified. I don't enjoy work. I don't have friendships with other women as I can't understand all the unwritten rules and etiquette and bullshit that goes with it. I've spent years trying to find working from home jobs that actually give you a decent income purely so that I can avoid the social side of work.

One job I was at a few years ago I met a woman who I actually got on really well with but who, to be frank, a lot of people thought was a bit 'odd' - not in a nasty way, just in that sort of different way but there was something about her I just clicked with. My boss told me at some point later down the line that she had autism and I decided to look it up purely to find out more about it as although I'd heard of it i knew very little about the condition. As soon as i started reading about it, particularly about autism in women, I identified so strongly with a lot of it that I've suspected since then I might have undiagnosed autism. It would explain so many things in my life. Unfortunately the NHS board where I live (in Scotland) does not do autism diagnosis for adults which has left me in a kind of limbo of wondering if it is that or not. I've kind of accepted, in the absence of being able to know 'officially', that I probably do have some form of autism and it actually helps me be a lot kinder on myself. In fact it's actually really helped me accept myself and I've stopped trying to 'fit in' like I did in my early 20s (I'm now early 30s). I also scored highly on that test further up-thread. It may be an idea to speak to your GP regardless as perhaps they could offer you counselling or something (although if your NHS area is as bad as mine mental health services are practically non-existent).

I wish I had some practical advice for you re. work but I'm not doing very well with work myself - I hate it with a passion, find it so exhausting being around people all day, I detest every job I've had as they are not what I planned for myself and now I can't change it as I'm in my 30s and too skint to retrain and my social anxieties would just hold me back anyway. All I can really say is that you are by far not the only one who feels this way.

OP I don't really have any advice that hasn't been given already but I just wanted to say that you sound really lovely with a gentle self-deprecating humour! xx

I like you, OP

I came late to this thread, but I've taught plenty of students with ASD in my time, and this shone out for me too. I hope the advice on this thread has been helpful to you, and I do think it's possible that a diagnosis could prove beneficial. I'm not a legal expert, but also wonder whether this might afford you some legal protection.

There was a very moving programme made by Chris Packham, who is Asperger's, about coming to terms with his condition. If you can find it on iplayer it would be worth a watch. Likewise, some interviews with Anthony Hopkins, whose Asperger's remained undiagnosed until he was in his 70s.

I share some of your sentiments about the workplace, though!

OP you sound fantastic and I'd be your friend in a heartbeat. I go through life feeling much the same and self employment has been a blessing for me but I do feel very lonely at times. I also have a degree I don't really use and am currently doing a second degree in a STEM subject, which I was able to get funding for. There is a loophole for second degrees if they are STEM.

For those people saying 'Just be kinder to yourself'; It's hard to put this into words, but... when you have literally gone your entire life with people looking askance at you and feeling actually like an alien on earth, constantly getting things wrong socially or just feeling on the outside, you get so down on yourself that being a bit kinder is just a drop in the ocean. I do practise self compassion, but with the understanding that I do and will continue to (in others eyes) fuck up regularly for my entire life, and that is painful. I'm trying to develop the mentality of being kind and gentle to others while also giving literally no tosses what people think of me as I seem to have most success with this combination. I absolutely am the kind of person who would like awake til 3am berating myself for what I said that day. It's hard.
And I don't have a diagnosis but am confident I would get one for ASD and ADHD.

PM me anytime you feel like a chat, OP.