Autistic adults please can you give me some advise for adult DS with autism

[MargoLivebetter]

(sorry should be advice, not advise in the title - can't seem to change it)

DS was diagnosed with autism when he was 7. He is about to be 26. He is autistic and has lots of specific learning difficulties including profound dyslexia. He is also very clever, with a high IQ.

After struggling to find a graduate job and working in hospitality jobs that he absolutely hated, in February this year he found a job in a technical field that really suits him and is related to his degree. However, he is really, really struggling with the human interaction side of things.

He is super clever and competent and catches on very quickly. He is also a perfectionist, so wants everything to be exactly right. He is also massively anxious and stressy and I would think is far from easy to work with.

Every job he has ever done, he immediately sees everyone else's flaws and inabilities and all the process issues and flaws that he wants to fix. He starts fixing them and taking on huge amounts of extra work and responsibility. He then works himself into the ground, thinks that everyone else is completely incapable and that the whole thing will not function unless he personally is doing everything. He starts to become resentful and grows to hate everyone he works with. This pattern has repeated itself in every single job he has done.

I try to temper his enthusiasm when he first starts a job but it never works. He speaks to me a lot to try and decode conversations and what has happened, but he isn't really listening to anything that I say, he just wants to speak at me, usually ranting massively about how everyone and everything else is rubbish.

He has this fantastic job and a great career opportunity ahead of him and he has done the exact same thing he always does and now "hates" everyone and everything in his workplace. He is in a desperate state about it all, saying that he thinks he will have to leave and I am at my wits end.

How can I help him? What can I say that will make him listen to the obvious solutions? What would help you in this scenario?

All I can suggest is asking questions about his situation which lead him to think about his own situation and what he can do to change.

Eg: Have you thought about...
Why do you think...?

Your current approach is not working so try a different one.

Thank you@BlackeyedSusan I will rephrase my words and see if questions that he has to answer will help.

It's not his job to pass judgement.
Id be telling him he must stay in his lane, they are not accountable to him.

I work with people with autism and sometimes you just have to be firm with that is not your business.

Throw it back at him and tell him he’s not doing his job correctly as he is crossing boundaries/ stepping on people’s toes instead of sticking to his own work objectives. So to expect perfection from others when he isn’t doing the same is hypocritical.

Also, and speaking as someone with autism, we might think we know everything but actually it’s an important learned skill to take the time to understand and value others perspectives and thoughts. Others may have very good reasons for those processes, he hasn’t taken the time to ask them and may be causing problems.

Can you teach him problem solving ?

1. is it my problem ? If not my problem then do nothing.
2. who does the problem belong to ? Manager, so it is theirs to solve.

this is the technique that really does work for literal people - you keep asking if he is paid to solve this problem and if he is not then he can’t tackle it.
Not my circus not my monkeys sums this up well but he may find this does not resonate if he is very literal

Thank you @Dinosaurshoebox, @InWithPeaceOutWithStressand @redfishcat. He is causing problems, he is not staying in his own lane etc.

i say all the things you are saying but maybe I am too kind and diplomatic and I need to word it better or more strongly. The questions may well be a way forward, so he ends up having to advise himself.

One of the most important things I learnt was that you only have to be good enough, not perfect.
I've also seen this put as 'only put 70% into your work'.

He needs to know he is only responsible for his work, not everyone else's and not running the company, especially as he's only 26.

I found it helpful to have a mental box labelled 'when I am the boss I will never do this task this way'. The box got very full! And of course by the time I was the boss, I didn't actually care that much about most of the things I'd put in my mental box.

Yes thinking about zones of control helps me. What is in my zone of control and what isn’t.

However, you yourself only have so much control over this @MargoLivebetter. It’s actually a problem primarily for his manager to deal with. You could set boundaries, this is also for your own benefit. Why put up with his rants if he isn’t listening to you? “I can’t help you with this, you need to discuss this with your manager. Let’s put the telly on and chill out.”

He needs a work coach or mentor that he can talk to. Doesn’t matter who you are, to him you are Mum and your advice doesn’t count as much as an outside perspective. Depending on his organisation he could ask for one as part of professional development or reasonable adjustment (for disability) depending on which is more appropriate. If work can’t support this then an external coach or mentor could work and would save you the headache, but would obviously cost money xx

I know this won’t be particularly helpful but this is why at 44 I haven’t worked since I was about 30. I just can’t cope with it at all. The people, the burn out, the stress. It’s absolutely debilitating. I do have physical health issues as well as autism and a supportive dh who has supported me in not working, so I understand I am very lucky in that regard. But so many people with autism do struggle to work for these reasons, it’s why so few manage to work full time.

Things that potentially may help - does he have any way of winding down after work? It’s really important to create mental space between work and home to aid relaxation and prevent burn out. When he’s ranting away at you I think that’s actually a form of meltdown, he’s not really expecting you to solve anything, he’s just trying to offload the stress.

Could be reduce his hours? Obviously that may not be an option but I’ve always done better working part time. My worst role was as a senior marketing manager, it was the most money I ever earned but I was utterly miserable and managed 6 months before I was off sick again.

I am not autistic however strongly suspect both my husband and ds are. In my opinion, you need to be quite blunt and matter of fact. Kind and diplomatic get lost in translation with my family and they simply miss the point.

I would also add that rants need to be shut down otherwise they go on and on. I listen to what they say and then ask what I can change .... then try to shut down the discussion

This was me when I first started work… I got “let go” for “not being a good fit” several times. Diagnosed autistic at 24. Now been in the same firm 10 years.

Two things for me:

1. Acknowledging that I could see all the problems with people and process but that other people couldn’t- my autism means I have a different world view. Other people might prioritise a harmonious office/team over a perfect process- someone being socially disruptive can be as negative as a process that could be improved. I had to develop an additional layer of skill to judge which items I should raise/fix- by doing it in a targeted way showed that I understood the business priorities, was proactive but not disruptive and didn’t burn myself out…, they did eventually move me to the Process Improvement department where I flew!!!

1. A manager who offered me some pretty blunt feedback on the above and explained why it wasn’t always useful and coached me on how to be selective. I absolutely don’t hear subtle hints and I needed to hear “It is not helpful if you give me 36 problems to solve. I don’t have capacity and it upsets others in the team which wastes more of my time as a manager than the problem you’re complaining about. Please chose the most important 3 and come up with some ideas and we can review together”.

Even as an ASD adult who can see the flaws in the world, I can also understand that my life matters too. Burnout is not worth it.

He needs to learn that an autistic person’s 100% is much higher than an average person’s 100%. We think giving 100% means almost killing ourselves. No one at the company is going to reward him for giving up all of his energy to the company. He will get the same raises everyone else gets. There will still be strict rules about performance reviews that mean even though he is the best in the department, since it is the year someone else is due to get promoted, that person is going to get the one “exceeds expectations” the manager is allowed to give. The NT play this ridiculous game and he can’t change it.

What he can do is dial it back to about 80% and still be a star employee. He can then go and enjoy his life on evenings and weekends while cashing those sweet, sweet paychecks that come from having the kind of job that being clever and ASD and learning to play their game can bring.

I now work half time and my income is at the 80th percentile for income. Just working 20 hours a week. I also negotiated ridiculously cushy working conditions. It took many years to get to that place, but with time and patience, and doing just enough to stand out, but not so much as to upset people, it is very possible to make yourself invaluable.

my husband has a similar setup, though he works full time. He has been spoken too about his attitude on occasion. He knows he has to behave. He keeps it in check, does great work without hurting feelings, vents to me when he needs to, and his career does very well.

slow and steady.

tldr: learn to play their game. Give 80%. Make big money because you are smarter, but don’t tell people that.

I think it’s about learning about yourself and learning how not to hit the self destruct button and ensuing burnout
learning boundaries about what is his business and what is not

As an autistic adult my suggestion is to just be blunt, trying to be kind a subtle doesn't always work. You need to say it straight out.

I agree that he could benefit from a work coach or mentor. Look into the government’s Access to Work scheme that could fund this.

I am autistic. I have been doing DBT therapy, I think actually before tackling judgement of others, you need to bring it back a bit and start from the beginning.

Look at thoughts and labeling. Ask if something he said was an observation, description or a judgement. And try to explain the difference between them. You can try some simple exercises about the differences. And drip feed in about his own thoughts of himself. Because its likely internally he is actually very critical of himself (even if he doesnt show it).

Interpersonal stuff was very difficult for me but ive found with doing the interpersonal work its actually very helpful because it almost teaches the things I didn't know. Social norms, how to have effective relationships and effectively ask for what you want and how. Its been very helpful.

I have two autistic kids, an autistic sibling, 3 autistic nephews.

My biggest lesson this last year has been that in my family at least we see how vulnerable and confused by the world they are, and tend to coddle them or treat them like they’re delicate.

But it doesn’t actually help them - they don’t know how to deal with normal situations and they won’t learn unless we tell them!

So now I’m much more blunt and direct. No more asking questions, or supporting, or trying to coax him into seeing a different point of view.

Tell him - kindly but clearly - that he needs to do his own job. He is not qualified or trained to do anybody else’s. Nobody wants him to do extras - he just needs to do his own job and focus on that.

I find it helpful to give very specific non-negotiable instructions, so in this scenario that might be “Each month you can pick one process that you would like to improve, and you can ask your manager if you can take some time to look at that, but you must not choose more than one a month.”.

Edited:
I think needing to be in control, being perfectionist, good at analyzing things and functioning on a different intelligence- wavelength are making it more difficult to hold a job as an employee in most branches. Not impossible though if he is in the right environment and learns more about how processes in companies are less than perfect most of the time and that is the norm. I struggled a lot with this too; always see how things can be optimized and perfected and genuinely not understanding why not everyone works the way I do.

Has he thought about being self- employed? Is this a possibility in his line of work?

My DD is autistic. She finds other people hard to understand.
She's yet to have a paid job but has done various volunteering which has gone well.
I listen when she's annoyed but I have (through school) been quite firm with her about learning to accept that other people have different values, different motivation etc and it's the way it is. She can complain and often I will agree with her, but I think she gets where her influence and role ends (it's a constant readjustment) but I haven't yet seen it play out in the workplace where she'll have to navigate this alone.
Coaching/mentoring sounds like a good plan.

@MozzarElla84i think long-term the line of work he is in will lend itself to being self-employed and that will be better for him. In the shorter term he needs at least two years experience with his current employer. He is also going to have to learn to be collaborative as the industry he has chosen is one that requires people with different disciplines to come together.

@Sayithowiseeithow do you access the DBT therapy? Is it online or in-person? If it is online would you mind sending me a PM with the details please? I think the strategies you are getting sound really useful.

We have gone through this. Adult son, 1st class degree but really struggled and struggles with human interaction. In particular social skills. No friends after 2 years in work through work. Not promoted but he has no social skills and he has tics and makes people uncomfortable. 🥴 He also makes comments to us that are a little bit socially lacking, eg colleague on maternity leave - she ‘was off having a baby and we had to do all her work’. We have been helping him through getting his work to accept he is ND and this is a protected disability. He has specialist counselling with a counsellor through the NAS. We have also got AS mentoring (this is a paid for but his work are paying for them) are going into the work place to do some work with colleagues on autism etc

We have a book called the book of xxx his name. Like a project book. Dividers. Different sections - fitness, social, clubs and hobbies, resilience, and comfort zone pushing. He works on each of these areas. Eg he is passionate about birds. Obsessed. So he has just taken a day trip to a nature reserve, that was put in hobbies and clubs section. Comfort zone was that he had a coffee in a coffee shop and talked to the person serving and made a comment about the cafe (positive). Fitness was he walked to and from the car park (he doesn’t like fitness), resilience he went swimming on Sunday and swam 10 lengths. Comfort zone pushing - to buy a pair of shorts (doesn’t own one) by next week. Etc

Now he runs this book but we check in with him about the project book once a month. If we didn’t - he wouldn’t do anything etc

He used to off load his day in microscopic detail. We put a stop to this - 5 minutes only etc unless it is major.

Also he doesn’t do interest in others well - so we are explicitly teaching this.

It is in-person 2hrs a week learning skills in a small group. 1hr 1-1 a week, and phone coaching during my therapists working hours.

Its been amazing for me. Id be happy to have a look through my book and pick out some of the things ive found most useful for you to have a look at if that helps? There are versions specifically for ND people too.

That makes sense and I am sure he will eventually find his way. It is wonderful he has you to help guide him through this process. Someone mentioned a coach, which is also a good idea but this will probably only work if this person is someone he trusts/ gets on with and/or is at least as intelligent as he is, otherwise he might not take them seriously. I've had this problem in the past with therapists for example- its essentially a very arrogant attitude but it is really difficult to take advice from someone (you think) functions on a different level.

I hope he continues to work and connect with people. He is young still and part of what you describe is also the "desillusion"(does this word exist in English??) of starting out in working life and finding out most companies are a work in progress and constantly evolving.

Btw Thank you for starting this thread, loving the comments. So much to relate to!