Certain things are hard, but others aren’t. I find some things easy that my allistic friends and family find very difficult.
I found a special interest that I could turn into a successful career (computers). The hard part now is work/life balance. Not because my employer is pushing me to work long hours (they’re very good about limited hours), but because the lines between my work and my hobby are blurry at best. The very stuff I do at work enables part of my hobby, and more often than is probably really good for me, my hobby work makes my work-work more productive. (In fact, this hobby was what provided me the expertise to get my current dream job, far more so than my university education and my previous jobs.)
Relationships, on the other hand, have historically been very hard for me, because I communicate very differently from most of my partners. My current partner is also autistic, and this has allowed a type of communication even quite early into the relationship that I never had before. It’s still early days, but the type of care she shows me is something I’ve not received before, and this morning I needed a moment to recover from being overwhelmed by the good feelings - something that previous partners would have found off-putting, but which my current partner found to be adorable and romantic.
It’s not like there aren’t struggles. I went through years where I was genuinely miserable and didn’t know why. In the end I had to leave my comfort zone to even find out what needed changing. It’s hard. But it can be so rewarding.
Certain things are hard, but others aren’t. I find some things easy that my allistic friends and family find very difficult.
I found a special interest that I could turn into a successful career (computers). The hard part now is work/life balance. Not because my employer is pushing me to work long hours (they’re very good about limited hours), but because the lines between my work and my hobby are blurry at best. The very stuff I do at work enables part of my hobby, and more often than is probably really good for me, my hobby work makes my work-work more productive. (In fact, this hobby was what provided me the expertise to get my current dream job, far more so than my university education and my previous jobs.)
Relationships, on the other hand, have historically been very hard for me, because I communicate very differently from most of my partners. My current partner is also autistic, and this has allowed a type of communication even quite early into the relationship that I never had before. It’s still early days, but the type of care she shows me is something I’ve not received before, and this morning I needed a moment to recover from being overwhelmed by the good feelings - something that previous partners would have found off-putting, but which my current partner found to be adorable and romantic.
It’s not like there aren’t struggles. I went through years where I was genuinely miserable and didn’t know why. In the end I had to leave my comfort zone to even find out what needed changing. It’s hard. But it can be so rewarding.