Labour market issues

I've recently finished 'Asperger Syndrome Employment Workbook' by Roger N Meyer. My husband gave me the book because of some work-related challenges. These challenges have led to (another) job resignation. In January 2014 I'll start on my 9th (or 10th, depending on how you count) job since I finished university almost 20 years ago.

I found the book rather meticulous and I managed to get irritated a number of times about the very detailed instructions given. You have to buy a folder, some different coloured tabs, etc., and you have to organise your desktop in a specific way. The instructions are complete with drawings of the desktop.

I didn't do what the author told me to. Firstly, my 'Employment Workbook' was not a book but a kindle-book, and secondly I read in bed and thus had no desktop to organise. I wrote down all the answers in a notebook I kept next to my kindle. But I answered every question I could. In fact, it worked out just fine without folder, tabs and desktop :)

The main point is that you select three jobs, among these your latest job, and then you very meticulously go through these jobs. You answer questions about the physical environment, working hours, tasks that you did, etc. etc. I found this part annoying but anwered nevertheless. I have a university degree and I have been doing research for at least half of my career. Research is difficult to break into tasks and it felt like a waste of time. But it wasn't. Because recalling all the irrelevant details about my three selected jobs made me recall all the important things as well. The things that went wrong. And because I selected (as I was instructed to do) jobs from the beginning, the middle and the end (so far) of my career, I recalled things from the non-selected jobs in between as well.

Then, being in this state of remembering things that were long forgotten, you start writing small essays summing up learning styles, skills and talents, social skills, etc.

The last chapter sums up everything you've learned in a guide to yourself in future jobs. This part is the best, but can't really be done without doing all the previous chapters. So the book takes quite a while and there's no jumping to conclusions. But in fact, it's worth it.

Some time soon, I will summarise some of the chapters of my employment biography (which is what my notebook now contains) here.

The Big Bang Theory

I never watch TV. I get impatient during movies and I prefer to consume news in writing, from paper or web. But I enjoy sitcoms - and I enjoy them more if the characters somehow resemble me. My favourite show is the Big Bang Theory. Because the characters are scientists. And nerds. I like that and I like them. I like the ordinary girl of the show, too, though I don't really recognise myself in her. In fact, Penny is one of the two top stars of that show, but that is not my point.

My first point relates to the other top star of the show. The famous, brilliant and very annoying Dr. Sheldon Cooper. Here and there on the internet people have diagnosed Sheldon with Aspergers. Somebody (I forgot who) suggests that he has other diagnoses as well, or traits at least. Inter alia, his narcissism is far beyond what you'd normally see in an Aspie. More than one person with Asperger have been compared to Sheldon.

I like Sheldon a lot. He is much more quirky than I am, he has really perfected his Aspie-traits, and he lives it. Like he is proud, only that he isn't, he just lives Aspieness. So I can recognise myself, and laugh at myself simultaneously. He is both what I always wanted to be (true to myself), and what I am sad about in myself (always different no matter how hard I tried to be like everyone else). And he is very bright within his field, and clueless outside his field. This I can relate to as well. So when I laugh at Sheldon, I laugh at myself. Still, he is different from me in various ways. Gender-wise of course but also the fact that he never tries to be like everyone else, at least not sincerely.

Which leads me to my second point: Amy Farrah Fowler. She is probably Aspie, too, but as a woman it has been more important for her to fit in (whether the need to be part of a group is related to biological gender or cultural gender is not clear to me, but I observe this need in women and girls much more than in men and boys). So she tries to fit in. And fails. She tries to do the girl things. And fails. She talks wrong. She walks wrong. She dresses wrong. Her posture is wrong. She is either clingy or very distant. She doesn't see herself from the outside. Not in a realistic manner at least. I hate Amy. I hate being reminded of the pain of not fitting in, the pain of being embarrassing, the pain of being too much. While Sheldon lives quirkiness, Amy lives 'I-only-realise-I-am-too-much-afterwards'.

I really want to believe that I was the only one that discovered my being embarrassing at all those incidents throughout my life. But when I see Amy, I know that other people discovered it, too. When I talked too loud. When I over-shared. When I said the wrong thing or said it in a wrong context. When I was too blunt, too honest, too affectionate, too much...

And Amy reminds me of me. In the most brutal, non-empathic and painful way.

Burnt bridges

I recently finished reading Aspergirls by Rudy Simone. I enjoyed it a lot. It is such a pleasure to feel recognised, and to see somebody else expressing how I feel and have felt. It also adds a new perspective to my memories of my own childhood and adolescence. A new narrative perhaps.

One of the last chapters is entitled 'Burning Bridges'. Oh dear. Should I write my autobiography (or my mother's or brother's biography), something about burning bridges would be a favourite for the title.

I have confined my burnt bridges to workplaces. I do have a series of failed relationships behind me though, both romantic relations and friendships. However, most of the times it wasn't I who broke up, but the other person.

I left my first professional job following a conflict with my superior. I hurried away and never looked back. I held the position for 14 months. I wished that I had solved the conflict in a more constructive manner.

My next job was much better and it took 3½ years before I felt the ground burning and I had to get away. Maybe the tasks became a bit tedious, or I started losing concentration and made mistakes.

I accepted the first offer I got, which turned out to be disastrous. That new job just felt so completely wrong that I quitted after ten days. The people were nice, the perks were better than anywhere else I've worked, the wage was similar or maybe higher than my previous job, so what happened? The actual tasks were a bit boring and they also planned for me to go on a business trip to a very cold place. No reasons to quit after ten days, really. In retrospect, I probably had a meltdown, panicked, and ran. I remember the conversation I had with my superior after the ten days. I remember what I said and that I said it in a hoarse voice. I think my voice loses its feminity when I am under stress.

Because of that burnt bridge, the previous bridge also burned. People talk, and the people I worked with in the previous place heard of my behaviour.

Following this episode I worked for an international organisation for about six months. I worked on short contracts and tried to get away almost from the beginning. Short contracts are very stressful. But I left orderly and I didn't run.

I had the next job for about a year. I had frequent conflicts with the woman who I thought was my colleague, but in the minds of herself and the manager in fact was my superior. When I quitted, my manager was cross with me 'because of the way I quitted'. I can't remember how it happened, but I am sure my voice was hoarse.

My next job (which was three years in a large institution, but in two different divisions) ended in a major drama. My superior was probably the worst manager I've ever had. I am sure she was a psychopath. People in her department were stressed and fearful. She frequently made people cry and she was very manipulative. I used my network to return to my previous job (with a different manager), and then I had to resign. I was open and honest about the work environment and my managers leadership in my letter of resignation (I used the words 'management by fear'). Upon which she asked me to hand in my keys and leave. She was allergic to criticism and my voice was hoarse. I should say, that there was a bit more drama than that (as if it wasn't enough), because I accidentally kept some work papers at home, and in my meltdown state I also sent a few e-mails to collaborating partners. I probably shouldn't have done that. A friend of mine went to the work place with the papers a week later.

Returning to my old job was a success. I stayed for 6½ years, and only a few times I got so bored that I started making mistakes. Halfway through that period there was a restructuring and I got a new manager, a very pleasant and empathetic person. I liked him, my colleagues, my tasks, almost everything. The last year there things started going down the hill. I had to share an office with 'the smurf', and I lacked a professional network. So I left, but in an orderly manner.

 I held my next position for almost two years. I had a real moron for a colleague and that dominated my work experience to such an extent that my old way of always regarding the grass on the other side greener, returned.

My current job has changed considerably since I started about a year ago. Yes, the ground is burning. And no, I will not leave. The grass is NOT greener on the other side of the fence.

I wanted to write about my mother and brother being much worse than me in the field of leaving jobs angrily. But when I read what I have written, I think it is more or less the same.

Destiny

In the old Greek myth of Oedipus, the main character is told that his destiny is to kill his father and marry his mother. He does everything possible to escape his destiny, but eventually that is exactly what happens. And he doesn't even know.

In Freudian psychology, the myth has been used as a symbol of boys wanting to couple with their own mother, of young boys' jealousy of their fathers, and of the general tendency - for people of both genders - to fall in love with somebody reminding them of their own parent (usually the parent of the opposite gender).

To me, the myth is about the inability to avoid destiny. My thoughts on the Freudian interpretation are more complicated and deserve their own blogpost. In short, I think Freud is not exactly wrong, neither is he spot on.

I would like to think that there is no such thing as destiny. I would like to think that the way I present myself and the way I live my life is a product of coincidences and free will in combination. But I am afraid it is not. Well 'destiny' is some supersticious nonsense. But my genes and my upbringing (and a lot of things that happened after that) laid out a path for me, and I am surprised every time I discover I am walking on that path. You could call the path 'destiny'.

During my childhood, every time we (the family) or my parents were going somewhere, my mother always was a bit late. The last thing she had to do before leaving the house, was to pee. When we went on holiday, my brother, my father and I sat in the taxi waiting, while my mother went to the bathroom, got her coat, and left the house. I remember wondering (probably out loud) why she couldn't pee while we were still in the house? Destiny: Nowadays, when everybody are ready to leave, I discover I need to pee. It is like they have to take their coats on for me to find out.

If I told my mother about a choice I made for me and later on for my children, she would often say: 'Why is that?', in a challenging and demanding tone of voice. If she and I had an argument, she would simply state: 'You are wrong', and she never felt the need to explain why I was wrong. It was sort of God-given, that she was right. Destiny: Before I can think of it, I exclaim: 'You are wrong' or, more mildly: 'I am right', in arguments. When it comes to nutrition, I am right per definition, in that same God-given kind of way. When people close to me make choices I can't relate to, my mouth utter the infamous: 'Why is that?' before I know it.

On my Danish blog I wrote about my mother's tendency to sing if somebody said a line from a song in a conversation. I was always very annoyed because it was an interruption and it was like she put herself first: her need to demonstrate the ability to remember songs was superior to everybody elses need to pursue a conversation. Destiny: I have actually caught myself doing exactly the same thing.

Disgression: It is probably an Aspie trait to be able to remember lyrics. My mother and my youngest son are very good. And even not-very-musical me, I just recalled from a camp in primary school where I was walking with my teacher and my best friend in the wood and I for no apparent reason sang 'When I'm sixtyfour' - the entire song. And it was probably out of tune, too. My teacher said, slightly condescending: 'How nice to remember lyrics so well'.

End of disregression. There are several other examples, my point is that my destiny is to become like my mother. And I am fighting it, I despise most of what she represents, and still the more I think about it the faster I become like her. Truly Oedipal.

Running from depression

I don't think I've ever had a depression. But I know I have been depressed.

Life has never collapsed on me and left me weeping on the floor. But I have had periods of immense sadness and I've experienced anger and despair directed towards almost all elements in my life.

I was about 17. I was in high school, I had a boyfriend and a few close female friends. I was busy at school, playing handball, working. My life was generally OK. And when I came home from school, I cried for an hour. Every day. My boyfriend and my best friend told me to see my GP, who referred me to a psychiatrist. My best friend, also 17 and always very wise, was convinced I was depressed because of the way my father was bringing me up. Now this seems ridiculous, but 17 was the age of teenage showdown for me, and for some odd reason, I targeted my father. Neither my showdown or the psychiatrist (who was told by the patient that the reason was the patients father) had any effect on my moods. They did however fade after a while.

I was 24. I lived in South Africa, studying at the university. I had a boyfriend and a very close friend that I lived with. I had a student job at the university. A couple dramatic life events caused me to be depressed. I was so sad. I didn't cry much, I was just dark inside. I felt hollow and useless. I went to a social worker at the hospital and talked to her. She was nice but it had no effect. Of course we blamed the life events for my mood.

I was 39. Lived with my children. Had a partner, a demanding job and a large social circle (and the usual few close friends). Every Saturday, I cried. There was no energy left. I went to see my GP but I told him I was depressed because my son was showing signs of Asperger and that stressed me. So my GP told me what to do about my son and not what to do about me.

In between there are countless episodes of sadness, social anxiety, insomnia. Generally, my life has been as described at those three points in time: busy in the successful way. But the depression has always been there, lurking in the background, and striking when I was too busy to notice.

What also happens is that if my mind is idle, I start looping. Something somebody said or did keeps coming back to me and bothers me. Something my husband says makes me angry, though with a considerable time delay. So he says something without thinking and the next day I write him a spluttering e-mail. The more prone to depression I am, the more frequently this happens.

I once got anti-depressants. Not for depression but for insomnia. They made me gain weight and I also became cynical. So I stopped.

I self-medicate: I excercise. I run. I run from depression. Some days I go to the gym, but I need to have cardiovascular excercise for at least 20-25 minutes, at least four times per week. Yes I still loop. And sometimes I can't sleep. But I am much more stable mood-wise now. And the episodes mentioned above taught me at least one thing: depression comes from inside. It's nobody elses fault. Not my fathers fault, not the life events, not my son. In fact it is not even my mothers fault. I take responsibility; and I run!

Perspective

We talk about train tickets. I go on and on about where I travelled to and from, and how I purchased my ticket. Did I always do this? I try (hard) to sense when they tire of the train talk, so I should stop. Did people always lose interest in my subject before I did?

We talk about baking. They ask for my recipes. There is a joke but I didn't catch it. Was there always a joke I didn't catch? I explain carefully how I go about baking, the share of wholewheat flour, the amount of yeast, and I realise I talk too much. I stop. Did I always talk too much?

We discuss a political topic. We disagree on a central point. My feelings on the topic rush through me and take over. I argue at length, well-spoken (to the point of being too hard), and in an emotional manner. Afterwards my opponent seems cross with me and avoids me. Have I always done this? Did this happen before?

We are friends and we meet on a regular basis. We share things that we don't share with everyone else. One day I share too much. My next invitation is declined. My greetings are met with surprise. Now we don't greet each other anymore. Have this happened before? Did I always over-share (when I stopped under-sharing of course)?

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I know all these things happened before. I know because I was there and I noticed. I just didn't know why. Now I know, and that has increased my sense of these things. Before I ignored it, didn't see a pattern, thought the other people were dumbasses, etc. My recognition of my own Asperger has changed my perspective. These issues, that I disregarded before, are now perhaps blown out of proportion.

So what is better? Disregarding, ignorance and blaming everyone else? Or over-focusing and blaming myself?

Parents and children

Aspergers has only been part of the vocabulary for the past ten years or so. The diagnosis may have been invented much earlier, but when I was a child nobody knew about Aspergers. We hadn’t even heard of autism until Rain Man.

I think that my grandfather was irritated with my mother. She was a girl and he wished for a boy, but also I think he was put off by some of her traits such as being stubborn, anxious, black-and-white, introvert, a bit paranoid and other characteristics that he had himself. My grandfather had a few interests and could go on and on about them. He also took refuge in the kitchen. I don’t know how common this is, but I see numerous examples of parents being very irritated with their children when the children remind them of themselves. And that was the case for my mother and her father. What they had in common was quite a few Aspie-traits.

My mother did many things to spite her parents. A lot of her actions have been driven by anger. She felt neglected as a child and I believe she never really forgave her father for that. Her response to the demands of her surroundings was to be as different as she possibly could. She despised those people that fitted in, people wearing fashion clothes, watching soccer matches, reading gossip magazines and all the other things ‘people’ did. Then she had two children: a boy that displayed so many of the characteristics that she had herself. And a girl (that would be me) that was so eager to fit in that nobody noticed she also had those characteristics. My mother has always had an attitude of surprise and disapproval towards me. I think my need to fit in is seen by her as betrayal. Because her thing was to not fit in, and demonstrate against those that did. My brother on the other hand, did not fit in. Maybe he wanted to if he could. But the gender difference in how Aspergers manifests is the key to understanding why my brother and I developed so differently.

My mother could relate to my brother and never really related to me. I had, after all, rejected her project of not fitting in. What she doesn’t know is that I didn’t. I was close though. I have been so worn out by parties because I tried so hard to be like the others. And I have spent hours, days even, contemplating what I should have said or – in particular – not said. But I went to the party or function or whatever it was. And I tried, because I wanted to. This is probably what my mother despised of.

My point is that I see Aspie parents acting in two different ways towards their children with Aspergers (nobody of course said the A-word). Either they form a strong alliance with the child, as my mother did with my brother. She protected him like she had wished for protection (and perhaps understanding) as a child.

I have been mad at my youngest son many times. My parents have suggested that I was sad because he was different. I think most parents experience a kind of sorrow when their child appears to be less than perfect. During the past year or so I have come to understand that my youngest son is much more like me than I thought. And my sorrow related to his being different is in fact related to me being different. I experience him going through the same challenges that I did. Only, there was no such thing as Aspergers then, and I was a girl and much better at hiding under the radar.