Autistic Vs Neurotypical Employment Struggles

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Today I will be talking about autistic vs neurotypical employment struggles. Anyone can struggle with employment. Our struggles are different than NTs. NTs don’t deal with discrimination and stigmas like we do. Nts don’t require the adjustments that we need.

I want to cover some new topics to help spice up my blog/YouTube. Let me know what you think about this one.

If you try to explain your struggles the person may say ‘you’re not trying hard enough.’ They don’t know how hard we struggle. Everyday. 365 days a year.

Let’s take Joe and Tom. Joe and NT and Tom’s autistic. Joe struggles with standing out from the crowd. Joe has all the qualifications for the job he wants but he just can’t stand out. He just can’t land that interview.

Tom is autistic. He struggles with finding a job with the right settings. He cannot be in crowds, fast-paced environments, etc. This disqualifies him from retail and fast food.

Tom has tried retail/ fast food in the past but ends up quitting due to there being too many sensory triggers.

Stigmas are the one thing that keeps us unemployment. There is a lot of misinformation out there. If a client tells the employer they’re autistic during in interview they may think “is this person gonna make my job harder?” “is this person not going to work hard?” “Would my last 2 interviewee’s be a better fit for this?”

I came across a YouTuber who talked about his struggles and he said every time he mentioned his autism in the application or the interview, he didn’t get the job.

Remember there is a lot of myths and misinformation about autism. NTs don’t have to worry about being fired for being autistic.

Our autism traits can be misread by the employer. I believe when someone says they were fired for being autistic, they mean their autism traits being misread. Not getting the support they need etc.

Both ND and NT people get passed up for jobs but for different reasons.

I think working from home is the best option. You can pick flows that work for you rather than being forced in a NT setting. This does damage to us having to perform in ways we can’t.

Ableism, stigmas, non-autism friendly workforces, discrimination keeps us unemployed. Picky employers, standing out from the crowd that keeps some NTs unemployed.

Regardless, unemployed people are NOT lazy. They send in hundreds of applications. Don’t hear back or get passed up. They have interviews and still no job. My mom tried getting another job when she wasn’t making enough from her main job. She got her applications turned down. She has 2 interviews. She got the first job and was fired after 3 weeks for moving too slow. She never heard back after the second interview. Plus stores are closing, hours are getting cut. Computers are taking jobs. How do you expect anyone to get a job with all that’s happening? Both parties struggle with jobs in some way.

Instead of belittling each other take time to understand the person.

I talked about this in a video. You can watch here.

How can we want things better for autistic adults and not talk about it? We need companies that help autistic people, run by people on the spectrum.   Although that company that I went thought supposedly helped people with disabilities, you saw how the lady outright disregarded my autism and it caused me to struggle throughout the program.

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