Does anybody else just not want to get a job?

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I can't seem to reconcile the need to work in my head. I don't want "stuff", I don't want to hop on a treadmill of ever expanding houses and cars, and I don't want to sell myself anymore. I find it really easy to get a job. I've got great credentials and I've memorized all the behavioral mechanisms necessary to blow through an interview. About 1-2 months in, I'm going to work during the day and having meltdowns at night. It doesn't matter what the job is or who I'm working for/with. I have the same exact problem with women, but this is another story.

It seems my parents and everyone else (including a lengthy list of psychiatrists and psychologists, over the years) just want me to work. I don't even know what to do anymore. Sometimes I feel like a petulant child. I know I'm intelligent and rational, but I can't figure out how to control these meltdowns. It's like this beast in my brain that punishes me for deviating from my compulsions. I'm 27 now and it seems to get worse every year, but that may be corresponding to the increasing expectation of falling into line and becoming an adult.

Anyone else feel like this? Is there some sort of coping mechanism that I can try?

I don't want to work either but I also wouldn't know how to get and keep a job even if I wanted one.

I haven't managed to solve this one either; as soon as I "grew out of" the routine/rhythm which school had instilled in me, of getting up and going somewhere for 7 hours a day etc, which process of deconstruction started at uni, ( irregular lectures, non-obligatory tutorials etc ), and continued when became unemployed 3 years after that, ( after holding down two full-time jobs in a row for two and half years in total ) as a result of following a dream and failing at it, ( because of manic-depressive breakdown ) and had also accidentally discovered that I could live without a penny for 5 weeks ( sleeping rough and asking for food in bakeries, raiding bins, etc while on the road in France one summer ) ... I became unable to hold down a full-time job, and eventually ( after three years jobshare in a library brought to an end by sudden restlessness ) not even a part-time/job-share one either ... and have ended up becoming a full-time mother and part-time house"wife" financially supported by a French man who doesn't seem to mind my not working. I've "had to" stick at this job, of bringing up my son, bcause the taboo on dropping it was too huge to break.

I don't see enough point to working for money though. The 5 weeks on the road are among the most memorable and extraordinary experiences of my life.

My son ( AS too ) is nearly 14, and his Papa will probably be retiring in 2 years, when my son turns 16 ... and I feel as if I need/should be doing something, fairly soon ... but there doesn't seem to be enough reason.

I dislike most working environments, and was never lucky or able enough to find a job doing something I love and would be happy to spend hours on without supervision, so the only options are/have been jobs which I'd be doing just for the money ... erk.

I think that at some level I actually have trouble "believing" in or understanding/grasping the steps involved; that if do A, will get B ( money ) which can then get C with. It's not real enough. I've tended to just try and get the thing(s) I want directly! Sometimes it worked, for a while anyway! :lol

Working on organic farms for bed and board has not been much fun either ( too many weird/difficult/control-freak farmers in charge or too sensible, reasonable, "adult", people whose "goodness" and so on just makes me feel even more "feckless" etc ... and the power-dynamics in such places/vol work situations are too complicated for me ).

I have increasingly thought that if I were a man, or 15-20 years younger ( there's a usual upper age limit on new "nuns" of about 30/35 ) I would like to join a monastery/convent, where work might make more sense ... if I wasn't repelled by all the goody-two-shoes of course :lol ... because everything so wonderfully clearly organised and structured etc

I have no idea what to do about it. I have been feeling pretty desperate recently about how even my own ideas for productive/creative activity ( which could potentially lead to an income ), drawing/painting, writing, etc never lead anywhere, always without exception fizzle out and die within a few weeks of beginning them. I seem to be incapable of longterm thinking, sustained regular effort towards a distant goal, at tolerating delayed reward, etc, classic signs of disrupted/deficient dopamine and serotonin pathways, ( which may be the result of unusually permeable intestinal membranes, which is the case in a large subset/36% of people on the spectrum, allowing the large molecule food-opioids in gluten/cereal-storage-proteins and dairy to enter blood and brain ).

I've just started a "cereal/grass-family and dairy and sugar exclusion" diet again, ( I managed three years gfcf from late 2007 to February 2011, but then relapsed into "everything" ( pizza!! ! mmmmm ) for most of the last two years ), because it seems to be about the only thing that I *am* able to do for long periods of time .. and I think I did notice a slight improvement in my capacity for long-term effort etc in 2008-2010 ( including writing 62,000 words for NaNoWriMo novel writing month in 2010 ) ... even if the few slightly "larger" things that I *did* achieve still didn't lead anywhere AT ALL, which was probably why I abandoned the exclusion diet ... but ... maybe ... perhaps ... it's the *only* thing I can do to get me out of this cul-de-sac/stagnant bog/slough/rut of no progress etc which have been in for over a year now, and feels increasingly painful.
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I work because I hate to be a burden on society or on others, and I do enjoy the feeling of independence in providing for myself -- but my dearest wish is that I could be independently wealthy and never have to leave the house again if I didn't want to. Seriously. I've always been that way, just wanted to be at home doing my own thing and not dealing with people if I didn't want to.

By the way, just want to say, if anyone is or has to depend on help and benefit payments, I totally understand and I do not judge that at all; it's just me myself who felt really bad during a period when I had to have those too for a while, and I'd rather work than have that, but I'm not knocking those who do receive financial help because they can't work. I totally understand and wouldn't knock that.

I actually spent years of my life, following school, living at home with my parents and being supported by them because I just couldn't handle the thought of going out daily to a job. I was never diagnosed because I was the generation where they didn't even address stuff like this, but my sister married a social worker and I think he always knew what might really be going on with me, I recently realized.

What eventually made me find a job was that I had dreams to travel and I eventually made those reality. But I've never been able to keep a job for long -- the social dynamic with co-workers and bosses always started out fine then turned several kinds of sour and I would always quit. I then became self employed and have stuck at that for twenty years, because my work now is almost completely solitary.

But if I won the lottery or suddenly inherited bigtime from a mystery relative? I'd quit yesterday. As long as it's my own money I'm living from....but yes, I wish that didn't have to entail work, tax returns, going out and dealing with the world out there when I don't feel like it. I would love to not have to.

After a lifetime of messing up relationships at work I decided to try something new. So I chose not to disagree, not to speak unless spoken to and gradually worked my way into my work environment. I did have the occasional meltdown but my colleagues were my friends at that point and my job is stressful for neurotypicals too so I managed to mask it a bit.

The best way I found to decrease melt downs is to stop replaying the tape in my head of the thing that irritated me. Its the repeated replay of the incident that gets me into meltdown mode. Try thinking of something else and that might help to break the pattern. I got the advice from a counsellor and it works.

You might be interested in this article: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/0 ... get-a-job/

Part of me likes to suffer and be a slave, though.