Feel your talent going down the drain, due to your AS?

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Yeah, I have to go with "sort of".

My talents find expression in the music I play and the garden I grow.
They are not wasted.

Yet my talents were never adequately developed or properly capitalized upon. AS has caused me a lot of problems with higher education and employment. And this has indeed diverted some of my talent down the figurative drain.

So I'm working on that development and capitalization part right now.

Ummm, yeah. I've got this superpowered brain, kind of like a Cray computer, but I can't use it for anything except reading and thinking because I can't communicate what I know with other people, and not just because of my brains. My autism keeps me from being able to hold down a regular job, and it keeps me from being able to sell what I can do at home, too. Although (knock on wood) that may be changing, as a tenured scientist is helping me get one paper published. So maybe I will be able to sell my book soon, and get out of poverty (any year now).

Basically, there's a gap in my abilities that short circuits everything.

For over a decade I worked in an environment that more-or-less protected me and allowed me to accomplish a lot with my talents. But that job changed and for the last five years, even though I continued to work on significant projects, it came at a high personal cost of increased anxiety and depression.

Being somewhere on the spectrum has allowed me to absorb and retain more information than most, to be super tenacious in things that interest me, and to be able to see patterns that others don't see. But without an environment that makes it possible for me to thrive, it's much more difficult to use my abilities.

Z

I don't think so but then again I'm at a early stage in my life and I'm not sure if I even have any real talent, although people say I'm smart and stuff quite often.

Perhaps the theme here is that many of us have somewhat unique and/or unusual talents but we do not have an opportunity to actually use them to make a living so it may appear as if they are going down the drain when in fact they may only be temporarily circleing the drainpipe.

I like that image garyww!

Z

Any talents and skills I have seem closely related to autism. The autism, combined with lack of accomodation and understanding, leads to me being both under-employed and working jobs for which I'm overqualified. The skills and talents therefore go down the drain as far as society is concerned, along with the tax money paid to help fund many of the qualifications and the money that could have been potentially generated over a working lifetime. A few simple accomodations would enable me to work more consistently at what I'm skilled in, and cost society far less overall. However, if the authorities don't want to bother putting them in place, I'll just have to be content to remain sitting at home for the next few years/decades enjoying all the skills for myself.

Many of us end up being self employed or at least staying in our caves doing our thing and acting like we're self employed even though were really self-broke. There are thousands of more consessions and accomdations made for physically handicapped people than for mentally challenged people. This isn't bad, I've worked in jobs helping the disabled but it is very lopsided of society and it's the one thing we really need to make known.

just the opposite

Good luck with your book! I wanted to say, anyway, that writing seems like the way to go.

Yeah, that too Gary. When I formulated the topic, I was thinking more in the line of how the AS has stopped one from getting the education needed to pursuit a career that one posess a talent for.
I feel that many of the ppl with AS also struggle with executive disorder (not sure if that's the proper term) and therefore can't get things going. See what I mean?

I sure hope you can get things going with your book. Should be some help to find somwhere in the bureaucracy, employment department..something, not sure of what it's called over there.
I have a friend that was unemployd due to depressions and other problems. He was a graphic designer, but he couldn't keep up with the development in that field, due to lack of equipment. So, our employment directory gave him equipment for 50 000 US Dollars.
That included the biggest mac on the marked and printing and scanner devices. Now, he works from home and have a pretty good salary.
Just told you this, cause I know Canada have a similar social system as Norway. Could be worth checking things out

Your right, many talents are not wasted, whatever. As you said I was thinking more in the line of getting a proper education in a field you were talented in. Maybe I should formulated the topic differently

I think autism is one reason why I didn't get a PhD. But there were lots of other reasons, too. And even if I had, an education does not guarantee employment. You still need the accomodation in the workplace.

Ah the education thing. Personally my education pretty much ruined me considering how well I was doing on my own before being brainwashed, I mean educated. When I was in school in a rural area teachers had never heard of spatial learners or gifted children so I was stuck with trying to cope in the sequencial/linear education system.
I became so bored and frustrated that I began ditching school in the 2nd grade and this was a normal pattern until I finally quit going somewhere in the middle of 7th grade.
Not having an education has been a big stumbling block since I do not have proper skills in language, spelling, math and most of the normal things one needs. In my situation is was just that educators were not aware but all to often for youngsters today it is becasue educators do not care about kids similar to how I was.

It seems to me that you have enough grammar skills to be more than understood. In fact your writing seems quite sophisticated to me. I also had trouble at school, mostly related to autotithy issues. I never did any homework, could not get started, but I had a good brain, so paying a little bit attention in class gave me good grades, anyway.
I just could not decide what i'd like to be, so after the army I just started to work at a factory, making furnitures. After that i took an education that made me a skilled carpenter, making doors. That's what I do today, and I'm not complaining, exactely. It's a nice place to work, just six others to relate to, and I'm managing my day pretty much as I like, as long as I keep up with the delivery schedules.
The reason I started this thread was becauce I know I could done something different, if I had better organizing skills, and if I did not procrastinate everything. I guess this have to do with my supposed AS