Anxiety

    You try not to think about it. You tell yourself that everyone goes through these things. But then you worry. What if something happens, you say to yourself? Can I predict the future? What if I don't get that job or that promotion? What if I say the wrong thing? Do I have the money to make it go away? And what about the next time? And the time after that? What will it be then? Will I have the ace up my sleeve? What will I do when I can't make it go away? Where will I run? Will tomorrow be the day my luck runs out? Will I get hit by a bus, get robbed? Will the kidnapper that abducted and killed someone from just down the street pick me next time? I drive by that place almost every time I go out. Granted, I didn't know those people, but what if I had been there when he came in with a gun? what would I have done? They're both dead now. 

 

Nonono, you can deduct the stolen acorns as a casualty loss, not a business loss.

    I am closing the tax and bookkeeping business permanently for health reasons. I look forward to working again soon.

    I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of autism in the community. There is a gap of understanding that creates unrealistic expectations. It leaves me chasing shadows. So long as that gap exists, I will always fall short. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy: to believe in the impossible so that you can fail. 

    Why is it impossible? Autistic social behavior is different. It leads to miscommunication and in a field like tax, communication is important. Hypothetically, if I could simply do the taxes and have someone else do all the communicating, including the nonverbal communication, then it could work. If I could be a puppet master, and have a puppet interact with bosses and clients, then yes, I could do taxes.

    Unfortunately that's not how the world works. I'm tired of trying to explain the obvious to people with closed ears. It's like screaming at a wall. There's no medication for this. There's no machine. There's simply reality, and the reality is that the business world is not autistic friendly. I really just don't understand this world sometimes. There's a reason I don't get hired at jobs. There's a reason I'm disabled. You can close your ears and scream lalala all day long but it does not in fact convert me into a non-autistic. 

    So long as the world engages in magical thinking about what I am and am not, I will always fail. I will always fall short. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I cannot keep chasing shadows. I'm trying to find a job that will hire an autistic, because I cannot run a tax and bookkeeping business as an autistic. I would need people to interface between me and the clients and that's not realistic. It's like having a translator follow me around. I can't even manage to get people that know full well what autism is to understand and I'm tired of explaining. It's wishful thinking but they're addicted to it and together we drive the doctors crazy trying to achieve the impossible. Somebody has to have the sense to say "stop". Otherwise, it's eternally a square peg through a round hole. That's not paranoia that's just common sense.