Why Working Full-Time Feels Impossible With Autism

追加: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]For most of my life, I genuinely believed that I just wasn't cut out for adulthood. I used to say to my mom that I am not going to make it to 30. That the reality is my brain or whatever it is that I am born with is stopping me from actually living this life that I see other people around me living. And that's a really harsh reality. I think that's a really hard, tough, brutal thing for a young person to believe about themselves and to say out loud. I watched friends of mine be able to maintain school life, be able to maintain either part-time jobs on top of this or full-time jobs and still have energy on the weekends, still have energy on their days off to sustain themselves. And this was an experience that I just couldn't relate to. Upon finally receiving that autism diagnosis that I got at age 25, I think that was one of the things that I had to accept was I actually really do struggle to maintain traditional work environments and traditional work expectations that society does place. And I know better than anyone the amount of shame that is carried into this area of life if we aren't able to sustain or do what what society tells us we should do. So today I want to talk really openly and honestly about what my work experience, what working life has felt for me, why it felt so impossible for me, and why this is actually a really common experience within the autistic community. It's a hell of a lot more common than you may realize. So let's get into it. If you've ever wondered whether you're neurode divergent or just felt like you see the world a little differently, you're not alone. I was diagnosed autistic at 25 and suddenly so many things I never had words for started to make sense. Here I share the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful parts of life through an autistic lens. My name is Alina Carol and if you're looking for answers, understanding, or just an autistic friend, you're in the right place.

[00:02:15]Welcome back to my channel. I'm probably looking a little bit like I'm half dressed or like, you know, should I have turned on the camera before I actually got completely ready? Well, you know, today I'm I always try, you know, one of my my things is to elicit a particular feeling uh within within my videos, within the words that I say. And for me, this kind of content talking about this topic actually elicits a lot of anxiety for me. For whatever reason, there might be a little bit of trauma that's gone down there, which I will get into. But I wanted to be comfy. I wanted to feel a little bit more confident looking on the outside because on the inside when I am talking about this stuff, the reality is is very different. And sometimes you just got to fake it till you make it, right? So, if this video content does make you feel anxious or if the the job hunting, the job market, the expectation society places on you or your parents or your friends, your teachers, just know that you're not alone in that stress. If we are talking about my work life, well, predominantly I have been self-employed in my life. For those of you who don't know, I began a YouTube channel at the age of 17. And I always had this goal. I knew that I was destined to talk to people. I didn't know why. I didn't know what I wanted to do with that, but I knew that I wanted to connect with people, but in a way that I had control of. And at this time, I was not diagnosed with autism. And so, I started producing content around beauty and fashion. And it moved into lifestyle.

[00:04:00]And then it took on a life of its own where within that time I was diagnosed with depression and I had to leave university because of my mental health because of a really abusive relationship that I had to leave. And so this channel, as I said, took on a life of its own where I was talking to people about my life. And suddenly I was able to do this thing that I always wanted to do, which was connect with people. And I absolutely loved it. I loved the flexibility that came with this kind of job. In fact, I didn't even know that I could make money from YouTube, especially at 20, 21. But it became something where I had a flexibility, especially when I was going through burnout. I was going through major major mental health issues far more than what anyone saw. But I think in some way YouTube was my special interest. YouTube was the way that I was able to have a social life when I wasn't able to have a social life in reality in my real life.

[00:05:03]And so in a lot of ways it saved me. I was in a very very privileged position having this. But it's what I did gosh up until the age of 25 or so. I want to say that within all the experiences of myself that I will be talking about, there was completely a privilege in that in the sense that I have a supportive family. If something went wrong, I had that safety net of my family a little bit and I don't think that I can say all of what I'm saying without actually acknowledging that. I've also, just so you know, had the safety net of the government. You know, again, living in a place that does offer like unemployment money has been another big privilege.

[00:05:49]And I say that and I share that because this was as recent as like when I first started kind of posting on this YouTube channel um about my autism stuff. I I could not get a job. I applied for over 50 jobs and I could not get a job and I ended up on the disability allowance from the government. And once again, I just share that to reduce the shame and the stigma that might come um for people that have been kind of forced in that into that position. I am someone that loves to try new things and I am also someone who finds it really difficult to continue pursuing something when I believe that I have achieved achieved everything I wanted to. I am so goal driven. And so when I believed that I had achieved everything that I wanted to on my YouTube channel, suddenly it did not make sense for me to do it anymore.

[00:06:44]And people thought that I was crazy. But the crazier thing for me was continuing in a job that wasn't sustaining me emotionally or driving me in my goals.

[00:06:56]And so suddenly I found myself in the hospitality world. And I began bartending. And this all came about from a goal, a dream to see myself behind a bar and pretending like I was this confident, cool person. I guess as cringey as that sounds, I wanted to look as though I wanted to appear as though I could hold the room and talk to people about their worries. And I guess all I had seen from from other people who were bartenders is on movies and on TV shows.

[00:07:31]And I know that so many autistic people, you know, base themselves on this role that they might have seen portrayed in media. And that's how a lot of us get through is pretending to to be these characters. And that's exactly what I did. The thing was about this hospitality world was it was unpredictable. There were it was just sensory overload, especially working with liquids. A lot of times working in the cold, I was having to mask when I just couldn't mask. And I think my livelihood depended on my ability to socialize. And so I actually only ended up working in this role for about 6 months and it was like 6 months far too long. This is when I had to enter onto the disability allowance. And then ultimately my life took me to Canada where a lot of you watched me try and make it over there. And I even started documenting the process of job hunting, which if you'd like a real perspective of the job hunting market. Um, yeah, I will link the video to that down below.

[00:08:40]But, um, maybe a lot of you wondered what ended up happening with the career.

[00:08:45]I never ended up working a traditional job while I lived in Canada. I ended up being hired for two roles. One of them being in retail and one of them once again being in hospitality. And I guess I wanted to prove to myself that I could get through those interviews and I could talk my way through it if I needed to.

[00:09:06]But I was able to do that in differences in interviews that I had been in before.

[00:09:10]And that was in group interviews. I found myself having the time to think a little bit clearly and being able to connect a little bit more personally with the people that were interviewing in a group interview as opposed to one-on-one. And so I was hired for these jobs, but I never ended up taking them mainly because it was after the fact that I was hired that I then learned that the shifts that I was going to be given were purely reliant on my ability to sell. And if I was proving myself as an employee, then they would bring me in for more shifts. And as someone who is neurode divergent, I did not want my livelihood, my rent to be dependent on my ability to hold a conversation because there are sometimes that I just might not do a good enough job and then what do I do? I can't pay the rent. So I never ended up taking those jobs. And then what I ended up doing was I was really trying hard to make this whole autism advocacy a real a real thing. I tried to make a real go of it. And this was not again without the privileges and the generosity of people that I was with. I was able to live rentree during this time as I really tried to follow my dreams. Once again my story is full of privileges. I don't think that there are many people that can chase their dreams rentree. But the fact of the matter is maybe I wouldn't have chased my dreams if I was able to be hired for a job. And I guess that's where I kind of want to talk about why traditional jobs can feel really impossible for people with autism. If we are talking about the traditional expectations of what it means to be hired, we are ultimately talking about masking all day. I think that every single person on Earth, unless that they run the ship, they have to put on a mask in order to to be the their best selves in order to sustain their livelihood and and stay hired. So I know that this is a place that so many of us have to come to but I think that for the neurode divergent brain masking takes a complete toll. We have to monitor our behavior all day. We have to suppress our autistic traits. We have to script these conversations. And ultimately all of this focusing on monitoring ourselves I think ends in a really bad place of of burnout. Not only that but god the sensory overload you know if you are working in a place where you are working with a lot of people every single person has different needs.

[00:12:00]Some might like the thermostat set to hot some might like the thermostat set to cold. Some might like noise. Some might want complete silence. There are customers, there are multiple conversations, there are unpredictable environments within a workplace. I also think within a workplace there is no recovery time. If you are having a bad day, if you are feeling overwhelmed, you can't be running out and saying like, I'm having a tough time, unless your boss is like your best friend or your partner or your parent. work ends up draining your entire nervous system. And ultimately, when you do leave work, a lot of us don't feel like cooking. A lot of us don't have the energy to tend to the relationships that we need to tend to or tend to our hygiene or the things that make us happy like our hobbies or relationships as I said and even just general life admin. It all kind of takes a step back. we don't have anything left. And I think all we can do is just ultimately collapse. How often you collapse I think is is dependent on the individual. But I think ultimately if you are exceeding your capabilities and your bandwidth, it will ultimately end in a state of burnout or a collapse. For neurode divergent people, I think transition difficulties plays a very big part with regular society accepted work.

[00:13:29]Getting ready, leaving the house, switching tasks, changing environments, waking up early consistently, all of this takes quite a heavy toll on on the body, on the brain. We might be able to sustain it you know for a few days but by the end of the week once you have finished and you are reaching your weekends or your days off we can ultimately end up in collapse. There's also a social exhaustion that comes from a workplace. You know for many many workplaces the workplace environment is is encouraged with communication and group events and being able to hold your own within a conversation. There's customer service fatigue and there's also keeping up with the office or the workplace politics, the environments, the dynamics following that can be, you know, a job within itself. And ultimately, as I have said throughout this, it ends in a burnout cycle where there isn't enough rest and recoup time before you have to switch yourself on again and get back to work. So I don't think it's necessarily a question about whether autistic people or neurode divergent people are cut out for working environments. It's not that we are incapable of working. It's that we are incapable of surviving environments that force us to neglect and ignore our own nervous system. The problem is not in our ability. It is how much we have to sustain ourselves. It is in our sustainability. Autistic people can work, but I think it's more often a question about the flexibility that comes within the workplace, the autonomy, the choice and what times they work, the ability to reduce that masking, the meaningful work that we feel we're giving our time to, the predictable environments, the recovery time between from when we're working to our days off, and the accommodations that we are able to give ourselves or our co-workers or our bosses are able to give us. All of these things play such a big role in us being able to comfortably work. But the fact of the matter is these things are just not as present and are not as widely accepted in the neurotypical working world. Honestly, a huge reason why I became so invested in helping neurode divergent people is because I understood firsthand what it means to feel like you are failing in life and feeling like you're behind and feeling like you're failing compared to the neurotypical standards. For those of you who don't know, I have just launched my very own coaching app. And this was designed as a means to give you guys the flexibility, the autonomy, and the freedom to decide on when it was that you wanted to work on yourself. You know, there's a lot of us that don't want the rigidity that comes with appointment making and talking one- on-one with a therapist or a coach. And so I wanted to make a tool available for those of you who are wanting to understand themselves and understand how to recover from burnout and and work through your identity building a life that actually works for you. I'm not ever here to push anything on you guys.

[00:16:54]I just want to let you know that there are tools available and if you're interested in seeing more, the link is down below. The fact of the matter is if we are talking about employment and work and the challenges and obstacles that are present for neurode divergent people then we have to talk about shame for not feeling as though we are succeeding for for being looked down upon either by our family or our friends or by employers for not having this big builtout resume.

[00:17:25]There is so much shame. I have had a shame spiral. In fact, I will leave another video down below where I I had a job interview and it was a few years ago and I didn't get the job and I felt like I did a terrible job and you can see me in that video feeling just complete shame. This complete shame spiral. I just want to let you know that you are not lazy. You are not broken. You are living in a world that was not designed with your brain in mind. And so if you are struggling with the the employment process, maintaining a job, whatever it is, it might be any one of these things that I have talked about today that you are not able to acknowledge yourself within your working day or within the interview process, whatever it is. And I relate to this so passionately. I would love to hear your guys' experience about the employment process, about the burnout that you felt because this is how we are able to normalize these kinds of conversations is realizing that there are so many of us who are are qualified, are educated, are completely capable human beings and still aren't able to maintain that typical 9-to-five job that is so celebrated in this neurotypical world we live in. So with that I am going to leave it there today. Thank you guys so much for watching this video and I will talk to you in my next one. Bye.