I am twenty one years old and affected by many problems. Although I have great internal stregth, I have come to realize many employeers do not care about how well you preform on a job if you cannot guarentee them constant employment. I have over come so much, but now I have reached a mountain I need help climbing. Any help, whether it be help financial or direction on how to pay this off even though I do not qualify for debt cancelation.  Please, whatever you can do to help would be appreciated. I don't want to thrive, I just want to survive and I am barely doing that know. I have listed them here, in hopes that others can understand why I have come to this point. I want to thank my friend who helped me to type this and edit it.

Autism

            It affects my ability to communicate well or clearly with others because I have few social skills. I am not able to understand or interpret nonverbal communication, tone of voice or much of which is not stated bluntly. I need to have a constant routine to limit number of meltdowns that occur. My other disorders also affect the symptoms of autism and how severe they are. The worse the other disorders are affecting me, the worse the autism seems to be.

            Sometimes I ‘zone out’, meaning that I do not hear what is going on around me; does not happen as much as it did. I have a hard time expressing myself verbally because I seem to think differently, and so therefore, I do not know how to express what I am thinking clearly and in a way others will understand. I also have a hard time understanding what others are saying all the time, this depends on how much is said at once, the complexity of what they are saying and how well I know them.

            I do much better typing and writing things out for some reason. It seems to be the best way to clearly explain myself and what I am thinking. It also does not help when there are a lot of noises or activity going around because of the fact I have problems filtering out those things and concentrating on what someone is saying or what I have to do. I have problems controlling the tone of my voice and the volume of it since I cannot judge how loud I talk. Also, at certain volumes or pitches, noises can hurt my ears. Sometimes I can deal with this problem, but not always.

            When under a lot of stress I have a tendency to rock or tap my foot up and down rapidly, causing me to leave or  take a break from what I am doing to calm down; if I cannot do this, I have to leave because it is a sign of anxiety, being overwhelmed, stressed out, etc. and could mean a meltdown is possible if I do not get out of whatever situation I am in.

Sensory integration dysfunction

            I am extremely sensitive to smells, sounds, textures. This means that I cannot always deal with the outside world because too much is going on. I have a hard time concentrating if there is background noise when someone is speaking.

Body Awareness

            I am not good with balancing, coordination, am very clumsy, run into things a lot, run into people. I have a hard time judging distances and figuring out where things are in relative to myself.

Depression

            Mostly occurs during winter months or bad weather. It causes me to want to withdraw and makes the autism and anxiety problems worse. Makes me very tired and may cause some of my sleep problems.

            Sometimes am unable to deal with the world and have to stay in my own space or suffer from panic attacks where I feel like I cannot breathe, am very dizzy, headaches and feel like everyone is watching me and things are about to happen. An unusual fear of failure and messing up occurs often. Often feel the need to be a  perfectionist so as not to be noticed by others which results in a lot of stress, as well as frustrations and exhaustion.

            This is in my legs because my bones did not form right or align correctly. It is easy for my joints in my legs to give out or do something that causes me to fall or almost fall. Causes pain.

Fibromyalgia

            I have wide spread pain through out my body, making me some days unable to move or move well. Cold and bad weather makes this worse. Sometimes I cannot walk because my legs are like jell-o (don’t think this is part of Fibromyalgia). Some days are better than others. I have days where I feel as though I am moving through a fog because I have trouble thinking and such. During a flare up last school semester (last two or three weeks) I did attempt to go to school, but once there, I could not remember where my classes were.

ADD/ADHD

            I have a hard time concentrating and staying on task. I also believe this is why I have major problems with organization and need to been doing something at all times.

Organic Mood Disorder

This is actually bipolar, the only difference is that it means the bipolar disorder was caused by something else in the brain (in this case, autism)       

This causes my moods to go up and down, sometimes very quickly. Medication does help, but some days am very easily frustrated which make it impossible to deal with normal things. At this time, I either have to stay inside my apartment or risk blowing up or not being able to function outside in the world. I do not believe I have the rapid-cycling anymore (my mood could change in minutes), but my moods can still shift from hour to hour. I have to be very attentive to what is stressing me out, overwhelming me, and try to control things that bother me to stop this from happening. This stops me from always being able to lead a normal life because I cannot deal with as much as others can. It also affects how much the sensory integration dysfunction affects me, as well as how bad my sleep problems are. This is separate from the depression diagnoses because of the fact that I experience depression on a seasonal bases, although I do take an anti-depression year round so that the depression episodes are not as severe. On top of this, I do experience the normal times of feeling depressed and than switching to feeling very hyper.  If it is during winter months, that is when the depression is at its worst.

Sleep Problems

Hi,

I am 21 years old and am gradutation soon from college. I went to college because I really had no choice. I am autistic, bipolar, and have fibromaligia (I have a few more, these are the main ones), so I needed health insurance. With no job experience and no knoweldge of any programs to help me, I took the college route.  Over the course of school, the Fibromyalgia

Wasn't sure how to respond to the fact I visited links someone recommanded. I have gotten in touch with most of the people from those links, but so far, I am told that I should qualify for SSI and to look towards the DVR for help. It looks as though I am doing all I can I am told. Perhaps this is because they really don't have anything for those pursuing higher education? I know that I was diagonsed just at the time autism was getting into the medical dictonary and that there have been a lot of research and help being opened up--unfortently, they are focusing their efforts on children. I seem to be stuck in the spot where if I had been born even five years ealier, I would not have had the resources I did had, but than again, if I had been five years later, a lot more could have been done for me and to help me out.
It makes me very disappointed that those who seem to be decicated to autism are focusing just on children. What about us adults who had parents who made sure doctors did whatever they could, despite not knowing much at all about autism and those of us who were able to benifit from those treatments despite the doctors saying it would never help?
It is as if people are saying, hey you have beaten the odds and are now higher functioning than you were but sorry, we don't know how to deal with you and well, children are more important. Its not fair and I feel bad ranting about it here, but it is frustrating to see the little help that is avaliable or known even from Autism Societies for adults. Who knows, maybe if I didn't have all the other problems, I could be better off, but I don't want to think of that.
I am who I am and my best is turning out to not be good enough. This is terrifing for me since I have a little over a year, less if my disabilities affect me as badly as they did last semester. Last semester, I was stuck in bed for three weeks because of the fibro and I cannot find any help. That is why I came here because all I want is a way where I can afford my medication, doctor bills and some other necissities. Please, if anyone has any more ideas, please share.

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2. Or, if you want to start a separate thread - make a new page.

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