How do you all cope with the rejection that you go through in the workplace? I’ve largely only ever been socially successful among groups where I share an interest, and even then, I still struggle socially quite a bit and tend to be somewhat disliked in any sort of group setting. Among the general public (so classes, and now work for many years) I’ve never really been able to make friends, and people range from being neutral to me but not liking me, to disliking me, to hating me in a way that feels like it should really only be reserved for people who actually brought you significant harm, to trying to be ‘friendly’ and then making fun of me when I’m still in earshot, and such. But I still have to work, which means that I have to just go to work and deal with hearing my coworkers talk about me negatively when I’m within earshot, noticing the difference in the demeanor when they interact with anyone else versus interact with me, notice when they actively try to do things to make my job harder (thankfully this is somewhat rare but it happens unfortunately).
If I try to bring it up to anyone who’s allistic then they don’t even believe me and will only take the most overt examples of extreme bullying as a sign that my coworkers don’t like / dislike me, but it’s hard when I have to deal with what can possibly be over a hundred micro-rejections just in a given day, and then I just have to wake up and do the same thing tomorrow, and every job’s been like this so even if I felt like I deserved better and went somewhere else, then I’d just get treated the same way anyways (and this has been true for all of my work experiences and was the case in all of my grade-collegiate schooling as well, so I think that it’s just something I’m always going to have to deal with). So how do you all deal with it? I can’t just simply ignore it forever, since it still affects me even if I pretend that it doesn’t. Rejection still hurts even if it’s from people who I don’t even really like anyways, and no matter how I act, whether I try to act friendly or whether I just try to keep my distance, it doesn’t seem to change things. I don’t think that there’s any way to not be rejected, so what can I do to ease the pain from it?
I’m sorry. I’ve been where you’re at and I don’t have any reasonable long-term solutions for you.
I’ve been toying with the idea of setting up an autist-run and autist-led company or companies for quite a while now so people can just work together with as little friction as possible and live enjoyable lives, or at least feel comfortable in their jobs, but I really don’t have the heart for entrepreneurship anymore so I’m hoping you or someone else here does and steals this idea and finds a way to make it work, for all of us. I can’t do it alone anymore but I’d be happy to help any autist willing to try.
The issue is, if you know one autist, you just know one Autist.
I think by routine we’re also harsh and intolerant to each other - I noticed that in myself as an example, but maybe that’s also ‘just’ masking.
What I am trying to get at is I think it’s highly individual so I wouldn’t know how this could work, but tolerance of course goes a long way and I’ve seen reports of companies doing this.
But eg for me with sudden overload it’s impossible in the workday to just say ‘nah that’s it for me’ ehen it happens. So I guess I just have to bear it.
That sounds like a lovely idea. I feel so worn down by the concept of work that I don’t know that I’d be able to identify skills that I’d have if a company like that popped up. But it still sounds like a great idea. I definitely don’t have the entrepreneurial spirit though so couldn’t be me either.