A Unique Way To Live

Only last month, my business failed and I now carry a heavy burden of debt that is only soluble by means of the wealth of my family. While I'll be okay, it has occurred to me that there are many autistics out there who will not because they don't have money on which they may fall back. You see, many autistics are unemployable, even if they seem like friendly intelligent people and are quite high-functioning. Anyone for whom this is the case must discover the fact in quite painful ways. One tries, one fails, and one prepares to do it all over again. Bad enough though this is, each failure brought about by one's disability will be mostly unbelieved, derided as an excuse, or insisted to be soluble. Some autistics, including myself, find riding a bicycle quite impossible, for example, and are routinely disbelieved about our inability to operate the machine. It is as though everyone else can fly when the floor turns to lava, that you are disbelieved when you try and explain that you cannot, and finally that, over your ashes, onlookers peer down from they skyward perch and say, "He just didn't try to fly hard enough." Well, through eight failed careers, I have done my damnedest to fly and I've fallen into the lava every time. The time has come for me to acknowledge that I cannot fly and that I should stop trying. To the extent one needs to have a reason to get up in the morning and have something to do, I have my writing. Freelance writer feels like a euphemism for unemployed, but it is a unique way to live.