#high needs

[mental-health-advice]

🌻I'm autistic mid to high support needs. I'm 24yo and trying but failing to live alone and take care of myself, and with medication and therapy. Still struggling to graduate from my undergrad. Four of my five best friends from high school, who I only talk to once a year or so, are engaged now. One of them is getting married later this year. I feel like a failure. I know I have a disability but I still feel like I'm disappointing everyone. I've never dated. I struggle to make friends, though now I have made amazing friendships and I appreciate them. But I can barely see my future and it upsets me. I don't feel like I'm good enough to anyone.

Hey there,

I think that it is hard for anyone who have majority of their friends who are engaged when you are not, but in your situation and having a disability on top of that must be even tougher. I want you to know though that things won’t always feel so drab and like you won’t have a good life like your friends, sometimes it just takes a while longer for some people to see the brighter side of life!

I think it’s great that you are at college, despite the fact you may be struggling at the moment. Are you able to take some time off or drop a few classes and just focus on 1 or 2 at a time? I know that this may mean it will take even longer for you to then complete your undergrad but sometimes just chipping away at things slowly is better than putting ourselves under more stress and trying to complete everything at once. So maybe it may be worth to explore your options and see what would suit you best. It doesn’t matter how long it may take you to graduate, just take it one day at a time and do what you can to the best of your ability – you’ve got this!

To have a goal to live alone is great but you mentioned that you are struggling with this at the moment. Again, can you think of what it may look like for you to succeed in living alone? Once thinking about what may make it easier for you, things you could implement to make this work, it will hopefully help it to feel more achievable for you to work towards, even if it means first living in supported accommodation to begin with until you feel able to live alone and still be able to look after yourself. Remember too that you can live alone and still have support! For example, I live alone and have a support worker come over 3 times a week to help out, give me some company and just to help to improve my mental health overall. Is this something you could look into?

To feel like you are a disappointment to others and not being able to see your future clearly right now, I think that it’s important to try to challenge these views you have about yourself. So for example, feeling like you are a disappointment to others – try to look back to what you have so far achieved in life, the fact you do have good friends even if you don’t see them regularly and also the fact you got into college as I know that a lot of people do not get that opportunity. And in regards to feeling as though you don’t have a future – have goals that you can work towards, like finishing your undergrad over time and being able to successfully live alone even if it means having some type of support and help from others. By simply trying to change our view on things we can really turn things around in our minds and feel a bit more positive and optimistic about things in life.

I really hope that this has helped a bit and please od let us know if we can help to support you in any other way!

I’m thinking of you and hope that you are going well!

Take care,

Lauren

[indizombie]

Their report outlines how, once a woman reaches retirement, having been paid less and thus saved less throughout her working life, she'll continue being worse off than a man. They discuss how she's more likely to live alone, need end-of-life care for longer, and have a lower quality of life than he does. She's more likely than a man to rely on superannuation and have no other income. She'll be less likely to own her own home. There won't be as many employment opportunities for her, and when there are, they'll be lower paid. Her KiwiSaver nest egg will be, on average, 12 percent less than a man's-and even though she statistically has better savings habits, it won't be enough to cancel out the gap. If she has a male partner and falls ill or develops high needs, he's more likely to put her into care; but, if their positions are reversed, she's more likely to look after him at home. If she's had a marriage break-up, she's more likely to be in hardship than men. In a working and financial world designed with men's needs as the default, her employment, insurance and pension schemes also discriminate against her. Retirement forecast tools, including KiwiSaver, are designed with men's life and career spans as the default. Women's paid working lives are very different, Dale and St John point out. They also say that the high cost of childcare means women often rely on grandparents so they can work; and most of that work is done by grandmothers, with women and grandmothers most likely to arrange it between them. Enriching though it may be to care for children, it does not add any money to women's retirement funds. And the women going to work are further penalised just for having children; research shows that even if a woman is working full time, her salary is stunted. Men do not lose any salary when they have children; in fact, they say it often increases.

Naomi Arnold, 'Bad then, worse now: How Covid-19 will hurt retired women', RNZ

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