Business in Mind: Vision Quest

From Sandy Barber Australia

Hi my name is Sandy and I can totally relate to Rhodes situation. I too am vision impaired. I am totally blind in my right eye and have 6/18 sight in the left eye. I understand what Rhodes means. I too through my life have always been drawn to physical jobs so that people didn't see how much i struggle with the average size of the written word. Glasses cannot correct my vision as I have had a corneal graft and it has healed in a strange shape. I fear going out, I hide in my house through fear of not recognizing people down the street or not being able to read street signs until I'm on top of them. I had my first graft in 1973 and this fear has haunted me since then. My mother didn't know how to deal with this situation so she strongly suggested that I live at the blind institute. I refused and tried to live a (normal) life. I have struggled with self loathing for some 35 years now as I found no matter how many times I asked people for help ( that included my ex-husband and children) no body seems to understand the pain. Like Rhodes said its not total blindness so you know what your missing out on. I hate it. Sandy

From Alexander Stein, PhD

Ms. Lundy ~

I’m sure you can appreciate that I cannot really properly intervene. The most I can say here is this: In my clinical and consulting experience, I’ve often seen how seemingly unbreakable Catch-22 cycles (whether individual or institutional) can begin to be dismantled and reconfigured once approached from a different perspective. That is, sometimes even seemingly fixed structural elements — a work/life situation fulfilling certain important needs — can be understood as being held in place for a variety of over-determined reasons beyond the apparent ones (for instance, the dynamic experience of feeling trapped in an inescapable loop could be asserting its own powerful repetitive force). It would be important to identify and explore such other psychological functions and mechanisms.

I’ll also offer this observation: you write that your office job “demands” you “pass for normal” and that this is destroying you. That sounds untenable; it’s a terrible predicament to be in a circumstance that you feel simultaneously gives and takes things you need, and moreover at great personal cost. Can it really be that there are no jobs someplace else where your actual “un-normal” self could be revealed and accepted (and maybe also even respected)?

Perhaps one initial way out of your awful loop does not have to be as long or as radical a trip as you’re conceiving. Looking for solutions that require you to migrate from corporate to self-employed work, however alluring, might be too anxiety producing. Frequently, where there’s tremendous anxiety, it’s easier to accept changes, at least as a first step, that don’t intolerably threaten what feels absolutely essential to staying on a mostly functional even keel.

From Caroline Lundy

Dr Stein –

Thanks for taking the time to reply — I appreciate it.

My long-time therapist and I have been working on methods for letting go of my need to be "normal" for several years now, but keep running into a practical Catch-22 that neither of us are sure how to solve.

I have to have good health insurance in order to have the therapy and meds which keep me able to function. The only practical way to get that (at the moment) seems to be keeping my Administrative Assistant job with a major corporation.

But, the stress of 8 hours a day in an office setting (where I have to "pass for normal" in order to fufill my job requirements through interaction with people, good organization skills, etc) is slowly destroying me.

However, if I try to make a living online using my computer and artistic skills (BA in technical theater, grad school in computer graphics and painting), I can't afford the necessary health insurance (I've already researched the prices).

Is there some type of specialized job therapist you could recommend to help me figure out what to do? My normal therapist doesn't have the employment background to offer any suggestions, and the college career counselor didn't have the psychological training to understand the scope of the problem.

I'd appreciate any suggestions you could offer on specialists to talk to or areas for further research, and look forward to reading your future columns.

From Alexander Stein, PhD, NYC

Dear Ms. Lundy ~

Thank you for writing. I’m gratified my column affected you so deeply and so positively.

You’re certainly right that the work of trying to “pass for normal” is exhausting and overwhelming; it’s probably also ultimately profitless work. You’ll note that it was crucial to Mr. Rhodes’ finally being able to move forward that he could lessen his internally generated demand for so-called normalcy. That critical step sounds simple but may really be gargantuan to take; perhaps a skilled and understanding therapist can help.

Thank you as well for your excellent suggestion about focusing a future column on issues relating to people with Asperger syndrome. Knowledgeable, impassioned responses from readers, such as yours, help point me toward the broad range of topics to be explored.

From Caroline Lundy

Dr Stein –

It was so nice to find the "Vision Quest" article on a Friday afternoon — it was a jolt of hope that I desperately needed today. I'm 38, and was diagnosed with aspergers about 3 years ago. I'm fairly high-functioning, so I've been able to be somewhat independent, but all my energy goes into compensating for my illnesses. I'm capable of so much more, but I'm doing a lot like Mr. Rhodes did — I'm struggling to "pass for normal".

Usually the general public thinks of the mentally ill as being people like the Virginia Tech gunman, or the perpetrators of other acts of violence. The truth is that far more people with psychiatric illnesses are victims of crime than perpetrators.

You'd be amazed at the level of prejudice against the mentally ill in modern society. I pass for normal, as much as I can, because "invisible" disabilities can be much harder for people to accept than "visible" disabilities. A person with a crutch isn't expected to be able to climb stairs easily — but when I can't comfortably look you in the eye, you'd think "shifty", not "disabled".

I'd love to start an online business, as I'm also agoraphobic, but I don't have the strength to do it while I'm working. I've tried in the past, but my health's broken after about 4 months each time. Simply maintaining a semblance of a normal façade for 40 hours a week at work takes so much out of me, that I'm useless by the end of the work day. I paint or draw for a couple of hours in the evening in front of the TV, fall into bed, and do it all again the next day. I've gradually had to pare away almost everything in my life except for my family and my art, because I'm unwilling to give up my hard-won independence.

I'm in something of a Catch-22 — I can work for myself or work for somebody else — not both. If I worked for myself, I'd have the time and strength to build a business. But, I'd lose my health insurance, which means I wouldn't have the medication and doctors that make it possible for me to function as well as I do. If I work for somebody else, I have the health care, so I can function, but I lose the time and strength to build a business. Catch-22.

Anyway, it would be a really big inspiration to me — as well as a lot of others, I expect, if you could profile a business owner with asperger's — and it might give me some practical ideas, as well.

Thanks,
Caroline Lundy