A Neurodivergent Precariat’s Way of Thinking
When I was a kid, I asked myself whether I should make a historical impact or should I just live a simple life. And of course, having extreme anxiety, I told myself to choose to have a simple life despite the urge to make some impact. Then, teenage years, I become passionate on arts and design that even my peers acknowledge these skills. It felt like my life just kept
Everything changed when my dad died. He is the breadwinner of the family wherein after his death, our household income fell under a “low-income” family having our mom to be the only one working for us to survive. I was only 15 at that time and I needed money. And I thought my passion for designing things and sketching portraits would probably have made me at least “richer”. However, although people trusted me with my craft, I never had a chance to make money out of it because of this extreme anxiety. That even when I was 18 —when more people started asking me to do this and that— I kept getting anxious for no reason. I could pull it off however my mind kept popping this uncertainty asking “what if this turns the bad way?”, “what if I delivered too late”, etc. and then it only caused my mind to circle or to overthink things.
It is true that my anxiety has been around even when my dad was still alive, but it got really worse considering the fact that you cannot risk wasting resources such as money and time. The precarity made me more practical. I choose a course that is in demand and a school that is accessible and affordable.
I never really had a chance to go to a therapist to consult with this anxiety. My reason is it’s just too pricey and not everyone could really help you. And for worse probability, I might get into a bad therapist that would only waste my money and time. Well, glad I never had money in the first place, so wasting it has never been an option.
The passion I used to have when I was younger did not become my profession. I told myself to resolve first the anxieties that hinder me from my tasks. And what happened, the answer to each of my uncertainty lead me to another uncertainty that I have to solve. And guess this was the reason why it got me interested in subjects such as philosophy, psychology, and even economics, how people in certain class behaves. When you have extreme anxiety and are considered precariat, those so-called psychologists, therapists, your church's priests, your professors, your company’s boss or your happy-go-lucky friends can’t help you. Only you, alone, or perhaps those who understand this systemic dilemma will. Thus, having a simple life is not an option for a precariat who is passionate about their craft as they need to solve things holistically but in a way that they have control over how is it done as they need to maximize the resources that they have.
