Start treating them like housemates.

This might not work for everybody’s abilities but this is what I’d recommend:

• Get a steady income, even if it’s not work you love or want to spend your life doing. Health insurance coverage is helpful, and getting your own through work may be your cheapest and most useful option (location depending).

• Get a car/truck/van or whatever vehicle that can get you around, hopefully for cheap (may not apply if you live in a big city). Get insurance on it.

• Find a residence such as an apartment or even a house, hopefully for cheap but not too cheap. Get insurance on it.

• Separate your parents from your bank accounts, credit cards, etc. and get your own. [EDIT: also get ahold of your birth certificate, social security card, personal IDs, etc., and put them in a waterproof and fireproof safety box and keep this in your possession]

• Get your own cell phone, cell plan, and internet plan.

• Know where you can get groceries and know at least some basic meal prep and cooking.

• Know how to do your laundry. If you don’t have a washer and dryer in your residence, find a laundromat.

• Budget all of the above. If you will be paying rent, this will probably be the biggest consumer of your income, so use the frequency of rent payments as your unit span of time to budget for (ex. monthly). You want to try to end each month with more money than you had at the start of the month, so you want to spend less than you earn.

• Find some way to socialize, to be part of a community, and to be physically active without your parents making you (I’m still working on this one).

• Keep good hygiene and cleanliness for yourself and your home. You have to do the sweeping and cleaning now, and you have to keep your schedule with appointments for dentists, doctors, etc.

• Expect for things to go sideways sometimes. Your car might break down and cost a fortune to fix, you might lose your job, your home might flood, etc. “Independent” isn’t an absolute. Friends and family are important to have as contacts so we can help each other out when these rare big problems occur.

The fact that you live here in Australia means I actually have relevant information for once, yay!

I work in individual support through the NDIS. That is the National Disability Insurance Scheme. It has been praised internationally as a wonderful tool for meeting the needs of people without telling them exactly what they have to do. This means it is very flexible and able to meet needs you may not consider, like helping you connect your internet and electricity after moving.

For example, I work with a young autistic person who mostly gets help with dishes, vacuuming, shopping, and dealing with awkward and difficult social issues like returning things to a store for a warranty replacement.

Another people I have worked with just didn’t have the skills to manage dealing with learning to drive. We spent a few weeks of 2 hours twice a week on driving. He got his license and is driving now.

Obviously your needs are unique and honestly there are almost definitely things that you don’t know are needs because it simply has not come up yet, everyone has those. Getting into a situation that is a bit of a stretch for you, something you find challenging but not dire and awful, can be very useful for increasing your skills. If nothing else the challenge of living alone would help you learn about yourself and figure out what you like, what you dislike, what is easy, what is hard, and how to recruit help.

If you have a diagnosis of autism regardless of level you should be able to get some support. If it is level 2 you will get lots and lots of support. The NDIS is absolutely awesome and you can really get tailored support in ways I would not have considered a couple of years ago. Good luck!

They kicked me out. They were already unhappy that I had started getting piercings–conservative Christians that they are–and then they found out that I had a LOT more piercings than they were able to see. Like, about 2x as many. And I had a lot of visible piercings. That led to a long period that was very, very difficult, including being kind of homeless for a while.

Bad times.

I mean, independence is just doing things for yourself. Even if you’re living with parents, you can start with these things:

• cooking your own meals
• buying your own food
• washing up the items you’ve used for cooking and eating
• washing your own clothes
• keeping your room clean

Bonus if you start doing some of these for your parents, too. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it!