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Pressured to be social
posted at 12:34 pm on 01-04-2006
I feel like I have been pressured to be social my whole life, and been made to feel inadequate because I did not have a vibrant social life. One of the main people who tried to push me to be more social was my father. I don't know why, but he did not like the fact that I tend to be a homebody, that I like to spend a lot of time alone, and he told me once in an irritated way, "You need to learn to deal with people." Then I had roomates in college who tried to "help" me because I tended to spend a lot of time alone. I think that this was one of the things that ruined it for me during my first two years in college (the last two years, I was in singles, where I did not have to deal with a roommate telling me how anti-social I was). I had one person tell me, "You have a lot going for you, but you need to overcome your shyness." I recently had someone tell me, "With your degree and education, you should be making double what you are making right now if you had better social skills." Yes, there are times that I like to be with people, but I need to have my own space, and I realize that I need a lot of it. I think this was one of the main factors in my wishing that I were NT. Now I realize that my need to be alone a lot is the way I am, and there is nothing I can do about it. Of course, I enjoy times at the movies, cultural events, and sporting events, but I need my time alone. I have been working on my social skills my whole life, and I believe they have improved considerably, but the fact is, I will always continue to have problems in this area. I just wish people were more patient or tolerant of me. I have been made to feel shame because of my lack of social skills, and my desire to want to be left alone a lot. I guess some people have a greater need for solitude than others.
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Coming to terms with AS career choices
posted at 12:48 pm on 12-30-2005
I believe that one of the problems that I have been having in dealing with my AS is wishing that I was NT, and grieving over the loss of career options that I would have like to have pursued, but are more suited to NTs (full-time ministry in some capacity, politics, any job with managerial responsibilities). I realize that there are no hard and fast rules saying that Aspies should not pursue these careers, but that the social interaction demands may be too much for Aspies. I have come to realize that I am better suited for careers that do not involve a whole lot of social interaction. Since 1997, I have worked either as a technical writer or a statistician. Both of these careers seem relatively well suited for Aspies. I think one of the problems growing up is dealing with the high expectations that my father placed on me--he wanted me to become famous and well-known in my field. If I had my dream career choice, it is writing policy analytical pieces for some political think tank. Right now, I don't see that happening soon. I think one of the problems that I have is that I define myself too much in terms of my career, and no enough on the kind of person that God wants me to be in the Bible. I have been trying to dwell a lot on God's grace--His unmerited favor towards me.
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Reflections on 2005
posted at 09:55 pm on 12-28-2005
Here I am, coming to the end of another year. The year 2005 has been quite an eventful year for me. It started out with my increasing dissatisfaction with the way that our marriage was going, and growing feelings of depression. On 3-10, I had a long talk with my wife in that I had enough of what I perceived to be emotionally and verbally abusive behavior on her part. There had also been instances of her hitting me, especially when I had meltdowns. I was increasingly feeling isolated and I could not talk to her about much. We came close to a divorce, but she told me that if there was to be a divorce, I would have custody of the kids. I could not handle our three boys on my own. To her credit, things have improved, but I still feel I cannot share with her on a deep level. Ten days later on 3-20, my oldest son accidentally set fire to the family room. We had to stay in a hotel until our extreme home makeover of our family room was finished. Thank God that our insurance covered it. In mid-May 2005, my wife and I took a 20th wedding anniversary trip to Ireland, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
By the middle of the summer, I was battling with growing depression. All of these years of hurt were finally taking their toll, although I feel like I have been slightly depressed my whole life. I had a real bad bout of depression during my freshman and sophomore year in college. I told my wife about my depression, and she agreed that I had been showing signs of depression. I went to the doctor and she prescribed Paxil. I took it and it worked. I started to feel better.
It was soon after I began taking my medication that I had to finally come to terms with the fact that I might have Asperger's Syndrome. After the movie "Rain Man" came out, my father told me that I had been diagnosed as borderline autistic at age 3. For a long time, I was in denial, but reading up on AS finally forced me to come to the conclusion that my borderline autism was most likely AS. The one area of AS where I did not seem to fit the bill was the sensory hypersensitivity, although certain food textures and high-pitched sound still bother me. In addition, I do appreciate metaphors, puns, and idioms, although sometimes I need them explained to me. Often, it is difficult for me to determine whether someone is serious, or just joking. I have the social awkwardness, the obsessive interests, the desire to be alone a lot, the preference for regularity, and a low tolerance of frustration, interruptions, and unexpected change.
This is when I decided that I need to be on Aspie boards to talk to other people that are dealing with the same issues. I do not have any close friendships, and I hope I can find them on this board. I often find NT small talk quite boring, unless it is about the weather or sports.
Also this year, my wife and I finally found a church that suits our needs. We are both born-again believers, but there have been times in our marriage that we have not been a part of a born-again fellowship. We are Messianic Jews who prefer to worship in a Messianic synagogue, but my wife does not want to go to the one close by. I am a believer in being strongly rooted in a local body of believers, but my NT wife is much more sensitive to the interpersonal dynamics of a fellowship than I am (I am practically blind to it), and if she does not feel comfortable there, she will let me know that she wants to leave. We found a Presbyterian Church where the pastor is very sympathetic to Jewish concerns and Israel.
My job has gone well in 2005. I am a technical writer for a company that manufactures road construction equipment. It is a good job and a good company, and the pay is decent. Just recently, my boss was unexpectedly fired (no reasons were given, but it may have had to do with his excessive surfing of the Internet during work hours). Right now, the company is looking for a replacement. I applied for a marketing research job in my company, but the question will be whether such a job is Aspie-friendly.
Right now, the major issue I am dealing with is the hurt from being Aspie. I just feel like my whole life has been a series of hurts--being bullied at school, growing up with my father trying to "cure" me of my borderline autism, being confronted by well-meaning people in college about my social awkwardness and my preference to be alone, being dumped by someone with whom I had developed a long-distance romance after dealing with some of my Aspie behavior, being teased by my housemates while I was in graduate school, and often being misunderstood by my wife. My wife and I have had a lot of painful fights throughout our marriage often because of my Aspie behavior. I WANT TO BE UNDERSTOOD!
I am going to vent about a lot of things--current events, sports, the experience of being an Aspie. Boy, writing is therapeutic.
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