Joe90
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 24, 2010
Posts: 8241
Location: Great Britain
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 Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:39 am Post subject: |
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| Beabe wrote: | | I'd do anything to be born normal |
Me too. I know some Aspies like being different, and that is their doing. But there are some Aspies out there who hate being a minority, especially when you're someone like me who is the only Aspie in the family. There are about 3 or 4 diagnosed Aspies who are very distantly related to me, but I never see them, and they are all small children. I think they're something like my mum's cousin's children. The Autistic gene (in the other words, the ''faulty'' gene) seems to come from my mum's side, but she's got 3 siblings who have all got 2 grown-up children each, and all of them (including my mum's siblings) are all NTs, so why has the faulty gene only gone to me? That's what's been bothering me about having AS ever since the day I was diagnosed with the awful disability. How come they all get to be NTs with normal social lives, and there's me lacking behind in life, no matter how hard I try to better myself? The more I really try to be normal and happy, the more NTs can sense that it's false, so I've got to keep everything at a level all the time. If I had a cousin who was on the spectrum, and struggled with making friends, I would be happier, especially if we were close. I might of even not minded being an Aspie at all. It might of not mattered who I was, if I knew there was a close relative who exhibited the same sort of difficulties I did.
But no. It can't be so.
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alone
Toucan
Joined: May 10, 2010
Posts: 288
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| Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 11:34 am Post subject: |
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I'm torn about this because I have learned, over years of believing otherwise, that many people are unhappy when it appears they have every reason to be happy. After I scrape away their obvious challenges, lost dreams, broken hearts..what I see as the determining factor is how they feel about the time they spend alone. I haven't met one person who is happy until they have found how to be happy alone. I think I found that many years ago and only because of AS. I am happy alone with myself at least some of the time. If I wasn't born with this I don't know if I would have learned it.
"When this old world starts getting me down and people are much too much for me to face, I climb way up to the top of the stairs....."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15Qqnl3_QrU&feature=related
my favorite line: 'where you just have to wish to make it so"
xo
wish we had a spellchecker or I wouldn't have to edit all the time  |
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EricS
Raven
Joined: Dec 23, 2010
Posts: 100
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| Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 1:46 pm Post subject: |
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When I was young, I met an accident at age 8. I thought it's because of the accident that I used to be slow in thinking and take a long time to think what to say that I was not given a chance to speak! I used to stammer or stutter. So, usually, I just listen. I know it's no point to try talking. No one give me a chance to speak. Now I know it's because of the asperger that I had a problem to speak with others. I feel my way of talking was so very different from how other people talk.
Only in the last 10 years or so, I seemed to be a bit better. Reason was my wife used to tell me to be careful how to talk to this kind of people, or that kind of business people and so on. Funnily, at that time, I didn't even know I have asperger yet. But my wife did notice how dumb I was in front of others that she tried helping me. Though I feel I'm not very good in mixing around with people, but thankfully, I think I've improved my communication skill quite a lot ever since I was diagnosed asperger last year. Thanks to my wife as well as the fact that I finally know my problem is the asperger. I think the improvement comes because I want it badly enough. |
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Niall
Snowy Owl
Joined: Feb 13, 2011
Posts: 141
Location: Forth Estuary area, West-European Archipelago, Western Palearctic, Sol 3 (AKA Central Scotland!)
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| Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 3:05 pm Post subject: |
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| daspie wrote: | | Niall wrote: | I often wish I'd never been born. After all, everyone would be better off without me around.
Does that count? |
In what sense everyone would be better off without u around? |
I've just found out, after 38 years, the likely reason why I can't fit in with other humans (assuming I'm human in the first place!).
I screw up every social interaction I get into. Result: I'm marginalised - no job, a relationship in difficulties, very few friends, many of whom complain they feel they "don't matter" to me. Further result, depressive disorder, looking like Borderline Personality Disorder but, I'm starting to suspect, not. My partner thinks not.
NTs, on the other hand, seem to have meaningless lives revolving around making money, talking about cheap beer substitute/football/fashion, and scr*wing over anyone more vulnerable than they are. Most of them, maybe even most aspies (my partner, who has met several people with Asperger Syndrome says aspies are not like most NTs in this regard), seem to have no moral conscience. My suspicion is that NTs learn morality through social interaction. Since most humans are scum, they learn to be immoral, even amoral, from each other. Aspies have to work out morality for ourselves, and I suspect may have different standards. I then wonder why most people are out to make my life impossible. I then don't want to interact with humans, which exascerbates the problem.
I'm sure not all NTs are bad people or that most aspies are good ones, but I do know most humans are bad.
I don't want to fit into either category. The world is sh!t, and I don't want to live in it.
So, I wish I'd never been born. It would be easier that suicide.
My partner takes some offence at this notion, saying that I can't love her if I don't want to be with her. I do love her, but I can't respond to her emotional cues, which hurts her, and I hate myself for it. She'd have been better off meeting someone else. So I'm trapped, hurting her by living, hurting her by leaving, or hurting her by dying.
So not having been born would be best.
_________________
"Do not try to understand them, and do not try to make them understand you. That is because they are a breed apart, and make no sense."
( I was nicknamed Hawkeye after a field survey a few years ago. This seems even more appropriate now!)
Last edited by Niall on Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:17 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Joe90
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 24, 2010
Posts: 8241
Location: Great Britain
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| Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 4:42 pm Post subject: |
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I don't really want to die - I just wish my life would get better. I'm not a very lucky person, even if I wasn't an Aspie. I have a cousin who is one of those people who doesn't have to try and yet everything falls into his lap, just like that. He's 22 years old, good-looking, socially confident, very bright, has a good job being a car mechanic (which is his special interest, yes NTs have them too), he drives a flash sports car about, he has lots of mates, he goes on fantastic holidays abroad with his or his girlfriend AND he's never had to fork out a penny for anywhere he's ever been because one of his mates parents have paid for him. And throughout his childhood, he didn't cause his mum much worry, only the typical things parents worry about, but no worries in particular, like my mum has had with me. (For example, me not making friends properly at school, lacking on my education due to poor intelligence and motivation, having major panic attacks about any change, ect ect ect). Things are not much better now either. I've developed mild Agoraphobia, I've got low self-esteem, I'm out there looking for jobs but can't seem to get one, I haven't got the money to just ''move out and get a life'' (as most people would probably say to me), I got bullied last year for the first time and I still feel they are out to get me now..... And I'm not actually blaming any of this on the AS. It's just bad luck what is beyond my control. I'm one of those people who don't just sit back and not try anything and not do anything with my life - I do actually go out there and try new experiences, but it's always one step forward two steps back for me. It is with my mum and 2 of her siblings too, and they're NTs, (which I have mentioned before). Whatever they achieve, something comes along to destroy it. Every time. So we've become despondent to everything, and we've also lost trust in our friends. And don't say ''you will never get anywhere thinking the negative side of things'', because they have always thought positive about everything, and they've always put their low self-esteem to one side and tried to have fun instead, but since all these unlucky things have come along out of the blue to destroy our fun and confidence, we've now become very wary. It's OK if these things happen to you once or twice, but when they happen to you every time you ever achieve something, it does make you become very suspicious and upset. Yes, we all have problems, but some seem to have more than others.
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Yensid
Lonely Ghost
Joined: Mar 19, 2008
Age: 52
Posts: 5252
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
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| Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 4:57 pm Post subject: |
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I think that I might have turned out alright if someone had realized that "unable to socialize" is a disorder. If someone had just helped me understand the social rules, how to act, how to dress, it would have been so different. As it was, I took so much abuse that I missed the useful advice that I got.
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Joe90
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 24, 2010
Posts: 8241
Location: Great Britain
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| Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 5:56 pm Post subject: |
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I just feel ashamed that I'm so delayed in learning all the things most NTs learn naturally, without needing to be told. I don't mean the socialising, what I mean more is how to keep your cool. Most people just know how to be cool, and they know what's embarrassing and what's not, and they know what makes you look ridiculous and what doesn't - all by the age of about 9 or so. Or even younger, depending on what it is - when I was about 6 or 7, I used to cry and whine when waiting in the hospital waiting-room, and I even laid on the floor because I got so bored with waiting. I don't know if that's normal in kids that age or not, because I don't seem to see many kids that age about - I mostly see toddlers or teenagers about.
But I'm more embarrassed of the things I do, what most people half my age know better than me not to do it. Things like saying really stupid things loudly in public (I don't know if I've mentioned this before somewhere in this topic). My mum is sometimes behind me telling me not to say such embarrassing things out loud, and not to keep on making a fuss when there's a toddler screaming at the top of it's lungs, and so on. And I don't even feel like a little kid (because after they get to the age where they look silly when behaving in certain ways, they automatically know what looks silly and what doesn't). I feel worse than feeling like a little kid. I feel like an invalid, or a really mentally retarded person, who doesn't seem to know how to act cool, and that I need a carer to look after me. That's what I feel like. Does this horrible AS need to make me feel like this?
If AS was just a case of having just a few social difficulties, that would be fine. I might accept it more, and I might be able to get on with things, a bit like dyslexic people. They only have trouble with reading and writing - otherwise they can do other activities and push it out of their minds. But me, AS seems to stand in front of everything I do. From walking down the street, to going to bed at night, to cooking a meal, to doing things like swimming, to driving a car, and so on, all the time the AS is right there in your face, affecting you in some way. Is there ANYTHING you can do what AS does NOT affect how you do it or what you think of it, for christ sake?!!!
(ps, I have a very high anxiety disorder, I think that's more to blame than the AS itself).
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OuterBoroughGirl
Deinonychus
Joined: Oct 03, 2009
Age: 32
Posts: 356
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| Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:01 pm Post subject: |
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Not all the time, but sometimes I do. Today is one of those days. I've had a really rough day which I'm still reeling from, and my wacky neurological wiring has a lot to do with that. The significant difficulty with socialization is part of my problem, but it's far from being the whole problem. There's also the sensory issues, the abysmal motor skills, the severe physical awkwardness, the severe difficulties with organization, the significantly impaired ability to regulate attention, the significantly impaired ability to "think on my feet," and/ or multitask, the inability to simultaneously mentally access all the information necessary to plan and act in an effective manner, the brain fog, the anxiety, the constant fatigue, etc, etc, etc. I imagine that I must have one or two strengths, but on bad days such as today (and there are far too many bad days) I can't for the life of me think of what those strengths are.
So, yes, there are times when I do feel that my life would be quite a bit easier, and far less painful if I just had a normal brain in place of this very abnormal one.
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"And I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad./ The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had."
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Joe90
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 24, 2010
Posts: 8241
Location: Great Britain
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| Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | There's also the sensory issues, the abysmal motor skills, the severe physical awkwardness, the severe difficulties with organization, the significantly impaired ability to regulate attention, the significantly impaired ability to "think on my feet," and/ or multitask, the inability to simultaneously mentally access all the information necessary to plan and act in an effective manner, the brain fog, the anxiety, the constant fatigue, etc, etc, etc. |
Like I said, having AS might be all right to handle and to cope with if we exhibited only about 2 or 3 of these issues, but most of us all seem to exhibit such a great long list of really annoying issues what affect daily life and is a pain in the arse, even if there is so many symptoms we may not have. Say if I just had sensory issues and some issues with multi-tasking, and some social shyness, and that was the lot, I think things would be much easier. But when you've got so much issues in almost everything you do, it does make life so tough. Why does AS have to involve about a thousand different little symptoms?!!!
I thought it was just about social difficulties? Special interests don't have anything to do with social difficulties! Wanting strict routine don't have anything to do with social difficulties! Even anxiety doesn't have to be caused by social difficulties, only social anxiety, but I don't have anxiety with social. I have anxieties with everything else totally unrelated to social.
WHY?!!!
AS makes me feel like I've got every single mental health condition in the world.
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Joe90
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Joined: Feb 24, 2010
Posts: 8241
Location: Great Britain
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| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 4:50 pm Post subject: |
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Also, when I look at people who are completely the opposite of an Aspie, who have about 1000 friends on facebook, have big parties without even needing to invite people because you'd know they will just come round in crowds, and nobody will disrespect you socially, and it doesn't matter how dumb or clever you are because they all just love your social personality. And they never get tired of socialising, and never get worried of crowds and obnoxious youngsters, and are just into fashion and parties. And if they do fall out with friends, it wouldn't matter because they just make more......
And I bet those sorts of people don't even know the meaning of the word Autism (unless they have a relative who is on the spectrum). When I hear about these sorts of people, it makes me feel like a downright loner, who they would all laugh at.
I sigh when I think of these sorts of people. What heaven it would be living a life where you're not afraid of people.
I also feel upset because most people I know always get chatting to someone when they go abroad on holiday, but I never do. I go on holiday and come back knowing as many people as I did before I went.
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glider18
Supporting Member
Joined: Nov 09, 2008
Posts: 6700
Location: Ohio
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| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 5:47 pm Post subject: reply |
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Joe90 has stated what I feel is a distinguishing division between those of us happy with our autism and those that are not happy---it's the socializing thing. I believe there are introverted autistics and extroverted autistics. Introverted autistics, like myself, do not desire friends because for me they get in the way of my special intense interests and my world. But extroverted autistics want to be around people and socialize---and I can see why that would be frustrating for them.
I have tried to study this introverted issue with me. Was it because of the awkwardness that made me not want to be around others? I don't really know because I have always felt awkward around others beyond my family (except for a close friend), and I have always been happy by myself. Even in grade school teachers stated that I needed to socialize more. I could never understand why that was so important. I didn't need to have all these friends in order to function in a successful manner and be happy.
I am not afraid of people. But when I happen to be amongst a group of people that are interacting around me, I just find it incredibly awkward to try to interact with them. I feel like I am in a room looking through a window at these people. I just don't feel like a belong with them. And I don't desire to be with them. It could be the many years of the awkwardness that has made me this way. But I am happiest with only my family and no outside people. I really have no friends in the common sense---just colleagues at work. And that is fine with me.
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daspie
Daspie- Your NT Like Aspie.
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Joined: Mar 04, 2007
Posts: 1020
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| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:00 pm Post subject: |
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| Joe90 wrote: | | Beabe wrote: | | I'd do anything to be born normal |
Me too. I know some Aspies like being different, and that is their doing. But there are some Aspies out there who hate being a minority, especially when you're someone like me who is the only Aspie in the family. There are about 3 or 4 diagnosed Aspies who are very distantly related to me, but I never see them, and they are all small children. I think they're something like my mum's cousin's children. The Autistic gene (in the other words, the ''faulty'' gene) seems to come from my mum's side, but she's got 3 siblings who have all got 2 grown-up children each, and all of them (including my mum's siblings) are all NTs, so why has the faulty gene only gone to me? That's what's been bothering me about having AS ever since the day I was diagnosed with the awful disability. How come they all get to be NTs with normal social lives, and there's me lacking behind in life, no matter how hard I try to better myself? The more I really try to be normal and happy, the more NTs can sense that it's false, so I've got to keep everything at a level all the time. If I had a cousin who was on the spectrum, and struggled with making friends, I would be happier, especially if we were close. I might of even not minded being an Aspie at all. It might of not mattered who I was, if I knew there was a close relative who exhibited the same sort of difficulties I did.
But no. It can't be so. |
Wait for my social interaction and mind reading skills  which I will post this year. I acquired them late last year since I do a lot of retrospection and always had that uncanny ability to understand some of the social interactions albeit late.
Last edited by daspie on Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:52 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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poppyfields
Deinonychus
Joined: Jul 24, 2010
Posts: 328
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| Posted: Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:11 pm Post subject: |
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I cannot describe my loneliness in words. Everyone describes college as the time of your life. I am 22 now and I look at my life...and I didn't realize how much worse things would be than high school. No one ever says hello to me, I have no friends. I am dying to have a real friend, someone to ask me how I am and care about the answer, wants to hang out with me and inititates contact. In high school I had a few friends, but they all forgot about me even though most of them went to the same school. I still see their updates on facebook and it is a knife to the heart how they all interact and are making a life for themselves and five years later what do I have to show? A facebook account with people who wouldn't recognize me it has been so long since they've seen me
I mean, I write facebook status updates just to try to get someone to say something to me. I join a billion forums seeking someone, anyone. But even online I can feel the invisble walls of Asperger's isolating me. When I had a group project class last semester I tried to form connections with my groupmates (we all seemed to get along fine), not just talking when talked to, and still I am on the outside. Then my Asperger's kicks in and I get obsessed withh that person is just polite to me since so rarely do I even feel others know I'm alive. And I'm not even romantically obsessed, I just want a friend. I can't stop thinking about us hanging out together, I create fantasies in my mind where they think I am an interesting and nice person, but unfortenatly I'm not delusional. I know it's not real. So I crash back down to reality, that person is just being polite, they are not my friend.
The loneliness is crushing me, I don't need someone who 100% understands, but I need someone to listen, to have fun with. All people ever see me as is the smart girl. No one ever thinks of interacting with me outside the walls of a classroom.
I don't think anyone gets it. |
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Niall
Snowy Owl
Joined: Feb 13, 2011
Posts: 141
Location: Forth Estuary area, West-European Archipelago, Western Palearctic, Sol 3 (AKA Central Scotland!)
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| Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:17 am Post subject: |
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| Joe90 wrote: | Also, when I look at people who are completely the opposite of an Aspie, who have about 1000 friends on facebook, have big parties ...
I also feel upset because most people I know always get chatting to someone when they go abroad on holiday, but I never do. I go on holiday and come back knowing as many people as I did before I went. |
Hi Joe
It's only recently I've found I probably have AS, and I'm struggling hard with it. I now have an appointment with my doctor in just under 3 weeks (the first available). Yesterday's suicidal crisis seems to be over.
I'm one of these people who instinctively likes to have friends, but I have very few. Most of these people are also involved with one or other interest groups. I now suspect that the twitcher community has far more than its fair share of aspies, but most of them wouldn't do parties. Then again, you're not expected to make eye contact when you're peering through a scope, looking at a bird's backside (the feathered kind!), trying to decide if it's a bar-tailed or black-tailed godwit! At this point, everyone is at least interested, if not obsessed, with birds.
As for holidays, I have a travel bug, and this can be really interesting in terms of how you get along with people:
At one end of the scale, the USA. Hell. I am not going back there. I have several horror stories to tell from that country. I mean, some nice people but, on the whole, a country to be avoided.
Canada was easier, but I did spend most of my time in the forests or mountains, and a lot of the human contact I did have really screwed up, including losing one friend who I'd been penpals with for years. My fond memories were really of Algonquin Forest, early in the season. 5 days with no humans! It was great! I'd go back to Canada.
France was mixed. My French leaves a lot to be desired. I mean, I can communicate, but most French people would rather speak English than listen to me maul French. The French are, on the whole, more physically expressive than are, say, most Scots or English. I found this made them easier to read than people from around here. The gestures tend to be bigger. One day, the wetland reserves at the Camargue!
India is a country I've been to and then been back to. No, really. India has its downsides, and many of them would be things even an NT would struggle with. It's noisy, smelly and overcrowded. You'd think it would be Aspie hell again, and to a point that's true. On the other hand, westerners are expected to be a bit "odd". I made friends there. A lot of Indians approached me because I look different - in this case I have white skin and blond (!!!) hair. A barber I went to said he'd never touched blond hair before. I suspect it would be different in tourist traps like Colaba in Mumbai or Goa.
I think it's possible the same might apply to much of Asia, and I have plans to try to find out.
I hope this helps.
Niall
_________________
"Do not try to understand them, and do not try to make them understand you. That is because they are a breed apart, and make no sense."
( I was nicknamed Hawkeye after a field survey a few years ago. This seems even more appropriate now!) |
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Yensid
Lonely Ghost
Joined: Mar 19, 2008
Age: 52
Posts: 5252
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
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| Posted: Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:35 am Post subject: |
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| poppyfields wrote: | | I don't think anyone gets it. |
I get it. Some of it, anyway. I wish I could help, but I can't even help myself.
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"Like lonely ghosts, at a roadside cross, we stay, because we don't know where else to go." -- Orenda Fink |
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