I was never given a choice

Post Reply New Topic

Yeah...except depending on the cards you get it may well be impossible to win the game. There are indeed such things as situations with no good possible outcome.

To the OP, I feel your pain. I got diagnosed just a few months ago, and for me it was basically the final nail in the coffin. Was always lonely and miserable growing up, only thing that kept me going was the thought that eventually people would mature and get easier to deal with. Now I realize that's not the case. The only thing that really interests me is performing, but unfortunately I'm trapped in a small town that doesn't offer any good opportunities for that. Even if I was able to, that doesn't change the fact that I can't get along with most people. I honestly resent my parents for forcing me to exist. If I could choose, I'd be a different species on a different planet at a different time. I can't accept that life, at best, is something you get to struggle through. Trying to find something to keep me going, but as time goes on suicide really does seem like the only sane response.

If you like movies, I can recommend one called "Cool Hand Luke". Though I'm not a big movie buff, that movie had one of the best lines I've ever heard: "Sometimes nothing is a pretty cool hand." Again, it's all about what we do with what we have.

I think a la Friedrich Nietzsche that we don't have it too hard, but too soft. I think of Nietzsche, who had lots of problems of his own, shaking his fist at God saying: "Do your worst. That which does not kill me only makes me stronger."

The point is that we have to be strong and make do with what we have. I don't think we can be happy otherwise. One thing I am certain of: Feeling sorry for ourselves gets us nowhere.

Sometimes you have to cheat to win.

Interesting spin on it.

what does that even mean?

I don't think the world works that way unfortunately.

How so? We need to be challenged to be healthy in the same way we need exercise. Since life up until recently has been very hard, it's simply how we evolved. Put another way, we do a lot better when we have a job and other responsibilities than when we sit in front of the TV and smoke dope and drink beer all day.

People can be broken.

Not unless we allow ourselves to be broken. We'll all be dead one day, but I won't give up on myself until that happens. My life hasn't exactly been easy, but I'm better because of what I went through.

Another of my favorite Nietzsche quotes: Be careful lest in casting out demons that you don't cast out the very best thing in you. And part of what is good in us is what we have had to suffer, and what makes us suffer. The idea that the good life should be easy is one of the most pernicious ideas in the modern worldview. Having things too easy makes us weak and burnouts.

You think you could bounce back from absolutely anything? That's cute I guess.

I always have bounced back from what life has thrown at me. Suffering is inevitable. How we handle it is our choice. We can choose either to be strong and brave or weak and cowardly. I'm not quite sure why you would think this is "cute". Perhaps you could tell me.

I don't think you understand how little of a "choice" it is. A lot of how we can handle stress, suffering, etc., honestly comes down to genetics. Not all of it, but in many ways we're programmed at birth. I have no idea what life has thrown at you, but I can pretty much guarantee that there is indeed a point that you wouldn't be able to "bounce back" from. EVERYONE has a breaking point. And I do think you have a point about things being too soft/easy. All my issues are first world white person problems, and I know it. At the end of the day, this is the only world I know, and as far as I see it's 90% BS. My problem is I truly don't understand how anyone could possibly be content with this existence.

Let's see. I had a family that treated me like something we normally flush down the toilet. And since we moved all the time (15 schools in 12 years), I never really made friends. Then I found myself on my own at age sixteen with no job prospects and no friends in the midst of what was at that time the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Nor did I have the first clue as to why I was so different. The world told me I was just no good, and since I had nothing to counter them with, I came to believe I was uniquely weird and deficient--a freak of nature.

Things today for me are infinitely better, but that's only because I did the best I could with what little I had. I had to learn to be my own best friend, and to count on nobody but me.

It may very well be the case that things are worse for you than they were for me. But the fact remains: We make our own decisions on how we react to whatever adversity life hands us.

I hope you don't think I'm trying to belittle you; I'm trying to give you hope that things can be better. I know. I've experienced some adversity in my own life.

actualy,the main reasons are struggling to find women/have a family etc isnt because of the autism or genetics, it sounds like are stuck in a pattern of self limiting/using the labels to limit self and self loathing have goten used to thinking with.

if women are ignoring because of traits or difficulties from autism then theyre hardly even worth knowing because theyre close minded and wont change this personality just by knowing a man has got a label over their behaviors.
go get training with voc rehab or any other job orgsanisation aimed at ASD or disability, they can help with all of that stuff.
do voluntary work,it can make people look more apealing to companies.

get pyschological help for general mental health;learning to change thinking patterns, the meltdowns,there is no need for medication unless its severe as meds dont actualy stop the problem itself they only mask it but they dont remove the cause/trigger it is better to deal with the triggers instead as that is a valuable skill-pyschs can help with teaching coping skills and with understanding how to avoid triggers or face them to desensitise.

I don't know about that, its not as though I asked for PTSD, depression or any other mental problems and I doubt anyone else asked for theirs either. Growing up I didn't even acknowledge that maybe I had some real barriers. So this people are only broken because life is too easy theory does not work. Its not easy going to school every day knowing you'll face ridicule, bullying and ostracizm, still somehow and struggle much more than most of the other kids with various things without ever having acknowleded I was trying as hard as I could....its not easy when a random f***k comes in your school and ends up shooting someone you know...and its not easy when you get to college and try to drink/drug the pain away because you can't admit to yourself there's something wrong and you think if you do everyone will be totally dissapointed. I am burnt out by trying to hard, pushing myself too hard and neglecting to take care of myself all in an attempt too try to hard not to be a disappointment to everyone.

Trouble is life isn't easy for everyone, especially those with real mental health issues all that has damaged me in ways I can't entirely recover from I was not able to develop in a healthy manner as a child...time and forgetting isn't going to heal it all. I am worse off from what I went through. Also what is with people assuming if you feel life is too difficult and you need help to manage then it means you are expecting an easy life with everything handed to you on a silver platter....I think many of us would settle for just a little less misery and maybe a bit of life stability doesn't mean anyone expects life to be 'easy.' People don't choose to be broken, and people who are much of the time do try their best to keep going in spite of it. Being constantly told its just a choice and we choose to feel this way certainly doesn't help matters. Just some things I figured I'd point out, besides just because this famous old writer wrote that doesn't mean he was right, or correct about how it works for everyone.

Sweetleaf, I have my problems too. What I'm trying to do is give others hope. I made a niche for myself with all my problems and such, and others can do the same. I was bitterly unhappy for many years myself, then things started to come together. It's all about deciding what we want for ourselves, developing a plan to make that happen, and then working on it.

There is hope.