Why Can't I Just Be a Hermit?

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I'm really sick and tired of my mom insisting that I be more sociable. All it takes is a few tantrums (usually due to exams or me making mistakes) and I just wind up losing friends and potential acquaintances. (Even as I write this, my roommate is giving me the silent treatment for chewing her out over her snoring via text message and yelling match.) Why can't she see that I'm just not capable of functioning like a human being, of having friends? The friends I do have now either 1.) have seen me flip my nut and have just gotten used to it (somehow--but I haven't seen those friends since I started college; even the ones on campus I don't get to see often... ) or 2.) have not seen me go ballistic, and to which I feel as though I must perpetually have a smile on my face and act like my life isn't going to the crapper so that they never learn the truth and get disgusted with me. Hell, even a school guidance counselor from high school told my mom that I was 'psychotic and needed help', so why should I even BOTHER? I'm just an abomination to the majority (if not all) of the human race. I would be much better off just living in some secluded part of the world where I don't piss off anybody by mistake (or when I'm angry) and they don't piss me off.

It's even worse when my relatives get involved. Granted, they don't know I have Aspergers (and ADHD and OCD), so they assume that some guy is going to actually like me for who I am. Honestly, if my hideous face and stick-like features don't scare 'em away, I'm pretty sure the triple whammy that I call my mental health issues is.

Even as I'm typing this, I'm waiting for the flames to come raining down on my head for being 'too whiny' and for not 'sucking it up like I normally do'. But after spontaneously breaking into tears in public twice, I'm not sure what else I can do.

I feel as though I should warn my new roommates (I'll be living in a suite next year) next year about my inherent craziness. That way, they'll at least be able to make new room arrangements and stay as far away from me and my insanity as possible. In fact, maybe I should tell everyone I meet/know about what's wrong with me so that they have a chance to back away before I piss them off/weird them out/upset them as well.

Sorry for ranting and if anyone wants me to take this down, I will (if you can take down posts on this site).

thewrite1

I'm going to say that I think you are much too tough on yourself.

However, if you aren't going to tell your family you have Aspergers (and that is your choice) you can't expect people to understand the things that you find challenging. I suggest trying to educate your family about your Aspergers etc. and then you could try looking for professional Aspergers support to help you manage the problems in your life.

I'm not saying "change", because it insults me when I'm told that, but there are ways in which you can learn to cope more easily with the challenging parts of your life. Personally, it helped me when other people tried to understand what I go through. Teach people where the problems are or they will never understand and maybe reach their own incorrect conclusions.

Let us know how things work out.

Well, my mom DOES know (I had informed her that my college psychologist--who THANKFULLY was NOTHING like the high school one--had diagnosed me with such) . My mom, concerned about other people treating like even more crap than before (I have been bullied in the past), has advised me not to tell anyone else. So I haven't.

I wish I could teach people, but I just feel that it just isn't going to work. I know from experience that people just don't like listening to me (be it my kindergarten to high school peers who mocked me even after I told them to cut it out, the high school administration flat-out BLOWING ME OFF when I suggested better school lunches, my roommate telling me no after I suggested several ways for her to possibly get rid of her snoring). Plus, I've never really enjoyed asking for help. I feel that it puts me at the mercy of another person, and after 13-14 years of being treated like s**t, I'd rather not give others another excuse to run roughshod over me (which according to my family, they already have. So technically, I'm just trying to prevent even MORE people from running over me.)

I think I understand what you're talking about.

When you say "Why Can't I Just Be a Hermit?", do you literally mean that you want to be a hermit, or are you just annoyed by the external pressure to socialize?

My Mom regularly asks me questions like "Why don't you have a girlfriend?" or "Why don't you go out?". I don't think she means to pressure me, but she does. To the latter question, I usually respond "uh, I've some homework to do" or similarly... I can't think of any way to describe the actual situation.

When did you get your diagnosis? It's understandable that you feel agitated when it suddenly "makes sense".

I literally mean that I want to be a hermit. Every now and then my mom will suggest that I associate with others more, but she doesn't really pressure me. I got my diagnosis last year.

Do you have the option of moving to a place where you are completely on your own, without roommates, etc.?

When I lived with my family, I was annoyed that I couldn't just be alone. Now that I live completely alone, I think more positive about other people.

If you have a source of income or money it is easy to be a hermit. I am happily a hermit for many years now, but I am on disability, with a monthly check. I can say that the 3 years previous to being on disability, when I was employed, I still lived the life of a hermit/recluse, going outside only when I wanted/needed to go outside, speaking only when I wanted to speak even if people tried to speak to me they learned very quickly that I am not a "socialite"

I live like a hermit and I'm loving it.

Which means that it can be done.

Often I wonder just where I picked up my social life along the way. I know I never had a frame of reference for it, never got any particularly good results dating, and I'm capable of consuming X amount of time studying the very reasons so few people want to spend time with me in the first place (Hacking, sports cars, cycling, mountains, naturalism).

And yet I still have friends preserving my reason for being, whatever that is. I constantly try to get answers from my closer friends (particularly women) to this question with no luck - asking directly elicits that same pep talk none of us want to hear ever again. I see rebukes of my social advances in the most benign of daily occurences - that's just what happens when free tech support is one's way of conveying love.

People throwing fits, or having tatrums is very common, so your not really unusual in that respect. But that behavior is nearly always destructive and does not improve anything. From the outside what it looks like is that you have become upset and and are upping the ante by confrontation to get what you want or venting on whomever. It may not even be for the apparent incident, but some other things bothering you. You'll find hardly anyone who will want to put up with that, and it will be a isolating force until you get better control of it. Your brain is already trained to do it, so it is not easy to stop or re-direct, but you may cut off any possibility of good relationships until you do.

From what you say social situations and relationships have not been a good experience for you, but that does not mean it will always be that way. Mature adult life has some differences from adolesent and young adult life. There are a lot of people out there, and you, realtively speaking have only met a handful. Who is to say that you might not find real friends or a relationship. Perhaps you would be satisfied living a solitary life. It does work for some people. But naturally speaking, we are built as a social mammal and so that is the exception. I think a good principle for life is keeping your options open as much as possible. So I would highly suggest you try and get the tantruming under control. I don't speak just academically, but also had that tendency. Ultimately I got the motivation to fix it to be better to the people around me that I cared for. They have let me know that they appreciated it & it did improve things.