It used to be a feeling in the back of my mind but in the last couple of months it's come to the front of my mind. I used to be well versed in the art of self deception. I looked at my life with rose coloured glasses but in the back of my mind, I knew, I knew I was a poor excuse for a man.
Let's start with my career. I was pretty foolish in my teens. By the time I got to year 11 school work seemed to hard so I reasoned that having a job would be too. I thought I'd like not to have a job. A while after I left school I got a disability pension. At first I thought this was great. No need to work. After a while I got put into a supported job. It's voluntary. They wouldn't have cut of my pension if I'd refused but I usually follow the path of least resistance so I took it.
Now the reason I keep it is just so I can say I have a job. I don't like work but I like having a job because then people see me as the sort of person who has a job. I don't like lying about it either. I'm not going to tell people I'm a brain surgeon or an astronaut when I'm not one. I do tell half truths though. People ask me what I do and I tell them I'm a graphic designer.
I do work in that field. It's a supported job. There are the supported staff and the senior staff who act as our baby sitters. Some of the supported staff are aspies like me. Some of them have severe disabilities. No insult to them but I don't really like being put in the same category as them. It's not a proper job anyway. It's 8 hours a week. I like not having to work much but I don't like being the sort of person who doesn't work much. Yes I realise that being seen as the sort of person who works full time and not lying about it requires me to actually work full time. Hopefully I will one day. I won't enjoy it and I don't need the money that much but it will improve my self image.
Anyway 8 hours a week isn't so bad but I get paid $3.23 an hour. This is in a country were the minimum wage is $16.37 an hour. If I complete my course next year and then find work instead of just perpetually looking for it than I can earn my own money and give up the pension. I hate working more than a few hours a week but If I earn my own money than I can stop hating myself. I can stop thinking I don't deserve any food. I can stop thinking I don't deserve the ridiculous things I've wasted my money on. I can stop feeling guilty when I play GTA V because I should be doing something useful.
I don't go to parties and I could count my friends on one hand. I like being alone most of the time but I don't want people to think that I like being alone most of the time. I also don't want to lie about it. What I really don't like is not having a girlfriend. I know you've probably heard that before from about a thousand Wrong Planet posters and I know I have no right to have a girlfriend but it's still humiliating. And why do I want one, 10% for the company, 10% for the sex and 80% just so people won't judge me for being a virgin. I'm too nervous to even walk into a brothel and this is in a country were prostitution is legal. Girls were interested in me at school but I was either thick to notice or did notice and insulted them because at the time I found the notion of any romantic involvement terrifying.
As I said you've heard all that before but it's usually from young men, aged about 18-21. In two weeks I turn 26. Maybe I have the maturity of a teenager and when I was a teenager I had the maturity of a twelve year old but at my age it's just wrong to be a virgin. It's unnatural. I'm an abomination against nature. At least I won't pass on my defective genes. I'm not saying all aspies are defective or that they should be eliminated from the gene pool, just me. Plenty of aspies have good jobs and get married and I've met ones who were even more charismatic than neurotypicals while still retaining their aspie genius. With such genius they have great careers but I'm no genius. Some days I feel really stupid but other days I feel I'm wasting what intelligence I have, which is a much greater sin. Still, I can't even do something simple like Algebra. I didn't do well in school, I was too cowardly to go to university and most of my education came from nights of reading Wikipedia 'till dawn. That doesn't teach you any skills.
I'll try to get a job like tech support or retail. I'll still be ashamed because those aren't serious jobs like being and an engineer or a doctor but but I won't feel as ashamed. I have to give up my copious free time so I can feel like a member of the human race instead of an unperson.
Maybe I'm depressed but I'm reluctant to call myself that because one of my friends had it much worse than me. If he knew I thought I was depressed he'd say I don't have it compared to him. It's usually teenagers who get depressed but when I was that age, I wasn't depressed just highly neurotic (after a childhood as an outgoing sociopathic prodigy). They say it gets better when you get older. They say it to teenagers. For me it got worse. The older I get the further I fall behind my peers. I don't want to take antidepressants because if they make me content with my life I won't want to improve it. If my life has gotten this messed up than I deserve to be depressed.
This post probably serves no purpose. Maybe it's just a thousand words of wangsting but I just wanted to get it off my chest. I don't have meltdowns. I don't even know what they are but they're mentioned a lot on this site. When I feel stressed, I stay outwardly normal (by my standards) but inside I'm screaming. I'll be having a normal conversation and inside my head I can hear myself screaming “your doomed”, “you suck”, “you'll die a virgin”. Anyway, I congratulate you if you've gotten this far into my futile complaining.
30 Sep 2013, 5:16 am
