Please everyone help me, I feel horrible.

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Dear Community,


I am 22 with High Functioning Autism and my field of interest is composing music. I have been confirmed with a extraordinary aptitude in the musical spectrum and as highly talented by renowned conductors, composers and the SAE (school of audio engineering). I want to be a video game and film composer and I truly have the chance to be an important figure in the film music industry.

My problem: Im scared of new things happening, scared of phone calls, I poorly express myself verbally (unless when talking about my field of interest). Many times I just compose music without looking outside the window, and I even forget to drink water. I become temporarily hysterical or weird when something quickly changes.

I didnt mention the other problems which I dont have to mention since I believe most of us are familiar with them.

Now my mother who practically manages me and she really does this well every now but today she got fed up because believes im just lazy after I told her im scared of calling a certain number and that I dont know how to write diplomatic or social emails without sounding too arrogant or boring. Its weird I know. I might seem normal and I usually have a normal appearance and this makes my mother shift from "my poor son is asperger" to "my son is lazy and egoistic" this has been going on once every while. My mother has "psoriaris arthritis" and the more I make her nervious with my weird attitude the more she becomes sick.

What worries me the most is that her interest to help me in the social areas declines, and today she didnt even hear my film score for a short movie which I made for the european talent competition 2012 in film music, where im confident that I will win.

Please help me, what should I do?

I don't know if this helps you, but before I even knew about ASD's, the best piece of advice I got on the subject of being afraid to do things was "do it scared". So I did. I started doing things that I wanted/needed to do whether I felt afraid or not. Sometimes they wouldn't go well, but usually they would, and over time I developed a little more confidence in myself. Now, I'm not afraid to do a lot of the things that used to terrify me. There are still plenty of "normal people" things that I have to do that I'm afraid to approach, but I just do it anyway and hope for the best. Honestly, this approach has gotten me pretty far in life. Right now I'm in the process of trying to sell my home by owner. I'm terrified, but doing it anyway because it's something that I really wanted to do, and I didn't want to let my fears control me. It's going better than I thought it would so far.

I can agree with this, to a point anyway.

One thing that seems to go along with autism in general sometimes (not just with Asperger's) is fears of rather random things, which often dont make a whole lot of sense when you stop and think about it.

Which is part of my advice, actually, is that you stop and really THINK about it, before dealing with something that's scary. Stop and think about WHY it's scary, and ask yourself, what really is the worst that can happen here, and would it really be all that bad? Dealing with phone calls, for example. I have issues with this myself; dont like phones, never did, never will. But sometimes a call is necessary (or sometimes the accursed thing just rings and nobody else is bothering to answer it). And really, what's the worst that can happen there? The worst that can really happen is that the person on the other end makes a jerk of themselves. That's it. It really isnt anything scary, when you actually think about it. Though I understand totally how difficult it is to get past the random fears regardless.

Maybe sit down with your mother at some point and have a long talk about this stuff; Im betting there's no "egoistic" aspect to you in reality, but misunderstandings like that are pretty common with autistics of any sort. People look at you, and they get the wrong idea, yes? That sort of thing. Something else to keep in mind though is your mother's mood; some of what she says may be related to that. I dont have psoriaris myself, but I've got a bit of normal arthritis and related issues, and boy do they ever make me irritable at times. I can understand someone being sometimes in a bad mood as related to that kind of thing. Maybe wait to show her your film score on a day when she's in a better mood.


Other than that though, alot of what you say seems pretty normal for autism in general.

I always had trouble with phone calls,I used to get my ex to do all the things that freaked me out.But the relationship ended badly and I was in a situation with no close family except one 16 year old at home who is suppose to depend on me.I now HAD to do all those things I was terrified of. I didn't want to ever have to be that dependent again.It was hard and I had lots of panic attacks,but the more I did these things the easier it got.I still don't like these things and sometimes put them off as long as I can but it does get easier as you grow older.
Family issues are tough,my daughter is mad at me and we haven't spoke in a month,we just can't seem to communicate and I seem to offend her, I think she is ashamed of me.I hope things improve with your Mother,illness can make people very crabby and it could cause her to be depressed.The best of luck with your career,it sounds wonderful.I was first chair when I was in band,played the flute.I have Ulnar nerve damage in my right hand so a music career was not going to happen.I feel sad about this because it was a talent I was very good at.
Take your wonderful talent and do something great with it!