Asperger Syndrome Is a Robber

[CDOCONNOR]

i don’t know how long I’ve had AS, all I know is symptoms began after elementary school when I was joked and ridiculed by other kids. I never had any friends, I never had a gf who really loved me, just a slew of broken relationships, and from all this-until I was 23- 10 years of anxiety attack’s. I never had a friend during college; I was forced to find companionship in old television sitcoms and fiction books, and it took me 10 years to graduate because I had a difficult time passing math and foreign language (yeah, I’m really using these things now!!). Finally graduated in 2013 with a degree in liberal arts which isn’t getting me anywhere. My gpa was a 3.43, but real intelligence doesn’t matter in today’s world. It’s all who you know; so high school is actually a rehearsal for the real world in some ways. You can show people you have what it takes but if they don’t like you, or think you are odd, your chances of being the best you can be are not high.

Right now I’m stuck at a deadbeat job 2 days a week for 12 hours making sure nobody steals cars—a security guard basically. And all the while I can see my life slowly ticking away. I do my best to improve things but nothing happens (10 years experience). It’s emotionally crippling knowing Asperger syndrome is the culprit and there’s not a damn thing you can do. Job coaches?? Nah!! They aren’t miracle workers.

To make things worse I’m 35 and still live at home. How do you explain you aren’t a loser to someone; it’s your AS that prevents you and no matter how hard you try things get worse and worse, they never change? I am a great writer. I had a few prose poems published in the last 4 years, but AS slows me down. The words are unable to come out. It’s not writers block because I know what I want to say and how I want to say it. I’m a clogged pipe that becomes unclogged once every few years...literally. Nobody wants to help me overcome my problems (battle it, because you never will overcome it) and I quite bc the minimal reward wasn’t worth all the blood and scars. Now I’m hoping to become a painter. I tried screen writing but realized you need people skills—yeah, as sufferers can learn those skills but it’s only half ass; you’ll be a runner running a race who has a prosthetic leg. You won’t do as well and people will still treat you differently no matter what.

I learned to make friends by being loving, caring, and giving. Don’t do that. People always care for you only if you can do something for them. When you are in need nobody is around. And do not ever stand up for yourself—even respectably like I did—because you’ll wake up to find yourself alone. As I am now at 35.

Seeing your friends (aquaintances actually) get married, have kids, realize their dreams; happy, is worse than having both arms chopped off. You end up more alone and—especially when family members die— your world grows smaller and your mind starts veering off into many unhealthy directions. I have a great gf, don’t get me wrong, but a time always comes when your emotional health shuts down and you become a zombie.

My favorite quote is from a song by Counting Crows “Today was just another day fading into another, and that can’t be what a life is for.”

I’ve prayed. Jesus never seems to be home. I’ve seen therapists and I only return home with more bills and so many pills that took me into believing everything is ok, or will be, when all the while I know they won’t. I really want to commit suicide. I don’t care who I hurt because staying alive for others becomes a burden and that isn’t the only reason to be alive. I only stay alive because I have this feeling that suicides go to hell...thank our religious institutions for this. Stick someone with AS in a church and you’ll see, line I did, although I hope your experience is different, that the person with as is attacked—idle worshipper...along with so much more.

If I knew science had a way to knock out the autism gene I’d be the first in line. I know we want to love and respect out individuality and we should, but as is a robber of lives. It’s not right. And we only get one.

Don’t know how to end this poorly written banter that is going nowhere, so I’ll just end it and say thank you for reading and sorry for depressing you.

 

[SunnyDay16]

Your frustrations are entirely valid and normal. I'm not going to sugercoat it and say that Asperger's enriches everyone's lives. It affects many people differently. Some people aren't as affected by it, but others are significantly more negatively impacted by it.

 

[oregano]

Facebook is the world's biggest BS factory. You didn't mention it but it sounds like you're familiar with it-everybody looks so happy and wonderful. But they really aren't. I don't keep track of my old high school classmates, because they all had advantages I didn't. I'm 43, and my whole life the only jobs available to working class guys like me are stuff like you talk about. The son of the couple next door is in his 20s, NT and good looking, and he works at a wholesale auto lot, shooing the parts stealers away, like you do. He has to do yardwork for old people to get enough money for healthy food.

 

[Shamar]

i don’t know how long I’ve had AS, all I know is symptoms began after elementary school when I was joked and ridiculed by other kids. I never had any friends, I never had a gf who really loved me, just a slew of broken relationships, and from all this-until I was 23- 10 years of anxiety attack’s. I never had a friend during college; I was forced to find companionship in old television sitcoms and fiction books, and it took me 10 years to graduate because I had a difficult time passing math and foreign language (yeah, I’m really using these things now!!). Finally graduated in 2013 with a degree in liberal arts which isn’t getting me anywhere. My gpa was a 3.43, but real intelligence doesn’t matter in today’s world. It’s all who you know; so high school is actually a rehearsal for the real world in some ways. You can show people you have what it takes but if they don’t like you, or think you are odd, your chances of being the best you can be are not high.

Right now I’m stuck at a deadbeat job 2 days a week for 12 hours making sure nobody steals cars—a security guard basically. And all the while I can see my life slowly ticking away. I do my best to improve things but nothing happens (10 years experience). It’s emotionally crippling knowing Asperger syndrome is the culprit and there’s not a damn thing you can do. Job coaches?? Nah!! They aren’t miracle workers.

To make things worse I’m 35 and still live at home. How do you explain you aren’t a loser to someone; it’s your AS that prevents you and no matter how hard you try things get worse and worse, they never change? I am a great writer. I had a few prose poems published in the last 4 years, but AS slows me down. The words are unable to come out. It’s not writers block because I know what I want to say and how I want to say it. I’m a clogged pipe that becomes unclogged once every few years...literally. Nobody wants to help me overcome my problems (battle it, because you never will overcome it) and I quite bc the minimal reward wasn’t worth all the blood and scars. Now I’m hoping to become a painter. I tried screen writing but realized you need people skills—yeah, as sufferers can learn those skills but it’s only half ass; you’ll be a runner running a race who has a prosthetic leg. You won’t do as well and people will still treat you differently no matter what.

I learned to make friends by being loving, caring, and giving. Don’t do that. People always care for you only if you can do something for them. When you are in need nobody is around. And do not ever stand up for yourself—even respectably like I did—because you’ll wake up to find yourself alone. As I am now at 35.

Seeing your friends (aquaintances actually) get married, have kids, realize their dreams; happy, is worse than having both arms chopped off. You end up more alone and—especially when family members die— your world grows smaller and your mind starts veering off into many unhealthy directions. I have a great gf, don’t get me wrong, but a time always comes when your emotional health shuts down and you become a zombie.

My favorite quote is from a song by Counting Crows “Today was just another day fading into another, and that can’t be what a life is for.”

I’ve prayed. Jesus never seems to be home. I’ve seen therapists and I only return home with more bills and so many pills that took me into believing everything is ok, or will be, when all the while I know they won’t. I really want to commit suicide. I don’t care who I hurt because staying alive for others becomes a burden and that isn’t the only reason to be alive. I only stay alive because I have this feeling that suicides go to hell...thank our religious institutions for this. Stick someone with AS in a church and you’ll see, line I did, although I hope your experience is different, that the person with as is attacked—idle worshipper...along with so much more.

If I knew science had a way to knock out the autism gene I’d be the first in line. I know we want to love and respect out individuality and we should, but as is a robber of lives. It’s not right. And we only get one.

Don’t know how to end this poorly written banter that is going nowhere, so I’ll just end it and say thank you for reading and sorry for depressing you.

Ditto. Being alone is painful, but not nearly as painful as being alone among people celebrating not being alone.

 

[mw2530]

Ditto. Being alone is painful, but not nearly as painful as being alone among people celebrating not being alone.

Well said. I've long felt this same painfulness, but never was able to put it into words as you have so nicely done.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

Don’t know how to end this poorly written banter that is going nowhere, so I’ll just end it and say thank you for reading and sorry for depressing you

You didn't depress me.
Your story is ASD101
You're not unique in that.

You've got a job and you've got friends.
That's two things people on here do t always have .

I think you're at the early stages of turning the way you think around into something more productive.
Hard work.
A lot of thought can be re-framed.
A lot of thought is a habit.

Nobody wants to help me overcome my problems (battle it, because you never will overcome it)

If you didn't have any problems then it would be even more boring than it is already.
Problems are like heads of the Hydra.
By trying to beat them (cut off the head) they grow stronger (grow another head)
A search for thinking about things differently may work.

Are you painting to be a success or for the joy of doing it?
As this will become social if you need things like recognition,money etc
It could just be another way of creating the expectations you have on the other things you've tried. Leading to disappointment.

A circle you seem to be running round. I know the circle.
Art can be a goal in itself.
Something to think of while doing a boring job,maybe.

Facebook is the world's biggest BS factory.

So it's not my brain, then?

 

[Southern Discomfort]

You do realise that you're looking at this all wrong, right?

Most of your problems aren't to do with your autism it's to do with a world that is built up to be ableist, that won't accept anything that isn't 'normal', that is resist to change. That's not your fault, it's society's.

Think about it, how much easier would life be for you if people just knew what high functioning autism actually is and the signs of it in another person? It's like wheelchairs, or that lack of one, people are more accepting if you're acting atypical in a wheelchair than if you're walking around acting atypical because there's an obvious sign of disability, this is what a lot of people with Tourette's have learnt.

Autism and lots of other conditions aren't curable but what is curable is other people's intolerance and ignorance. What I would like isn't a tablet that I have to take, but what would be nice is a tablet everyone else would take that stops them from being so ableist. And that is actually far more achievable and ethical than deleting autism off the face of the Earth.

So what can you do? Learn about the condition, stand up for yourself, educate people when you can. Put a positive spin on the condition because it will have given you aspects of your life which are actually a boon to you.