From a heart that has never found its way in the world

[jtab7800]

I'm finally back on these forums after about a month and a half, and I joined two months ago. I had initially posted in this thread. Someone on that thread complimented my writing, but my words come from my heart. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to put my feelings into words, and I have a habit of using metaphors. I'm not perfect at it, but I do better at it than I used to. I'll always be the first person to admit that I'm not perfect.

I'm posting in this section, because I'm at a complete loss as to what to do anymore. Like I'd said in my first post on the thread that I mentioned, I've been trying for a long time to do things with my life, including looking for someone to love, but it's turning out to be virtually impossible for a guy like me. I can't help but feel like what's hampering me is the fact that I have Asperger's -- it's a force of habit for me to call it Asperger's instead of ASD.

It goes back years. In my childhood, I had hardly any friends, so I got used to my younger brother being the only friend I had, and we're still close. For a couple of years during my childhood, I had a really good friend who had Down Syndrome. The fact that he had Down Syndrome didn't stop me from playing with him. He had a speech impediment, but I always knew what he was saying to me. We were friends, until my family and I moved away, like we did so many times back then. On average, we moved once a year. It was enough to make my head spin like a seat on a tilt-a-whirl ride.

During my teenage years, I only got one chance to date any girls, and that was because a school official made a decision that completely robbed me of any chance of having a normal teenage life -- no dating, no proms, no nothing that a teenager gets to do. I hadn't yet been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and that official put me in an alternative school that was like a last chance school for gang members or something.

The only girl who ever became interested in me back then rode on the same bus with me, though she went to a different school that looked like a better school than what I was going to. We met the first time I rode that bus. We were both 17 at the time. But she turned out to be a kind of person I never expected at the time -- someone who was willing to shred my heart into as many pieces as there are stars in our galaxy. I suspect that it's because she got tired of me -- without ever giving me a heads-up, she moved in with another guy. I ended up having to learn it from her mother. I'm not ashamed to admit that I broke down in tears that day, from the extreme emotional pain.

All of this, in a way, does have a bit to do with what I'm finally about to get into with this post, in that I feel like I'll never have any success in finding someone to build a relationship with, and I always feel like the invisible man when I'm around people. I usually hang back in the background, being quiet and not bothering anyone, usually during the all-too-frequent times when it seems that no one notices my existence anyway. During my adulthood, I've so far had only two chances to have a relationship, and both of those chances ended in more failure for me. Those chances come, on average, about 10 to 15 years apart from each other.

I feel like I've been through too many horrible things in my life -- when I was 3-years-old, I witnessed our mobile home burn down, My memory is such that I can remember standing there watching it, and the therapist that I see for depression told me that it's not unusual for an Aspie to have some early memories. When I was four, I almost lost my right eye to an injury caused by a lawn mower throwing a piece of gravel into my eye. I vividly remember that day. There was so much pain, not helped in any way by all the needles that they decided to stick in me in the hospital. During an x-ray, a guy held down on my head so hard that I thought he was trying to crush my skull, and I remember all of the blood-curdling screams that he was getting out of me. He didn't have to be so brutal in trying to get me to stay on the x-ray table. I didn't know what an x-ray machine was back then. I was 4 when it happened, and after surgery on my eye, I wore a patch for several months, even on my 5th birthday. When I was 12, I lost a friend who passed away from an asthma attack. It was traumatic for me to see someone that young in a casket. I was terrified that something would happen to me too.

All throughout my school years, I was bullied relentlessly, in every way. Even my friend who passed away had been bullied. I started feeling like I deserved the bullying for some reason that I couldn't figure out. It's all left me with a lack of trust in the idea that there are very many good people in the world who won't treat an Aspie like garbage.

And then there's my mother. My father is not around anymore -- he passed away in 2009, at age 60. And in the seven years before we lost him, our relationship had gotten a lot better after I finally got the correct diagnosis, after years of getting misdiagnosed. Mom does love me, but she seems to have such a hard time being understanding. She lets irritation, aggravation, and anger cloud her thinking at a fairly high percentage of the time. And even Mom has been starting suspecting that she might be on the spectrum, but she vowed that she will not get herself diagnosed. She has issues from the past that keep her from getting any help for herself.

Every time I talk to her about my desire to find someone to give my heart to, she gets aggravated. I know I've talked about it a lot, but she gets out of proportion to the situation, a lot of times reaching full-blown anger. That makes me wish I could talk to Dad about some things. She has even accused me, a couple of times before, of wishing that she was the one who passed away instead of Dad. That's just an example of truly nasty things that she's said to me before in the heat of uncontrollable anger. When she gets in that zone, she loses all caring for what she says. I think that her temper was given to her by the abuse that she suffered as a child. But I can't live like that anymore.

I'd love to find someone special, someone kind that I can write and sing songs for. I'm learning to play guitar, and I also do vocals, but I already have decades of experience in writing lyrics, and I have a lot of musical ideas swirling around in my head, some of which have been there since childhood, and they don't sound like the kind of musical ideas a child would have. My songs are my primary way of expressing myself, and that's only one of the many ways that I truly believe I can make someone feel loved, as though she were surrounded by the warmth of a gentle fire. I've also been known to write edgier lyrics too, about different subjects that touch on different parts of my life.

Anyway, I'm sorry this message has gotten so long. It's me being detailed again, the way I've always been all my life. The reason why I'm posting in this section is because I don't know what to do anymore. I feel like it's worse for me that it ever was for the Jon Arbuckle character in the Garfield comics before he started dating Garfield's vet. I feel like the invisible man in social situations, especially in group conversations, where I can never seem to get a single word in edgewise, because there never seems to be a chance for me to be able to contribute to a conversation. I feel like I'm the guy that no one sees as being just as human as they are.

I've tried dating sites, even Uneepi, which confuses me in some ways, and none of them have worked out so far. I can't get out of the house more often than I do, because I never learned how to drive, which I'd love to learn how to do. My mother has all the control over when I get out of the house. I feel like I'm stuck on a ship at sea, without a rudder to guide me to where I'd like to go in life. I feel like I've been through too much, and that good things need to finally start happening for me. I feel like it's time for me to rise up, and put an end to my tears.

I want to do things with my life -- use my guitar lessons, my songwriting, and my vocals to help me launch a career that I've dreamed about since childhood. I also want to learn how it feels to love and be loved in a relationship. If I'm ever given a chance, and a relationship develops, love and respect is what will come from me. I'm the kind of person who'll have your back, and be there for you. All you have to do is look inside of me, and learn who I really am. Wait...I think I just got the inspiration for another song. I'll keep it in mind, and start writing it tomorrow. For now, I'm going to log off and get some sleep.

I know that the length of this post kind of got away from me, and got longer than I intended, and I apologize for that. To anyone who reads this post, I appreciate your patience. Thank you for taking the time to read it. I'll be back on this site during the week this week. I wish everyone a good night.

 

[Sablerose]

First off I would just like to say I truly believe that love only finds you after you stop looking for it. At least it was like that for me. You sound like a young person just starting out on the wild adventure called life. All I can say is try not to lose that hope, it seems life has not been easy on many of us but that does not mean there are no good times, there will be and I am sure you will find love when the time is right.

I remember being bullied in school just because I was different and my mother had her first marriage absolved so even the nuns called me by the B word for fatherless child. They also forced me to write right handed too but thats a whole other can of worms. I remember feeling I would never find love. I knew I wasn't like everyone else and I only had one friend/bodyguard that ended up dropping out of school leaving me completely alone. Others went to dances and proms, I went to the art room to hide.

To be honest those were some of the roughest years of my life, school and just after. I didn't find love until my late 30s. At least not real love before that and even then I questioned it, analyzed it and myself. I also grew up in a much different time then now but some things remain the same. Don't give up hope because there is someone else out there thinking and feeling the same as you are and with technology today you have a much greater chance of finding that special someone that much sooner. I'm not sure any of this helps, I had no patience when I was young and everything seemed to take forever, especially love but good things really are worth waiting for sometimes.

I'm sure a lot of people here will be rooting for you too and have much better advice but your post reminded me a lot of my younger days and that same heartache. I think its very common, I know my husband felt the same, like he was going to always be alone , just give it time, it will happen. (Time is my least favorite word but as I said I have always had an issue with patience) Good Luck in your future ... I hope all your dreams come true .

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

@jtab7800, your experience is like that of so many of us. As a teen and young adult I was socially dysfunctional though I had normal yearnings to belong and for a relationship. I really was not ready for a relationship until I developed some confidence in myself and learned to process social communication. I developed skills in activities I liked from SCUBA to whitewater canoeing, read all I can about social communication/body language, then joined activity groups to practice (interest and skill meant more than neurology in those groups). And, I started living independently Then, while I was still shy, I started to ask women out and got into a relationship. While that failed, I was learning about the care required to maintain a relationship. So, there I was, 28, still a virgin and hoping to meet a woman who would enjoy outdoor activities with me. So, I had signed up for a trail maintenance trip and took a chance calling another trip member to see if she would care to car pool. She was shy and also looking for a man she could do outdoor activities with. One thing led to another and we have been together for 45 years.

I do not think it is too late to learn to leverage your skills in being more confident and learning how to process social communication. Then, learn to recognize those kind, accepting women who are out there and make a connection.

 

[Dagan]

I agree that many of us have commonality with you. It's like reading the same biography in several ways...same worries, same fears, same goals.

About the strongest suggestion that I can make is that you are most likely to find someone who goes to the same places doing the same things. If you can handle going to low key music venues for shows, that's going to be a good place to possibly meet someone, for example.

As far as the dating apps, I wish they were more trustworthy, but they are kind of the new norm. I hate accepting that, but it's pretty much the truth, now. Just pick one you can tolerate using, and then be yourself, detailed, blunt, honest in your profile, make clear what you are looking for and what you aren't. I've done it before, and it worked to get dates, just know that it still won't mean whomever is going to be the one. It's the first step, still.

We all wish we had dead set answers, but we can guarantee that if you need to discuss anything, we are available. That's what's best here. Willing to try and understand, learn, relate but also be honest. Maybe sometimes the honesty comes across too strong or opinionated, and if so, others keeps things in check, straighten to the right perspectives and keep it proper. You've overcome the first big fear, though, in being able to talk about any of it. That's huge. Be proud.

 

[paloftoon]

There are a lot of service oriented jobs these days. Can you save up enough to move out and start living in a big city with a bunch of roommates maybe? It's not ideal, but it'd get you out of your situation of being stuck where you are and offer you the chance to be more independent.

 

[georgiagalaxy]

I'm finally back on these forums after about a month and a half, and I joined two months ago. I had initially posted in this thread. Someone on that thread complimented my writing, but my words come from my heart. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to put my feelings into words, and I have a habit of using metaphors. I'm not perfect at it, but I do better at it than I used to. I'll always be the first person to admit that I'm not perfect.

I'm posting in this section, because I'm at a complete loss as to what to do anymore. Like I'd said in my first post on the thread that I mentioned, I've been trying for a long time to do things with my life, including looking for someone to love, but it's turning out to be virtually impossible for a guy like me. I can't help but feel like what's hampering me is the fact that I have Asperger's -- it's a force of habit for me to call it Asperger's instead of ASD.

It goes back years. In my childhood, I had hardly any friends, so I got used to my younger brother being the only friend I had, and we're still close. For a couple of years during my childhood, I had a really good friend who had Down Syndrome. The fact that he had Down Syndrome didn't stop me from playing with him. He had a speech impediment, but I always knew what he was saying to me. We were friends, until my family and I moved away, like we did so many times back then. On average, we moved once a year. It was enough to make my head spin like a seat on a tilt-a-whirl ride.

During my teenage years, I only got one chance to date any girls, and that was because a school official made a decision that completely robbed me of any chance of having a normal teenage life -- no dating, no proms, no nothing that a teenager gets to do. I hadn't yet been diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, and that official put me in an alternative school that was like a last chance school for gang members or something.

The only girl who ever became interested in me back then rode on the same bus with me, though she went to a different school that looked like a better school than what I was going to. We met the first time I rode that bus. We were both 17 at the time. But she turned out to be a kind of person I never expected at the time -- someone who was willing to shred my heart into as many pieces as there are stars in our galaxy. I suspect that it's because she got tired of me -- without ever giving me a heads-up, she moved in with another guy. I ended up having to learn it from her mother. I'm not ashamed to admit that I broke down in tears that day, from the extreme emotional pain.

All of this, in a way, does have a bit to do with what I'm finally about to get into with this post, in that I feel like I'll never have any success in finding someone to build a relationship with, and I always feel like the invisible man when I'm around people. I usually hang back in the background, being quiet and not bothering anyone, usually during the all-too-frequent times when it seems that no one notices my existence anyway. During my adulthood, I've so far had only two chances to have a relationship, and both of those chances ended in more failure for me. Those chances come, on average, about 10 to 15 years apart from each other.

I feel like I've been through too many horrible things in my life -- when I was 3-years-old, I witnessed our mobile home burn down, My memory is such that I can remember standing there watching it, and the therapist that I see for depression told me that it's not unusual for an Aspie to have some early memories. When I was four, I almost lost my right eye to an injury caused by a lawn mower throwing a piece of gravel into my eye. I vividly remember that day. There was so much pain, not helped in any way by all the needles that they decided to stick in me in the hospital. During an x-ray, a guy held down on my head so hard that I thought he was trying to crush my skull, and I remember all of the blood-curdling screams that he was getting out of me. He didn't have to be so brutal in trying to get me to stay on the x-ray table. I didn't know what an x-ray machine was back then. I was 4 when it happened, and after surgery on my eye, I wore a patch for several months, even on my 5th birthday. When I was 12, I lost a friend who passed away from an asthma attack. It was traumatic for me to see someone that young in a casket. I was terrified that something would happen to me too.

All throughout my school years, I was bullied relentlessly, in every way. Even my friend who passed away had been bullied. I started feeling like I deserved the bullying for some reason that I couldn't figure out. It's all left me with a lack of trust in the idea that there are very many good people in the world who won't treat an Aspie like garbage.

And then there's my mother. My father is not around anymore -- he passed away in 2009, at age 60. And in the seven years before we lost him, our relationship had gotten a lot better after I finally got the correct diagnosis, after years of getting misdiagnosed. Mom does love me, but she seems to have such a hard time being understanding. She lets irritation, aggravation, and anger cloud her thinking at a fairly high percentage of the time. And even Mom has been starting suspecting that she might be on the spectrum, but she vowed that she will not get herself diagnosed. She has issues from the past that keep her from getting any help for herself.

Every time I talk to her about my desire to find someone to give my heart to, she gets aggravated. I know I've talked about it a lot, but she gets out of proportion to the situation, a lot of times reaching full-blown anger. That makes me wish I could talk to Dad about some things. She has even accused me, a couple of times before, of wishing that she was the one who passed away instead of Dad. That's just an example of truly nasty things that she's said to me before in the heat of uncontrollable anger. When she gets in that zone, she loses all caring for what she says. I think that her temper was given to her by the abuse that she suffered as a child. But I can't live like that anymore.

I'd love to find someone special, someone kind that I can write and sing songs for. I'm learning to play guitar, and I also do vocals, but I already have decades of experience in writing lyrics, and I have a lot of musical ideas swirling around in my head, some of which have been there since childhood, and they don't sound like the kind of musical ideas a child would have. My songs are my primary way of expressing myself, and that's only one of the many ways that I truly believe I can make someone feel loved, as though she were surrounded by the warmth of a gentle fire. I've also been known to write edgier lyrics too, about different subjects that touch on different parts of my life.

Anyway, I'm sorry this message has gotten so long. It's me being detailed again, the way I've always been all my life. The reason why I'm posting in this section is because I don't know what to do anymore. I feel like it's worse for me that it ever was for the Jon Arbuckle character in the Garfield comics before he started dating Garfield's vet. I feel like the invisible man in social situations, especially in group conversations, where I can never seem to get a single word in edgewise, because there never seems to be a chance for me to be able to contribute to a conversation. I feel like I'm the guy that no one sees as being just as human as they are.

I've tried dating sites, even Uneepi, which confuses me in some ways, and none of them have worked out so far. I can't get out of the house more often than I do, because I never learned how to drive, which I'd love to learn how to do. My mother has all the control over when I get out of the house. I feel like I'm stuck on a ship at sea, without a rudder to guide me to where I'd like to go in life. I feel like I've been through too much, and that good things need to finally start happening for me. I feel like it's time for me to rise up, and put an end to my tears.

I want to do things with my life -- use my guitar lessons, my songwriting, and my vocals to help me launch a career that I've dreamed about since childhood. I also want to learn how it feels to love and be loved in a relationship. If I'm ever given a chance, and a relationship develops, love and respect is what will come from me. I'm the kind of person who'll have your back, and be there for you. All you have to do is look inside of me, and learn who I really am. Wait...I think I just got the inspiration for another song. I'll keep it in mind, and start writing it tomorrow. For now, I'm going to log off and get some sleep.

I know that the length of this post kind of got away from me, and got longer than I intended, and I apologize for that. To anyone who reads this post, I appreciate your patience. Thank you for taking the time to read it. I'll be back on this site during the week this week. I wish everyone a good night.

Hi, I'm Georgia from Australia, and I'm here to support you in words. I appreciate how much you have shared about yourself, and I relate to your struggles even though I'm a girl ^^ I'm 17, turning 18 this year, and I've already had a few little relationships and crushes but they aren't very important anymore

I understand the dating sites thing, but personally I'm not into it. Especially since it mostly includes older people who are not my type. You should totally keep learning guitar, my dad's a musician and I'm learning keyboard and singing ^^

 

[georgiagalaxy]

Hi, I'm Georgia from Australia, and I'm here to support you in words. I appreciate how much you have shared about yourself, and I relate to your struggles even though I'm a girl ^^ I'm 17, turning 18 this year, and I've already had a few little relationships and crushes but they aren't very important anymore

I understand the dating sites thing, but personally I'm not into it. Especially since it mostly includes older people who are not my type. You should totally keep learning guitar, my dad's a musician and I'm learning keyboard and singing ^^

(Cont.)
I understand with your mother and dad as well... I have a Mum that has terminal cancer and was expected to die a few years ago, but she keeps on living ^^ She started developing health problems when she was an early adult. Both my parents seem to have symptons of Asperger's (that's what I have, too!) but haven't been diagnosed.

You don't have to worry about not feeling accepted or feeling "invisible," I'm sure we've all felt that at some point in our lives. If it helps, you can watch Invisible Sister (2015) to help you feel better

I'm sorry for all the things you've gone through. I'm sending virtual hugs. You sound like a very creative person, I hope you find what you're looking for someday ^^~

 

[georgiagalaxy]

There are a lot of service oriented jobs these days. Can you save up enough to move out and start living in a big city with a bunch of roommates maybe? It's not ideal, but it'd get you out of your situation of being stuck where you are and offer you the chance to be more independent.

That sounds good for him ^^!

 

[georgiagalaxy]

I agree that many of us have commonality with you. It's like reading the same biography in several ways...same worries, same fears, same goals.

About the strongest suggestion that I can make is that you are most likely to find someone who goes to the same places doing the same things. If you can handle going to low key music venues for shows, that's going to be a good place to possibly meet someone, for example.

As far as the dating apps, I wish they were more trustworthy, but they are kind of the new norm. I hate accepting that, but it's pretty much the truth, now. Just pick one you can tolerate using, and then be yourself, detailed, blunt, honest in your profile, make clear what you are looking for and what you aren't. I've done it before, and it worked to get dates, just know that it still won't mean whomever is going to be the one. It's the first step, still.

We all wish we had dead set answers, but we can guarantee that if you need to discuss anything, we are available. That's what's best here. Willing to try and understand, learn, relate but also be honest. Maybe sometimes the honesty comes across too strong or opinionated, and if so, others keeps things in check, straighten to the right perspectives and keep it proper. You've overcome the first big fear, though, in being able to talk about any of it. That's huge. Be proud.

Yeah I agree, I'm young but I've experienced some pretty big stuff too. And yeah, it's really good he's decided to share with us ^^

 

[georgiagalaxy]

@jtab7800, your experience is like that of so many of us. As a teen and young adult I was socially dysfunctional though I had normal yearnings to belong and for a relationship. I really was not ready for a relationship until I developed some confidence in myself and learned to process social communication. I developed skills in activities I liked from SCUBA to whitewater canoeing, read all I can about social communication/body language, then joined activity groups to practice (interest and skill meant more than neurology in those groups). And, I started living independently Then, while I was still shy, I started to ask women out and got into a relationship. While that failed, I was learning about the care required to maintain a relationship. So, there I was, 28, still a virgin and hoping to meet a woman who would enjoy outdoor activities with me. So, I had signed up for a trail maintenance trip and took a chance calling another trip member to see if she would care to car pool. She was shy and also looking for a man she could do outdoor activities with. One thing led to another and we have been together for 45 years.

I do not think it is too late to learn to leverage your skills in being more confident and learning how to process social communication. Then, learn to recognize those kind, accepting women who are out there and make a connection.

Same lol. Aww that's so lovely, good on you two, congrats ^^ You gave really good advice.

 

[georgiagalaxy]

First off I would just like to say I truly believe that love only finds you after you stop looking for it. At least it was like that for me. You sound like a young person just starting out on the wild adventure called life. All I can say is try not to lose that hope, it seems life has not been easy on many of us but that does not mean there are no good times, there will be and I am sure you will find love when the time is right.

I remember being bullied in school just because I was different and my mother had her first marriage absolved so even the nuns called me by the B word for fatherless child. They also forced me to write right handed too but thats a whole other can of worms. I remember feeling I would never find love. I knew I wasn't like everyone else and I only had one friend/bodyguard that ended up dropping out of school leaving me completely alone. Others went to dances and proms, I went to the art room to hide.

To be honest those were some of the roughest years of my life, school and just after. I didn't find love until my late 30s. At least not real love before that and even then I questioned it, analyzed it and myself. I also grew up in a much different time then now but some things remain the same. Don't give up hope because there is someone else out there thinking and feeling the same as you are and with technology today you have a much greater chance of finding that special someone that much sooner. I'm not sure any of this helps, I had no patience when I was young and everything seemed to take forever, especially love but good things really are worth waiting for sometimes.

I'm sure a lot of people here will be rooting for you too and have much better advice but your post reminded me a lot of my younger days and that same heartache. I think its very common, I know my husband felt the same, like he was going to always be alone , just give it time, it will happen. (Time is my least favorite word but as I said I have always had an issue with patience) Good Luck in your future ... I hope all your dreams come true .

Yo same with the art room~ That hit something lol

 

[Rodafina]

@jtab7800
Thanks for sharing so much of your story. I would say stick around here and keep talking about all these different challenges that you have. When you look at the picture as a whole, the number of challenges and frustrations in your life may seem overwhelming but perhaps, you can start to break down the overall picture into smaller more manageable pieces.

Just talking through many of these things with other people on the forum might be really helpful to you. Sometimes we cannot tackle everything that we want to all at once and make the grand change we are desiring, but we can start with small steps and chip away little pieces of the challenges that lay before us .

 

[All-Rounder]

If I may be honest, I'd rather pet a dog than talk to your mother about sensitive issues, she seems to make them worse due to her's and since she is opposed to treatment I would expect her to be like that for life.

Which makes me think it's a good thing you joined this website, this is a hopefully mixed or safer place to talk about your issues and some people will certainly share your difficulties, if not all.

Having been through some hardship and loss in your life might make relationships more difficult for you. Abandonment and rejection might be important dynamics.

Seems like there's a lot of sadness in your posts, yet finding contentment in the misery of life even through music might make you a good relationship candidate, because the lacks we want to fulfill e.g. love, happiness might bring us on a path that doesn't treat it but causes more negatives as well. Loneliness is a concept beyond having, if you have does not fix it. It comes from internal triggers.

However friends and conversation pals are very useful for growth in life and to make connections (such a thing can be very hard or impossible for some people on the spectrum, you will often hear people say they don't feel connected even though they've joined the website and talked to others).

 

[All-Rounder]

"I can't get out of the house more often than I do, because I never learned how to drive, which I'd love to learn how to do. " - This situation seems to be a big thing that holds you back from the normality of life and what seems to be everything you're lacking. Why aren't you going to driving school?

However you can walk\bike outside the house regardlessly. It's very healthy mentally and helps you with getting used to get out of the house.

 

[georgiagalaxy]

"I can't get out of the house more often than I do, because I never learned how to drive, which I'd love to learn how to do. " - This situation seems to be a big thing that holds you back from the normality of life and what seems to be everything you're lacking. Why aren't you going to driving school?

However you can walk\bike outside the house regardlessly. It's very healthy mentally and helps you with getting used to get out of the house.

That's very true. I struggle with getting out occassionally and am not "used to it", so it helps me a lot too. I also want to learn how to drive <3

 

[paloftoon]

Dating apps can be okay to use if you use them in a healthy way. I think you need to be willing to meet people in-person after 2 weeks has passed. if at least one of you doesn't want to make an appointment to meet in-person or a video chat if the distance is too much, then I think it's personally time to move on. If you don't like video chat or meeting in-person "so soon", then dating apps might be more harmful than helpful because it's too easy to hide behind them.

 

[jtab7800]

I'm sorry about not being on here in a few days. My mother, my younger brother, and I have been out of town for a few days, and we got back a couple of nights ago.

I can say that I'm not exactly young. I'm 48, and there's still nothing but unbearable loneliness. I'll be 49 in November of this year, and 50 in 2024, so I'm not exactly getting younger. I've been searching for love for more than 30 years, and still nothing. Do you know that part of my post where I said that I feel like the invisible man in social situations? It's worse around women -- I feel like they act like I'm invisible. It reminds me of a song by Queen, called "Invisible Man" -- "I'm the invisible man/I'm the invisible man/Incredible how you can see right through me."

My entire life has always been the roughest years of my life. People tell me not to give up, but I feel like I already did give up about four weeks ago. I never got any results in my 30+ year search, and I have a mother who seems to want it to be harder on me than it ever has to be. I can't talk to her about anything, because if I do, her notorious temper bears its fangs and sharp tongue, and an argument happens. Either that, or she'll cause me to feel upset when she says something that sounds hard-hearted, something that some people might consider to be toxic.

I honestly want to, but I don't know if I should start my search back up. I mean, how much longer do I deserve the decades-long pain my my heart? How much longer do I deserve to just do without love, and live lonely? How much longer do I deserve to hear truly nasty things from my mother when she loses her temper? I can't talk to my father about anything, because he passed away in 2009, and I still miss him. My mother, at least twice over the past couple of years, has accused me of wishing that she was the one who passed away, instead of Dad. That's a heartless thing to say, and that's exactly how she gets when she reaches the peak zone of her anger -- when she's in that peak zone, she loses all caring for what she says, no matter how hurtful her words are.

She always apologizes later, but it's like a vicious cycle -- she always does it again and again, in some way or another, and it reminds me of the phrase "rinse and repeat." She even has a habit of accusing me of saying things that I never said. I love her, and I don't want anything happening to her, but she puts me through unholy living hades with her behavior too often. I've been hurt way too much in my life, and I don't want to be hurt anymore.

I know that I seem impatient, but who honestly wouldn't after waiting for it for 30+ years? Sometimes, I think that I'll just have to do what Mom seems to want, and just sit around and wait for it to magically fall into my lap. Like I said before, Mom and I both suspect that she might be an aspie too, but she has vowed to not seek a diagnosis for it.

For the first 11 or 12 years of my life, her favorite way to punish me for anything was corporal punishment -- with her bare hand, a switch, or even a belt. Since I hadn't yet been diagnosed, a lot of my behavior was chalked up to simple misbehavior. I felt like I was constantly in trouble every day, getting yelled at, or having my rear-end lit up with a hand, a switch, or a belt. What Mom was doing was repeating after her own father, who had constantly beat her with a belt when she was a kid, and her mother didn't much care about it.

By the time I was 11 or 12, she was able to break that part of the cycle, and started using groundings instead. But the toxic words still had a habit of rearing their heads too many times. I would absolutely never hit a child in any way, or knowingly uses toxic words or phrases with them. And I could never bring myself to knowingly hurt a woman either. Like everyone else in the world, I make mistakes, and when I do, I try to learn from them.

I have a younger brother that I help Mom take care of -- he's in a wheelchair because he was born with a disability called spina bifida. Including my brother, I have very little family left -- him, our mother, and our older cousin. That's all. One of my top two biggest fears is the fear of ending up alone in the world, because I'm the healthiest out of the four of us. To me, that sets me up to end up alone in the world, with solitude and silence as my only friends. My other biggest fear is a fear of death -- not many people in my family make it to 70, and they're the ones who didn't take very good care of themselves. I try to do better at taking care of myself.

My brother is engaged, and he's known his fiancé for 15 years. He gets to have love in his life, but I don't get to. People actually introduced he and his fiancé to each other in 2008, but no one wants to introduce me to anyone. It makes me wonder if everyone I know thinks that no woman would ever want a man who is as ugly as I feel like I am. Not only that, but I feel worthless to anyone. Why can't anyone see past the surface, and look at who I am on the inside?

My brother and I have always been close -- he's my only sibling -- but it's getting to where I can't stand being around my mother anymore, and I don't want to say anything like that. Me saying things like that is just one of the reasons why I really don't think very highly of myself. I don't have much self-esteem.

I've been under a lot of stress, because, for one thing, I'm starting to get older, and I feel like I'll never have any semblance of a life, other than to live in solitude in my bedroom, which scares me. And Moms tendency to easily get, at the very least, irritated at me, doesn't really help my stress level. Sometimes, I feel like she might not even realize that she's saying something toxic when she says it. She's the kind of mother who's done a lot for my brother and I, but I wish she'd try to keep her temper at bay. And the subject of me wanting someone to love is the subject Mom likes to talk about the least, so I've tried to get better at avoiding that subject with her.

Sometimes, I feel like women have standards that are so high that a man like me could never be seen as living up to those standards. I wish there was someone out there who would give me a chance, and notice that I'm just as human as everyone else in the world is -- someone who would allow me to show her how much I can love her, instead of me leading a life full of nothing but tears.

How am I supposed to do it if no woman ever shows any interest in me, except for the only three who ever did? The first one suddenly moved in with another guy 31 years ago, without ever giving me a heads-up. The other two who gave me a small chance each have mental health problems that I wasn't able to help them with.

I feel like I could never be of any value to any woman in this world, and I wonder if that's how they see me. Besides, for me, trying to find someone to love is like trying to find a needle in a haystack the size of the Sun -- it's that impossible. And I feel trapped where I am. I feel like I have no choice but to live with my mother's toxicity, which got worse after we lost Dad almost 14 years ago. I miss him, and I wish he was still around so he and I could have some talks. After I was diagnosed, Dad, over time, became a lot more understanding, and he was mellowing out with age. Mom, on the other hand, seems to get angrier and harder with age. I actually hate arguments in general, but I hate arguments with my mother, because of how toxic her words have too much of a tendency to get.

I don't remember, but I think I might've mentioned that I'm learning how to play guitar, with an instructor who is a multi-instrumentalist, and I've been practicing vocals since I was a kid. I've been writing songs since I was a kid too, and I can play drums a little, but I don't have a set. I do have a keyboard that I'm going to try to learn some things on. The gear that you see in my avatar is not the gear I use, but it's meant to symbolize what I'm learning to do, and the fact that I live in a coastal area in the USA. Most of what I write is based on my own life experiences, but sometimes, I'll write about a serious subject, after doing enough research on it.

When it comes to going to music venues for shows, like one poster on this thread mentioned, I've been to concerts -- mostly hard rock concerts -- at very large venues before, even at a stadium once, and I've enjoyed the performances of the bands. My first concert was to see Bon Jovi and Skid Row when I was 14.

Anyway, I'm hoping to get something, hopefully in music, started as a career. But my mother is obsessed with me being an author, because of the way I write. I feel trapped in the way things are, and I feel like I need to find a way out, and find some independence. Would me living with a bunch of roommates feel awkward because I'm an aspie? I'm not sure.

I just hope there is someone in this world who would be willing to join me on my journey through life. I want to be able to say "I love you" to someone. I'd truly love to know what that kind of love feels like. But the truth is, the chances of that have never looked good for me. Yes, I do have hopes and dreams, but I'm becoming more and more convinced that they don't come true.

I'm sorry that there's so much sadness in my posts, and I don't want it to be that way, but I've been struggling a lot, with a lot of the same struggles that other people on the autism spectrum face. I've been seeing a therapist about my depression, and I think she really wants to help me with it. I've always thought that there should never be any stigma attached to getting help for depression, or anything else.

I think Autism Forums is looking like it'll be a safe place for me. I appreciate all the kindness I've been seeing. Thank you all so much for listening to me. I appreciate it.

 

[Kalinychta]

Is there a reason you live with your mother? I’d say priority number one for you should be getting out of her house and into your own. Do you have a job? Get one of those, too, if not. And sign up for driver’s ed. Having wishes and dreams is all well and good, but nothing is going to change for you unless you take some real action. Someone suggested moving in with roommates, and you said it might be awkward. If you always come up with excuses for why you can’t change, nothing will ever shift for you, and that’s the bottom line. Also, people need more in relationships than having songs written for them and being told they’re loved. Stability and independence are essentials.

 

[All-Rounder]

300 relationships later I still felt the way you did all-around.

I think beyond testing relationships it's the ability to choose right. I still don't think I can choose right which is why I have seen so much more success and I was able to offer success to others, too, because friends on the spectrum seem to be gifted sometimes with knowing the personalities which fit together. That's just my experience.

I will always believe you can date half the earth but if you don't choose wisely and have time to know someone you are too likely to fail and return to the same feelings and state. To me I would always feel like I haven't experienced relationships yet, isn't it odd considering I have constantly dated various people for 15 years.

The value of a person, integrity and warmth ability are super important to me. Highly volatile people are unfit.

 

[jtab7800]

I'm finally back on here. It's been a bad week that I've been trying to get through. I'm not angry or anything, and I know that people who reply to my posts don't have any bad intentions. I'm dealing with depression caused by my circumstances, and it hurts. This post is a reply to the last two replies I got.

My favorite show is Criminal Minds, and there was a quote at the beginning and end of almost every episode. I'm going to share one of those quotes: Thomas Merton once wrote, "Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone; we find it with another."

I've lived with my mother for my entire life, and it's not because I'm what some people would call a mama's boy, or anything like that. My father was with us until his death. Mom has always needed a lot of help with my younger brother, who was born with a birth defect called spina bifida, which rendered him paralyzed from the waist down, completely unable to move his legs, so he uses a wheelchair. Mom's getting older now -- she's in her late 60s, and not able to handle his weight the way she used to. And Dad passed away in 2009, at age 60. He served in the Vietnam War, where he and so many others on both sides of the war got sprayed with an extremely dangerous substance called Agent Orange, and spina bifida is the most common disability among the offspring of veterans from both sides of that war.

Dad had six 100% service-connected ailments because of Agent Orange. I'm going to try to keep this post shorter than my previous ones, but I don't know if I'll succeed. To get a better idea of what Agent Orange and the other rainbow herbicides that were used in that war are, research can say a lot about it.

Dad was a sergeant on a boat on the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, and that was one of the areas that got sprayed the most. It was intended by the U.S. military to get rid of vegetation so the enemy would have nowhere to hide in the jungle. Every time Dad and his unit got Agent Orange on them from the military airplanes overhead, they'd jump into the river to wash it off, only to find that there was more Agent Orange in the river. And I can't help but wonder if the Agent Orange affected me too. It's likely what caused my brother's disability. As for the only physical disability that I had, I was born with two of the fingers on my left hand webbed together, but I had a plastic surgeon correct that when I was 21.

We have a home health nurse who comes in once a week for my brother. Other than me, Mom doesn't get any help. I'd like to have a life, but I don't see how I'm going to do it, with as much help as Mom needs, and it's getting to where we won't be able to afford to pay for anyone to come in and help.

And I'm not coming up with any excuses for anything. What I'm doing is being honest. And in the part of the USA that I live in, it's hard to find a driver's ed class. It's not a large city. And what I said about roommates is that I don't know if it would be awkward or not, with the problems that me and a lot of other aspies have had in social situations. And I'm well aware that a relationship is more than writing songs for someone. It actually inspires me to write a song called "More Than Love."

When it comes to having a job, my first one was when I worked at a day camp for kids with disabilities for eight years, until the people in charge suddenly decided not to hire me back, even though kids were telling me that they loved having me there, and one kid even said something I never expected -- he told me that I was the best counselor there. I almost had tears in my eyes. And he was a camper who had actually slit his own wrists before. On the day that he told me why he did that, I sat there and listened while he poured his heart out to me. I listened, while he talked, because he just needed for someone to listen.

What I always did was bring myself as close to their level as I could, and I listened. I treated them like human beings, because that's what they are. I visited one of them in a hospital after he had surgery. I even went to visitation at the funeral home after one of the campers passed away from an illness at age 19. Campers didn't age out of the came until they were about 20 or 21, and a few of them were as young as 5-years-old, so there was a wide age range.

I tried to be a kind, stable presence at the camp, and I never got angry at any kids. As for my boss, she decided not to hire me back, after eight years, and I've felt unwanted ever since. I haven't had a job since. A couple of former campers, who are in their late 20s now, are among my Facebook friends now. And now, I'm trying to figure out what to do to bring in money.

Some people, such as my mother, never have anything good to say about relationships. I feel like some people want me to look at relationships only through a distorted lens of negativity, and never see anything positive about it. My life has been nothing but negativity so far. I need positivity in my life too.

All my life, I've been treated like nothing but garbage -- first by girls when I was a teenager, and now by women when I'm an adult. A couple of weeks ago, a female friend of mine, whom I've known for more than 10 years, did the kind of thing I never pictured her doing -- I tried to help her with what I thought was some sort of breakdown that had her in the deepest depression I've ever seen, only to learn, after she spent a night at a mental health facility, that things were not what they were on the surface.

The people at the mental health facility said that she was being manipulative, and that a good portion of what she was doing was just an act, and it made me feel hurt. There have been no apologies from her. Now Mom wants me to simply write off a person who was a good friend as a loss -- the reason I say she was a good friend is because she was there to help me through a situation nine years ago where my brother had pneumonia, and he almost passed away, which had me beyond scared.

We dated for a couple of years, but that was years ago. I wondered if she was putting on the act so she could get her hooks back into me, because right after she told me that her feelings had changed, she did a u-turn, and asked me to marry her. I didn't say anything about it. I was stunned to realize what was going on -- actually too stunned to say anything. I don't have those kind of feelings for her at this point, and it's looking like she's becoming more unstable. I don't know what it would take for anyone to help her now.

All-Rounder said "The value of a person, integrity and warmth ability are super important to me. Highly volatile people are unfit." I'm not the kind of person who normally shows volatility, because I've been at the receiving end of it before from various people, and it doesn't feel good.

All I want is to find someone on this Earth who won't treat me like garbage, like so many other people that I've crossed paths with have before -- someone who would treat me like a human being. I can honestly say that I would treat her like the human being she is. I'm the kind of person who doesn't want to hurt anyone.

But even though I have an extreme fear of death, barely more than a fear of ending up alone in the world, I sometimes wonder if the world would be better off without me in it, especially since things associated with my autism seem to cause my mother to overreact out of proportion to a lot of situations. She had a father who beat her almost every day, and a mother who didn't much care. Her parents told her that she was a mistake, and that she would never amount to anything.

Mom has never said those things to me, but she did act like her father in some ways -- for the first 10 or 11 years of my life, her favorite way to punish me was to do so by physical means, even with a belt at times, and she hardly ever talked to me about anything -- just hit me or ground me, but hardly ever talk to me about what happened. It's like she just wanted it to be over and done as quickly as humanly possible. It took her a while to break the cycle when it comes to physical punishment. But she still hasn't broken the cycle when it comes to some of the verbal things. She has even accused me before of wishing that Dad was still alive instead of her.

I still feel like I'll never amount to anything. I still feel like I'll always be useless to anyone. I still feel like a poor excuse for a human being. That's how low my confidence and self-esteem have been pushed. I need to figure out how to make gains in those things.

I know Mom loves me, but I just wish I knew how it feels for someone to care about me in a different way. I feel pathetic, because I can't even meet anyone. Like I said, I never learned how to drive -- Mom always said she wouldn't teach me, because she doesn't have the patience to. And I haven't found any driver's ed places in my part of the USA. And in my neighborhood, there's no place to go that's within walking distance, so I'm pretty much trapped, with no hope.

I want to finally find happiness for the first time in my life, but it's not looking possible. I would love to be more independent, and do more things, but I can't get anywhere, unless I drive Fred Flintstone's car, which relies on foot power, or unless Mom drives me somewhere. I'm hopefully going to figure something out.

Anyway, I'm going to get off of here for the night. I'll always appreciate anyone here listening to me. I wish everyone a good night.