I’m not O.K

[AspieChris]

Then stop faking so much. How will that be worse than being burned out from it?

Not faking = no job, no home, probably no wife, etc. I have to mask in order to keep my job. I need the money to pay bills. My job is the backbone of my life and all of the things I need to survive. I need assistance at work from my peers, so I need people to like me and I have no choice to become the guy who is ‘liked’.

I don’t like my job anymore. I’m not defined by my career and I have no pride connected to what I do at work, but it’s clear to me that it’s the one brick that could cause the whole house to fall down if it fails. It’s a catch 22….. To be happy means to be myself, but that would leave me unemployed and miserable.

 

[AspieChris]

Mate, I sympathise fully. But as it turns out going to college and uni didn't help much. I've got, by all accounts, a pretty senior role. Problem is we moved country, then a bunch of natural disasters happened which made the migration twice as costly, and the central bank here decided to dump money into the economy and increase house prices.

Net result, we're priced out of the housing market while people who just happened to live here 5 years earlier are now multi-millionaires. We're renting, and get kicked out of our house once a year so the landlord can rake in profits and that will be it, for the rest of our lives. No home, no permanence, no memories for the kids of growing up in the same loved house. Nomads.

It costs so much to rent that I can't see us saving anything substantial, so we're going to be terribly poor when I can no longer work. My only realistic plan for when we retire is to use up the meagre savings we have within a few months, have a lovely romantic dinner with the woman I love, then find somewhere scenic to jump off. For those who happened to buy a house a few years back, it's the life of reilly. But for us, we will never be in a position where we're not in danger of a miserable old age with no support and no money to pay for health care. I did everything right. I didn't gamble, I worked hard, I got my education. And now I'm beholden to people who blindly stumbled into being a millionaire!

It keeps me awake at night. I refuse to even talk about it or I'll not be able to sleep. My wife mentioned pensions the other evening, and that was it, zero sleep that night. I just try to focus on tomorrow, on providing for my family, paying the bills. Like you I'm beyond tired, because, like you, I know there is no off-ramp.

ETA: Also worth mentioning, I don't handle the next day after alcohol as well as you do. So although it makes the evening before go pleasantly and I can fall asleep feeling things are cool, I'll wake at 5am with my heart racing and that feeling of dread. So I've decided to give it my absolute everything for one last try to get out of this damn hole this country and society has created for us. If it fails, I'm going to the doc for some strong anti-depressants and will mentally turn the lights off.

Your situation is different than mine but it sounds like the effects are nearly identical. Nighttime scares me because there’s nothing to distract me from the stress of my future. I don’t drink to get drunk (usually). I use alcohol to shut my brain off for a while just so that tonight I won’t be afraid of lying awake in bed all night wishing everything was different.

 

[AspieChris]

Perhaps if you find someone you can talk this through with in detail, and you start experimenting with changes, you'll start to be a little more hopeful.

Maybe it’ll help me too. I’ve been to therapy before. It didn’t do anything but reinforce the notion that I need to fit into normal society. I’m only trying it again because of my wife. She is seeing me suffer more than usual and she gets concerned about my drinking more than before.

 

[AspieChris]

It's because you're on the spectrum, and that's OK." we'd see a drop in male sadness, suicides even, and paradoxically an improvement in all the above. Because right now these guys are isolated.

I think you’re absolutely correct. Particularly the suicides. People don’t think about wanting to die when they’re happy. It’s common with teens who are somewhere in the LGBTQ community, hitting puberty, but have family who would never accept them that way. They spend their days trying to be ‘normal’ but can’t ever be happy because their hiding it from everyone. Eventually it sounds better to be gone forever.

To let yourself be on the outside, exactly how you feel on the inside, without judgment or ridicule, is what every person deserves. However for some of us…. it’s just not possible right now. Maybe not ever.

 

[Jacks Brain]

Mate, I sympathise fully. But as it turns out going to college and uni didn't help much.

This is why I "flaked out" in my first year of college - after being a good boy through high school, getting the grades, getting a scholarship and getting into a truly superb college - people told me it would "get better," but it didn't. It got worse. The more I achieved academically, the worse it got; and I couldn't see any reason to think that would change. At best I'd end up in your situation, except I'd be working a job I hated to pay for an ex-wife who only married me for the cashflow; and also paying child support for whatever kids we had.

I have a hypothesis. I'm a guy, so I'm talking from my own experience and not excluding women, just not pretending to speak for them. I have a feeling that there's a massive swathe of blokes out there, undiagnosed, depressed and stressed who are being told by the current zeitgeist that they are in the wrong, that they need to change to be "emotionally available".

Careful, you're stepping into the minefield. Men have been getting together to talk about their issues for years and have been getting deplatformed for it for years.

 

[Au Naturel]

Not faking = no job, no home, probably no wife, etc. I have to mask in order to keep my job. I need the money to pay bills. My job is the backbone of my life and all of the things I need to survive. I need assistance at work from my peers, so I need people to like me and I have no choice to become the guy who is ‘liked’.

I don’t like my job anymore. I’m not defined by my career and I have no pride connected to what I do at work, but it’s clear to me that it’s the one brick that could cause the whole house to fall down if it fails. It’s a catch 22….. To be happy means to be myself, but that would leave me unemployed and miserable.

Will you be able to retire soon? That makes life a LOT easier. I retired at 62 because I couldn't stand work anymore. My experience is that not masking didn't get me fired; it just prevented me from ever advancing. I could have had a slightly larger pension and a bit more monthly social security had I stayed on 'tll 67, my "full retirement" age, but I would have lost those five years to a job that was steadily getting crappier.

I have a 4-year degree, so I took the CBEST and passed and started working as a substitute teacher. There was a real shortage of them. That delayed the time I had to start taking social security and helped bridge the gap until my microscopic pensions kicked in at 65. Part-time work, 7-hour days, lots of time off, and I kind of enjoyed it. I worked a lot of classes for autistic kids because most subs are scared of any special ed. Stopped doing that when I turned 65. I just wasn't physically or psychologically up to it anymore. and didn't need the money as badly.

Unfortunately, I still have a mortgage - and a 2nd - to pay, and will be paying it until I'm 70+. That limits what my wife and I can do - pennies must be pinched. OTOH, we've lived here long enough that between payments and inflation, we've built up equity, and property taxes are still fairly low.

Heavy sigh!

 

[AspieChris]

I’m almost 50. Can’t retire. Although at least my house is paid off. But I live in Los Angeles and EVERYTHING is so expensive.

 

[MNAus]

Careful, you're stepping into the minefield. Men have been getting together to talk about their issues for years and have been getting deplatformed for it for years.

Not keen to get into discussion on men's rights and deplatforming, TBH.

Just want to recognise that there's likely a large group of humans that are likely very sad, struggling and simultaneously being told that the traits their ASD brings are unacceptable and that the key to sorting things out is, essentially, to be less autistic.

 

[Jacks Brain]

I figure a significant portion of the homeless population are only aspies who fell through the cracks of society and never figured out why. Could have been me and could easily still be me. It seems like, no matter how well you get your act together, all it takes is two or three unlikely events to coincide and you're back down to the bottom again.

 

[MNAus]

I figure a significant portion of the homeless population are only aspies who fell through the cracks of society and never figured out why. Could have been me and could easily still be me. It seems like, no matter how well you get your act together, all it takes is two or three unlikely events to coincide and you're back down to the bottom again.

Sorry to @AspieChris for hijacking the thread, but I tend to agree. Back to the person who asked how people with ASD could possibly get on with a job and looking after a family, for me personally I don't look down from the tightrope. If I'd known earlier and had support in place, maybe I would never have done all this. Maybe that would be for the worse, but it would have been a whole lot less terrifying. But you just assume that, someday, whatever it is that seems to be jinxing you will move on or you'll work it out. And that one day you'll get the peace of certainty, and the removal of stress, and knowing that things will basically turn out OK. But like you say, a couple of things happen and you're back to square one. Finding out I'm ASD has been a double edged sword. On the one hand it's been useful as I can forgive myself now. But on the other hand, it's kind of terrifying to learn that the one hand tied behind your back that you've been assuming will one day be freed is actually a missing limb.

 

[Jacks Brain]

I call Aspergers "The Living Death Sentence." It was a real punch to the gut when I realized I'd spent my life trying to fit in, only to find out it was impossible.

 

[tazz]

The Living Death Sentence

Crumbs that's a bit extreme. It can be really difficult at times. But still...

 

[Rodafina]

I call Aspergers "The Living Death Sentence." It was a real punch to the gut when I realized I'd spent my life trying to fit in, only to find out it was impossible.

Maybe you will feel more alive if you stop trying to fit in. It ain’t so bad not “fitting in.” When I finally learned about autism is when I actually came alive.

 

[AspieChris]

I call Aspergers "The Living Death Sentence." It was a real punch to the gut when I realized I'd spent my life trying to fit in, only to find out it was impossible.

Unfortunately I really agree with that statement. We live in a world where it’s nearly impossible to exist without ‘fitting in’. It revolves around money. If you’re weird, you won’t earn enough to have a good life. Day after day, year after year, of living in the world’s biggest concentration camp. Just trying to have a home and family. And there’s literally no hope of Asperger’s going away.

Even cancer has a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not saying that there’s no way to improve one’s situation to a point that life is good, but it’s sort of like living with HIV. It’s always there and it effects your quality of life. And understanding that your future will always be under a cloud of something that most folks would call a disease, just sucks. (It’s not a disease but most people believe that it is)

 

[AspieChris]

Sorry to @AspieChris for hijacking the thread

No worries. You aren’t hijacking anything. Your comments are exactly what I was hoping for

 

[ra49]

Hey you guys, I don't have any wisdom or light bulbs to offer, just to say you are not alone, we XXs are here with you and would help if we had any idea how or what to do - all we can is to acknowledge and sit with you

NT society places so much heavier burden on you guys for productivity and standing up being a man and all the baggage that comes with a Y chromosome, and nowhere for you to set it down and breathe that there are not more expectations

 

[MNAus]

I call Aspergers "The Living Death Sentence."

Life is a death sentence, LOL (is that the right place for a LOL? Feels like it...) TBH I don't have that depth of despair, but I do feel like we've fallen through some sort of crack.

If I go to Reddit's autism page it's packed full of really trite discussions on whether people are offended by this or that, or "does anyone else not like it when they fall and graze their knee?" That's all cool and fair play that they get to chat about all that stuff. But I don't recognise it. I don't recognise what qualifies as big problems there. I don't recognise a life where they talk about their carer, their support network. I've had literally nothing. I have nothing to support me. Behind me there is only the deep dark sea, I am where the buck stops. I am the difference between comfort and homelessness. If my arms grow weak, if my legs buckle from carrying, if my mind gives way, it's all over. There is no safety net.

So I don't recognise ideas of just stopping work because it's doing your head in. Of taking time off to reset spoons or whatever. Of deciding you don't want to be in social situations. Of leaning back on others to take the weight a little. Of having meltdowns in public; I can't, you have to find somewhere private to scream. Of being offended or triggered or being anything except that work horse. Of being able to demand that society accommodate you. And I'm happy that others can. But I don't understand why everyone is so willing, relatively, to be accommodating to younger folks who can wear their diagnosis on their sleeve, but if you're in my position it's "Well that's great, now get back to it mate".

Like I said, I'm glad to know I have autism, it explains a lot, but it also makes clear that there is no off-ramp, because there is no-one behind me who can take over.

 

[Jacks Brain]

I agree with the above sentiment as well. If/when I develop a serious health condition, the show's over. There's no good ending at that point.

It didn't have to be this way. I had the ability to contribute to society. The thing is, you can't treat me like an NT because I'm not an NT. But that's what happened. I wish I could fix this for the next generation of aspies, but I'll be lucky if I get through the next year without financial ruin.

 

[Jacks Brain]

Maybe you will feel more alive if you stop trying to fit in. It ain’t so bad not “fitting in.” When I finally learned about autism is when I actually came alive.

I'm sure that would have made everything worse. People are like rats, if another rat wanders up that doesn't smell like their nest they kill it. An aspie doesn't pass the smell test. Even when masking, NT's catch on. Then you've got a target on your back.

 

[Rodafina]

I'm sure that would have made everything worse. People are like rats, if another rat wanders up that doesn't smell like their nest they kill it. An aspie doesn't pass the smell test. Even when masking, NT's catch on. Then you've got a target on your back.

That’s certainly a negative outlook on humans, probably formed from your experience in the world.

I don’t go wandering up to other’s nests and I never get close enough to be given the ”smell test.” In your analogy, that is still trying to fit in.

Having the feeling of not fitting in means I can lean into it and then be free. I do not believe we are bound to our negative thoughts. We can find our own way, a different way.