My name is Mark, I'm 25 from BC Canada and really am not sure what exactly is different about me. I've spent my life solo essentially with bits and pieces of social high-times we'll call it mostly when I came into the sort of friends who will call you 5 times until you go to the bar or get coffee. I'm on here because as far as I can tell I fit somewhere within the ASD thingamabobber (saying spectrum seems redundant...) (is saying spectrum is redundant itself redundant?) too late... it's typed...
I'm wary of self-diagnosis because I know how arbitrary many "symptom" can be as I've been seeking community or help my whole life and haven't managed to find a group where I don't eventually faux pas or get disturbed by their behaviour and leave. Diagnosis by physician is difficult as well as in Canada to see a psychiatrist the wait list is around 2 or 3 years for urgent patients. I used to believe I was suffering from chronic depression but I find the depression is generally co-temporal with things like retail jobs and stressful romantic situations. I sought help but the furthest I got was a public support group intro meeting where there were 20 or so people crammed into a tiny room all looking at me funny... Needless to say, I scrammed.
The point I'm at now is the last person I truly trusted has passed away, which I am becoming at peace with (you all would've liked her, she was my aunt). I live in her house and am working at a prestigious golf course on groundskeeping which I'm falling in love with (they send me out at 5:30 am with a shovel and I'm alone virtually all day). I sort of had a girlfriend but I think we're sort of done. I have an adorable little dog, a bastard little cat and just enough cash to eat which is fine for me. I have a degree in English with a minor in Geography and almost a minor in Anthropology and Geology. I felt like I faked the whole thing but had no way of explaining it. I never went to class and never read the material but cranked out technically decent essays enough that the I guess they figured they ought to just get me out.
I hadn't been alone in a long time and have found that when I have a week or two to settle into a routine and don't have to deal with people outside the minimum I am extremely content, which I have not felt in a very long time. My mother typically shows up and looks for pity for a week and then I feel like crap again. My current goal is to get on my own, in a career that I can support my aloneness. I do like people but they are typically very demanding to maintain as friends, it feels like they're trying to make me feel bad for not doing things with them or they simply disappear.
My mother doesn't seem to know much about my childhood, she wasn't a very good mother, my father was at work most of the time.
I really don't want pity, I don't regret my life or want people to feel bad as I'm sure many of you have gone through much the same, but I think unlike you I haven't yet learned what exactly is wrong with me, and this is only a best guess (which I suppose is the nature of all mental issues). I don't know if I exactly want to take part in the discussion here yet as I don't know if I belong here and I don't want to presume that I know how any of you feel.
If anyone does want to respond and bothered to read this (which I don't exactly expect) could you perhaps mention a book, preferably science fiction which you have read recently that you found particularly interesting. My favorites are many by Philip K Dick and recently I finished The Wind-up Girl.
I half-reread this but I learned in college that re-reading an essay makes me panicky at how bad it is.
31 Aug 2012, 9:38 pm
