Hello people (I am not good at this).
I finally found this forum after being on a lot of forums unsuitable for my needs (Asperger's Syndrome) and when I read the title 'Wrong Planet', I thought 'yep, that sounds like where I live'.
I arrived here, after trying to find a center in my local area, where I can go to for meeting people, but also to do crafts, have sing-alongs, play bingo and just do really easy, basic things without too much pressure and expectations from me.
Other people require a lot of patience and understanding to tolerate me for any considerable length of time, and I don't last in any social setting for more than a week or so before I get the whole 'change your behaviour or get lost' speech, and thus I am socially isolated and have no friends and I don't know how to make friends - that's just really difficult for me.
The only time I experience enjoyment, is when I take my 80yr old mother to her Senior Citizens club, then stay for the activities designed for Alzheimer's Patients (I find that simple cognitive tasks in a social setting really helps with my Aspies). I can't go there very often though, because I am technically not a 'Senior Citizen', nor do I have Alzheimers and the center is like 80kms away, but they tolerate my occasional participation. I'd like to find something like this 'closer to home' that caters for my condition, basically doing the same thing - just simple, social stuff, improving my lousy cognitive skills.
I am on the Disability Pension because I just cannot exist in the 'outside world' and I never learned how. I have tried, but people can be so cold, cruel, greedy and expect more from me than I am capable of giving. I have been used and abused just so much, 12 years ago I decided to withdraw from society altogether because I just couldn't cope anymore and my Asperger's started developing secondary conditions like depression, social anxiety and panic attacks. I thought I would/could get 'used to the loneliness', but after 12 years, I still cannot, but the thought of going back out into the 'big bad world' again, with all its people and problems really terrifies me and I need help to do it.
Not only that, but I very easily succumb to 'overwhelming'....too much information, sensory overload, sensitivity to light, noise, temperature, crowding, pressure etc. My brain has problems filtering anything out, basically (which is typical).
I also find it difficult to read body language, judge emotions, have empathy (pity is all I can manage), understand sarcasm, and know when somebody is joking around or being serious...I mean, sarcasm is totally lost on me.
I am also so clumsy I tend to drop things, knock things over, trip over my own feet, lose things, forget things and it seems like my body is just too big for my head.
My 'savant' is literature and etymology - I was reading and understanding Chaucer at 8, and can translate glyphs and cyphers...I can see immediate patterns in random letters and codes.
My 'secular interest' is card games like Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon and Yugioh (I just love anime and anime characters, even though I am over 50).
I'd just like to 'un-complicate' my life, and I remember the times I was the happiest...when I was a child, colouring in colour books, building things from clay, making bead jewelry, helping my nanna in her garden while my pop played songs on the piano and I would really like to do these things again, but with other people...yeah, activities you can do alone with other people (so I can set the level of interaction and stimulation I wish to achieve at the time). This is what I want to do and this is why I am here.
So, I have gone on for too long, but I have written my 'life story' and shall only do it this once.
Thank you for giving me a forum to post on.
19 Mar 2014, 4:53 am
