Am I burning my candle too bright?

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I'm trying to sort this one out, right now and for the past few days (when I don't have martial arts) I come home and literally can't shove off the urge to go to sleep - immediately.

I'm at a point in my life right now where yes, I have a post-college career type job, sadly its only 40k per year (USD), I also find myself living with my parents at 30 - trying to save up just to be sure that I never have to live under their roof again. However, certain things I think dig at me more that I'm willing to let on to myself. Generally speaking, a few years ago, I thought I was quite successful for what I've been through in life but I'm getting to the point where the urge toward self-actualization is insatiable again.

Where its at - I have 10 hours a week of martial arts, I *try* to work out three days a week in between, I'm also pushing myself to learn Spanish in my off time at work (we're on a period where things are slow and I've been bringing in a language learning course on CD and doing that for, well, close to 6 or 7 hours out of the day). My ultimate hope - I want to get another 20-30k per year in my wallet, so I can live on my own without feeling like I'd be saving next to nothing (when taxes knock 40k down to 25 or 26k and you have an apartment, car insurance, health insurance, possibly add a car payment if you have to buy something new or lease - it almost all goes out the window on essentials) and my hopes are to get into international business, I'm avoiding going back for a masters partly because with my current job I travel too much but also I just don't trust the economy and I don't want to be stuck in the position of being over-certified scholastically without anything to back up the fact that I'm worth the pay (languages would be my way around that).

The overall lesson I've learned in life - it may seem a bit brazen and I hope its not ultimately destroying me - the world won't give me a thing that I don't earn on the same playing field as anyone else. To have a disability and to acknowledge my neurological capacity and safety zone in terms of energy expenditures seems to imply that I would have to admit to and accept myself as 'less than', I would likely have to admit to having no right to having a spouse or children, but with my current self-actualization load I realize just how frail I am. Part of my martial arts class is Muay Thai kickboxing for 45 minutes, I still wear out pretty quick and get the point of going through the motions, my endurance and energy levels don't seem to be able to improve, with working out and trying to keep myself healthy in general its like my genetics have just set their ceiling and I realize that to live 'normally' in any capacity will leave me extremely tired - almost too much so to be useful for much after work (why I'd worry about having a family), and of course there's the real nasty bit of, chemically and internally, feeling less like a man - knowing that I can't be anything else than that and can't fail at it, but ultimately feeling....well....like something closer to a child on that level, its quite a gruesome reflection when it does hit me and it scares the hell out of me when I realize that its just another sign that I may frankly have no right (genetically speaking) to what I want out of life. I also have to hope, if I'm to go on to another career field like international business, that I won't be swimming with local competition that I literally can't physically/mentally keep up with on the energy budget that my body gives my CNS to function.

I did have a period a few months back where I wrote a thread about having a tingling all over the inside of my head, that's been a characteristic I've had all through my 20's off and on, and when it gets profoundly bad its almost like someone lit a carton of cigarettes and used the outside of my brain as an ashtray, ie. it feels like its a very nasty kind of numb as if it were wrapped in leather or turned to leather on the outside. I did look into the possibility that I was heading toward adrenal failure, got myself on a 30 day dose of 25mg DHEA, admittedly I haven't had the tingling hit me in the past week or so but the fatigue definitely has come back.

I guess in writing this thread I partly am curious if anyone's well familiar with this dilemma, what their take on things was, how they handled it, did they regret the way they handled it if they did back out of this route? Again my own situation has been that, like many aspies, I have the exterior magic where - while some NT's have the bar low, some have it set mid-level, my neurological appearance, my struggles with whatever my neural status really is, has set the bar so high for me that I'm kind of stuck; I'll either going on with this route and in the meantime throwing out the window anything I'm doing that's not essential or drains more energy than I have to give, or, its abandoning my dreams and being forced to look at myself as a disabled individual first and foremost above all other traits rather than a distant fourth or fifth (the later though - the challenge would be finding reasons to live, I'm simply not ok with that).

Any takers?

I have that same numb tingle in my brain. Like it actually *feels like* my brain is tingling. And my upper spine too. I feel it right now.

It gets better or worse depending how my day is going. Sometimes it feels like my eyeballs are going to pop like kernels of popcorn that have finally had one too many microwave rays pass through them.

What grip I maintain on sanity comes at the expense of ten hours of sleep per day.

Hey, one thing, how is your diet? Never underestimate the importance of diet. If you drink alcohol, how healthy your food choices are, are just as important as how much you sleep. I would assume, however, that your diet is probably pretty good to keep up with the rigorous workouts.

I have issues with anxiety, and many times in my adult life I have had what you are talking about with the buzzing and tingling, in my head, and sometimes even in the whole of my body. Fatigue is also a symptom of anxiety, and feeling the need to make an additional 30k on top of what you are making now would be cause for a load of anxiety. Just some food for thought.

first of all thats plenty of money a year to buy a small home. payments are a lot more reasonable than apartments, after the house payment and water and electric those are your 3 requirments the must haves. anything else like cable tv and internet you will have to budget

A couple strikes against me - I've been a lifelong insomniac (or a least can't control when I fall asleep), also I believe hypoglycemia which I have pretty well managed. I have an allergy as well to aspartame/nutrasweet, splenda, and Ace-K but I do pretty well as screening that out. My diet is staying pretty consistent, I try to keep it diverse and not get too much or too little in the way of the food groups. Also, I try to eat something more like six meals a day (snacks at work added in) rather than going the whole way - especially with the blood sugar and how that effects my AS its problematic.


It could but I'd suppose I don't so much 'worry' about it, it just keeps me in the state of wanting to save enough of a buffer fund before I move back out - so I can save something first. I was living with a roommate for several years to help him pay on a house, he sold it, and I thought coming back would be more temporary than its been but - I also work 10 minutes away as well and it hasn't made much sense to run out and get an apartment partly for that reason.

I tend to worry about living paycheck to paycheck or having to budget to where my savings will be meager at best. The two big things on a house are a) I haven't settled in - don't know if I'll even be staying in northeast Ohio, I could end up anywhere on the map. b) having experienced enough work environments I know that things can go very well to where I stay with a company for years as an employee and equally I can be gone in a few months, also jobs can lay off, and its not to say that I'd never buy a house because of that but rather that I'd want enough of an 'in case I get f'd over' fund to cover me for six months to a year. If I could hold enough money to both have that and put 20% down I'd be all for it, although there is a whole other ball of crap that goes into owning and maintaining a home as well over and beyond just paying the bills and keeping the place clean; I'd just want to be sure that I'm in an area and life situation where it'll be worth it, otherwise I'm looking at an apartment or condominium (though the later still has exorbitant association fees from what I understand).

Pretty much anything I invest in though I want to go to scale and not be a slave to it. Responsibility is responsibility, I'm fine with that, but having options also means a lot to me.

Well, if you ever move to Southern California, look me up and we can be housemates.

I don't make enough to buy a house either, just enough to split the cost with a housemate.

I'm quiet and reasonably tidy.

From the look of state finance it could just as well be you moving to Cleveland . Like I said though, my life's still in a bit of a toss-up (not to be confused with the other meaning), best thing to do right now I think is just be sure to give myself a weekend here and there to literally do nothing brain oriented - give my mind a break so it can recharge for the week, self-help and self-improvement 24/7 is probably a bit superhuman.