Failure

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Here's the deal - I've got a genius IQ, all kinds of creative artistic talent, skills, and the like, and I'm always coming up with clever things.
But I don't function well enough to have a job (plus I have a host of chronic health problems which also prevents me from work). So the talent and the little ideas and whatnot go nowhere. Nothing I do is of any particular use to anybody. I want to feel like I'm contributing to society somehow, but I'm not.
The Aspies I read about are always doing spectacular things, because they don't write books about the ones who crumble into nothing. I feel as if I'm a failure at having AS because I can't be like Temple Grandin, and a failure at being a genius because it doesn't do me, or anyone, any good. It just makes life more frustrating.
Are there those of you who feel similarly?

<--- Dumb as a box of bricks.

Creative talent can be productive. People have been inspired, soothed, and informed through writing and art.

Yes, you can use the Internet to share your thoughts and ideas, and inspire others to act on them!

Work for yourself from home. Write and make art. Inspire, educate and make people smile.......

I don't have the level of skills/intelligence you have but lean some in that direction. Although not impossible, it seems pretty hard to be able to use those to any advantage without being able to function and interact socially at least to a basic level. It's like having a brain with a non-functioning body. In my case its a matter of always having to work extra to handle social and life skills.

Imagine the opposite. Someone social without intelligence or any creative skills. They are looking at being only able to do menial jobs and being easily taken advantage of. They might be able to improve their situation with a lot of hard work getting education & training, but I think you actually have a better chance to improve your social skills, because you can use your mind to understand and strategize an improvement plan.

You can also think of it like your brain being the driver and social interaction being the vehicle you move around in. Maybe all's you can manage is a barely drivable beater. But at least it gets you around. Or maybe you can design and slowly build something like a tank or the batmobile.

I know it sounds trite, but while there are many people who will mindlessly or with malice be mean or disaparaging, it is really your own spirit that will make things happen and your own defeatism that will most hinder you.

Thank you so much for that very in-depth reply. I was in a junky place when I started the thread and I'm feeling better about it now.
And yes, it is like having a brain with a non-functioning body. At least I can write down my flurry of ideas and maybe others can get more use out of them than I can.
I think I was also depressed over the fact that I have absolutely none of the "I won't let anyone get in my way" drive that the majority of successful people have. After one or two rejections I'm usually convinced that my work isn't any good. (Even though people told The Beatles that "guitar bands" were on the way out, and told Elvis he couldn't sing, etc.)
I guess what I'm saying is I wish I were more resilient and competitive, and less sensitive. Thus is the Aspie's lament.

I actually feel quite similar to that except I don't have any significant physical problems...just some digestive discomfort/issues and some muscular condition with no name because no one else has anything quite like it as far as they know it mostly just causes some slight physical weakness I would not otherwise have. I have a lot of mental health issues outside of AS though which certainly make it impossible to function on a job.

But I kind of know the feeling of having intelligence, even coming up with cool ideas and such like but then having nothing to do with them, because you feel no one would take it seriously because of your impairments...or you don't have the resources or connections to set something in action. The whole feeling of if I could write a good college level paper(actually not sure I really could do that currently) why can't I do a simple minimum wage job effectively. Sometimes I wish I was less intelligent so people might take my difficulties a little more seriously...but then half the time I feel like an idiot regardless of how much information I've learned and could recite.

It is all very frusterating.

I can relate; I'm not a literal genius(140 IQ) but it sure does feel like it when I'm around "average" joes and janes. If most jobs weren't so dependent on being social vs just doing your job then it wouldn't be so bad (for me anyway). There's too much pecking, brown nosing, etc. that goes on and I don't have the mind for it. Time and time again be it some everyday social situations or professional the only thing I can think of to make things "right" is to depart. Not to come off as cynical but I have tried and tried and I REFUSE to be talked down to, be the "peace keeper", tolerate the "drama" all for the sake of appeasing lesser minds which are ALWAYS NTs or Paths.

You have something to compensate for your disability. Many people aren't so lucky. I wasn't. It isn't nice to feel inferior to normal people because there's nothing you can do better than them and they can do a lot of things that you can't. You can use the gifts that you have but if you have nothing to offer you can't just give yourself something to offer. Whether you could be contributing but you aren't or you simply can't contribute it's still the same. You feel worthless. The only difference is you can try and do something about it in one of those situations.

Yep. I had an IQ of 156 the last time it was measured (high school). Apparently, I'm socially well-adjusted enough that people are willing to let me do things like be a TA for some freshmen/sophomore level courses at my college. Physically, I'm in really good shape, and I run a sub-5 minute mile.

Pretty much, I'm the kind of guy that everyone says has virtually unlimited potential to do anything. Everyone except prospective employers, that is. I just don't understand...

And graduate school admissions officers, too... let's not forget about all of the lovely rejection letters I've received from them...

redrobin62 said:

Sometimes it sucks to be creative and/or a genius in some way... there always seems to be some sort of tradeoff that the "normals" are immediately afraid of.