I was never given a choice

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Musicislife, as a proud Navy veteran myself, my understanding is that the military now does have a policy of not admitting aspies. This is one of the reasons I discourage young people from getting an official diagnosis if they have any real choice in the matter.

Otherwise, you are spot-on. I've done well myself by parlaying my special interest in books and intellectual matters into a career as a librarian.

As far as us not having a choice in being autistic, it's what Martin Heidegger called "thrownness", or the way we are thrown into this world. All we can do is make the best of what we've got. Now I actually consider myself fortunate in comparison with most other people.

Women don't care about guy's skills at all. Just how much you can BS them and make them feel nice by telling them lies.

And money. Money is important, too.

I agree that some people need treatment!

I've been doing research and found the following:

http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/news/ ... way-shapes

This says that some autistics have additional lung resistance.

In the book shyness and love by Brian Gilmartin, he says on p. 366 that they have difficulty breathing through the nose and need sinus congestion treatment. This really helped me.

Does any of this describe you?

To attract women ... a man must learn things that he would not otherwise learn for himself.

Do you think that I like shopping, going to movies, and attending church where people speak in languages that I don't understand?

I don't; but my wife does. So do her friends. They all think that I'm a little eccentric; but they all seem to like me, as well. They also like my cooking, my fiddle-playing, and the fact that I know how to manage a garden, do laundry, and iron clothes.

Uhh ... no.

I grew up in a culture where broken things were never thrown out - they were either re-purposed or repaired well enough that you could easily ignore the chips, the cracks, and the mis-matched paint jobs.

We didn't give up, either; we always tried to find a way to make things better.

Go NAVY!

I was raised by a drunken, bullying bigot, who would beat me up after school for getting beat up at school (I guess that he was trying to "fix" me); but I endured it, learned a few things about astronomy, chemistry, electronics, and physics, and left home a week after graduating high school. What the grants wouldn't cover, I paid for out of my own pocket - no help from my family (except for a couple of crappy, hand-me-down cars that broke down within a year). Then I married a woman whom I thought loved me. 12 years and 2 kids later, she leaves me for the insurance salesman that she'd been banging wile I was off working overtime to pay for the house, the cars, and the Bahama vacations.

Then I joined the Navy. after all of the crap I'd been through, boot camp was a snap! The drill instructors could not beat me, but they could yell at me. Their yelling was nothing compared to what I had already been through - the hardest part was not laughing in their faces.

Now I've been married to a beautiful Asian woman who is working on her own Master's degree. We have a good life, and any mis-understandings are easily overlooked as cultural (not personal) differences.

Life can get better, but you have to work at it - "Just Do It!"

Fnord, I know where you're coming from with life growing up. My upbringing wasn't ideal either.

How long were you in the Navy, and what was your rating? Mine was CTO, and later YN.

If this is what you believe, then you will most likely make this come true.

As others have said, you don't have any choice in when you are born, where you are born, to what parents, and with what capabilities. You only have one life and this is it, so make the most of it.

I am one of those recently diagnosed at the age of 64. This meant that while I always felt different, I didn't know why, so I had nothing to blame it on.

It did make my life difficult, but with some encouragement from others, and realising my own capabilities, I think I did quite well.

I have had and still have an interesting and eventful life, I have done things I would never dreamed of when I was young, but the social difficulties that come with aspergers have been a problem.

I have joined groups since I was young ( scouts, air cadets, choirs etc) to interact more with others and improve my social skills.
Relationship breakups were very nasty (depression), but realised that if I was not happy with myself, then why should anyone else be, so decided to live by myself for a number of years.

You will find people here who have accepted the challenges aspergers brings and are happy with their life, but also others who think it sucks.

I don't know what it takes to make one belong to the first group, but having a negative attitude to oneself and ones capabilities definitely won't help.

Remember, the harder you work, the less luck you need.

Cheers

6 years, "ET", Honorably discharged.

I tutored people in electronics, celestial navigation, SATCOM, RADAR, computer technology, and coffee-making.

It was easy - be where you're supposed to be, when you're supposed to be there, and doing what you're supposed to be doing; stay out of trouble, keep your uniform clean, and salute all officers and follow the Eleven General Orders of a Navy Sentry at all times:


All of this discipline and structure was perfect for my Aspie personality, and I didn't even know it at the time!

It does occur to me

But have to agree with you, far from over for you galvatron. Turn yourself into somebody that people want to get to know.

Last edited by The_Perfect_Storm on 30 Jun 2013, 8:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I didn't.

Fnord, I'm too individualistic and temperamental for the military life, but I'm still glad I did it. It did me some good as well, as it taught me some self-discipline. And I'm honorably discharged as well. It's a good feeling knowing I could do it being an aspie.

Yep, now people junk a car for a bad alternator or dents.

    Because -to a greater or lesser degree- everyone, and even most animals and many plants have to do this.
    Plants have to pretend to be a food source to get sex (pollinized).
    Right or wrong - this is the way the world operates.

    But more importantly how do you know this is someone you are not?
    Do you, unlike most of the world, know yourself and your complete potential so fully that you can know this isn't you? Perhaps not.

    And if it isn't you currently and therefore not you, then learning anything, any self improvement, any new special interest or hobby is, and will be, you not being you.
    You are now never allowed to grow or change in any way. You mustn't even get fatter!! =)

    And lastly, why should you do these things? Because in your original post you implied that you wanted those things!
    Nobody is telling you that you have to do them, YOU are saying you want something and people are offering advice on how to achieve those things.

    Think about their advice, otherwise it just looks like you came here looking for a fight.
    Nobody here chose to make you autistic so there's no point in fighting them.
    We're on your side. We are your side. We've been there and we are there. We DO feel your pain because it is also ours!

This a quote from the French author Volatire that might be helpful:

"Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game."

Yeah, it always seems to me the more we try the less we actually succeed. Best to learn from life's failings and take the simple most effective remedy. Its called humble pie.