warning, self-absorbed drivel

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I'm not really looking for advice or solutions because I don't have any faith and will mentally shoot down anything people say. I just want people to read and reply to everything I write because, well, let's face it - I'm selfish and I crave attention. I just want stimulation and attention, to feel I'm not alone in the world. I keep getting this horrible fear that nothing in the world will ever be good enough to make me happy.

I'm beginning to think my PDD/AS isn't the main issue causing me so much mental misery in life. I might even have a very mild case and only isolate myself because I'm so depressed all the time. I've been compulsively participating in the WP forums for a long time but now I'm completely jaded with the topic of Autism/AS. The same old tired thread topics keep coming up over and over where everyone adds their 2 cents but nothing ever goes more than skin deep.

It seems the older I get the less I feel like my old PDD/AS self. My old childhood obsessions seem uninteresting and – uhh corny? dorky? – no, I can't even think of the right word so f*** it. I feel embarrassed about myself. Without obsessions I have no personality. I share more about myself on here than I do with anyone in real life, yet somehow even here I don't feel quite sincere. I don't feel like a real person anymore. I have no identity. I feel like I should be some kind of disembodied spirit floating over the earth and observing.

Lately I'm starting to feel flaky as well. Sometimes I start imagining there's this deep emotional meaning behind my current setting, that if I could only capture it the insatiable void would be gone. But then when the feeling is over the anhedonia comes back fiercer than ever. The realization of falseness makes my despair even worse. I realize that my emotions are completely disconnected from reality and it scares me sh*tless. Actually I believe everyone's emotions are disconnected from reality, only nobody else ever realizes it until they come to a point where they themselves are staring down the abyss.

I feel like I'm the only one that realizes there is no control. People think they can control their life and willfully give it meaning, yet they can only feel this way when the bio-chemical stage is already set for them. If you happen to be born with a brain that at some point will fail to produce meaning for you then you're going to be f*cked in life and there is no reason to continue living. What's worse, society will judge you for this and assault your character because you're no longer of use to the collective tribe mind. F*ck em. For the moment I really want to bring people down and drag them through the mud. I can't pretend that I'm above such feelings when I'm clearly not.

I realize if I make this any longer nobody will have the patience to even think about reading it so I'm going to shut up now.

Anyways, If you didn't have the patience to read all the crap I wrote above I'll give a more concise version. Basically I'm feeling really depressed and bitter for no particular reason and I desperately need some attention.

I hear you. You sound like how Patrick Bateman from American Psycho describes himself. His only feelings he can identify are anger and disgust. I thought there were some interesting parallels between him as a character and some of the guys on this forum.
If the biochemical stage wasn't set for you, you need to work on setting it for yourself. Hell, my natural state without Strattera is what normal people feel like when they're stoned. Barely any activity in my frontal lobes at all without it, I can barely get my thoughts out because my brain is so sluggish, and I'm prone to depression and have terrible impulse control. I can actually feel my forehead warm up when it kicks in. If antidepressants aren't doing it for you, it may be a stimulant or a different norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor that your brain needs. All I know is that whatever I had to do or take to find those meds that worked for me was completely worth it.

there there, marshall.

imo it's a prison planet and i'm just serving out my sentence like all the other prisoners. suicide would be equivalent to a jail break and they just add on to your sentence, so i'm doing my time.

does that cheer you up at all?

As cliched as this sounds, I survive by concentrating on life's simple pleasures. Admittedly this is far easier now that I'm on Prozac. The truth is the world is a terrible place and it is also a wonderful place. The trick I think is to acknowledge the bad but focus on the good. When I drive to work in the morning I glance at all the ugly asphalt and buildings and then appreciate the way the morning sun is hitting the mountains and the clouds. Takes my breath away. Sometimes I can feel happiness just because it's quiet, I have a cup of coffee and a good book and my son is giggling over something on YouTube.

I do the same thing. I'm only happy when I'm focusing on the beauty of the moment. I'm truly happy when I can drive into the mountains. As a child I was happy staring at the clouds for hours. I found the greatest spiritual high in standing on a hilltop for hours on humid nights watching distant lightning illuminate the clouds and desperately wishing for the most severe storms to approach my location.

Only, that stuff isn't good enough for society. I have to be constantly fretting over my future, career, finances, etc., when it's all so emotionally dry and sterile and choking, like being forced to breathe in plaster dust. I hate life with a passion. I hate capitalism. I hate all the stupid BS that surrounds me. I can't mindf*ck myself into seeing any meaning in it, nada, zilch. I can't make surviving in life into an adventure like some people can because to me it's all completely mind-numbing. I've lost interest in everything. I can't stand thinking about politics anymore. I can't turn on the television or even listen to NPR anymore without wanting to projectile vomit.

Earlier in life I was content being a lone weirdo. I didn't care that I couldn't really relate to anyone or at least the gravity of my disconnect wasn't so readily apparent to me. Being isolated in my own solitary passions isn't good enough anymore. I'm becoming too NT, too aware of other people and having the need to fit in, the need to have shared experiences. In college I had a taste of being a more social person, but the people I bonded with were immature. All we ever did was goof around, play video games, watch South Park, etc.

At this stage in my life I can't relate to anyone. People bore me and I can't find anyone good enough to keep me stimulated. I'm too selfish. I don't care about other people's lives, their careers, their families, their children, etc. I don't relate and I can't fake it anymore. My eyes glaze over when I'm around people. I feel completely useless.

I can only find pleasure in the moment and feel the need to avoid everything else in life. I can't see far past my own nose, I can no longer look forward to things in the future. I only want to experience beauty and happiness right here and now. Lately my mind feels like a black hole ready to collapse in on itself. My mood gets loopy. I have these deep romantic feelings when I think about being beaten down by the elements. I picture myself curled up in a fetal position on a mountain ledge, shivering violently on the brink of death.

*pats marshall on the back*

tough s**t. looks like you're having a true post-modernist blues heh? everything's already been done and said, same boring conversations over and over, people having the same pointless activities over and over...

I feel like that sometimes. quite often actually. but then someone does something unexpected and out of the ordinary and it keeps you interested in life just about enough to not give up on it.

I guess I don't have any advice for you, but it was a good rant.

marshall- you might enjoy reading The Power of Now by Eckhardt(?). Obviously we can't function if we live completely in the moment all the time but he maintains that if we start becoming aware of how much idle time we spend either anticipating the future or considering the past we realize how much we drain ourselves that way. The Buddhists call this mind drivel "monkey mind". I think it helps to train yourself to experience the moment when you can. Not that I've done that.

I can identify with the feelings of narcissists but I don't think I have a psychopath bone in me. I could only imagine being Patrick Bateman in some very strange distant alternate reality.

Even if I feel bitter, self-centered, and emotionally disconnected from people I still think I'm more conscientious and bound to my own personal principals of fairness than most NT's. I hate having to lie, cheat, or play games to get things for myself. I also hate seeing the powerful coolly taking advantage of the powerless. Anger is the only thing that can ever motivate me to do harm. Still, I do have fears of losing it and allowing something terrible to transpire from my anger.


I realize this. I've had so much trouble with medications in the past that I'm now afraid of trying. I also hate how psychiatrists have to be so controlling. I like to adjust the dosage myself and take things as gradually as I please so I can deal with the effects more easily. In the past I've taken medications that made me feel much worse and the psychiatrist didn't seem to recognize my concerns. I hate shelling out hundreds of dollars to some arrogant sh*t that thinks they know me better than I do.

Last edited by marshall on 12 Jun 2009, 6:50 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Last edited by alba on 08 Jun 2009, 3:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

oh it's not that I don't care about life or the world. I'm a christian pessimist. The OPs statement (and it was a great rant) was asking for secular opinions...I think the secular position on his situation is 'take the pills' as expressed by other posters.

but then...sometimes I get a kind of passing anhedonia too which makes it difficult to 'feel' anything, enjoy anything. That's when you get out the Donnie Darko soundtrack or something...usually I try to use music to lift my mood.

What I find difficult, and I dont know if this is relevant or not, is having excesses of spare time. I think that nothing is more instrumental in causing these existential crises than having nothing to do. I feel at times that if I find something good enough to do, that takes up enough time, it would solve a lot of my problems. I just dont know what would fit this description.

yeah, there's often a kind of strong inertia with these moods in my case and i can barely get out of bed.

I agree with spare time being the problem. I think the even bigger issue is that my mind is more active than the average person's. Dull menial activities that don't engage my mind or generate curiosity are of no help. Yet if I reveal my true feelings to the average person they're going to think I'm a lazy narcissist that wants everything handed to me on a silver platter. They can't get it through their thick skulls that my disposition and need for stimulation isn't a personal choice. I might be better off if someone hit me over the head with a shovel and turned me into a drooling robot without any emotion. Then I could serve society better.

It's this nature of my disconnect that stirs my anger and disgust towards life, and towards people in general.

Last edited by marshall on 08 Jun 2009, 1:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Having made a long thread of self-absorbed drivel of my own, and trying to think of what to say on yours, I realised that people (well, me at least) only try to say positive things because that is what is expected, morally. If I say I would rather die now, on my own thread, then that is acceptable because for someone to say that they would have to be not in their right minds. But reading your thread, seeing you have same if not worse life than me, I can only agree with you. You are 100% right when you say you have no control over your life and successful people are deluded to think that it is themselves that have made them great. I've been banned from chat rooms for giving this opinion so I will stop there

The worst thing about it is my life isn't actually that bad. I've excelled academically because in the past I've always been driven in my quest to understand the world. I'm trying to complete a MS degree in atmospheric science but I'm feeling completely burned out at this point.

I'm a very analytical thinker but I can't bear the grunt work and BS that goes along with making a career out of science. My problem is that I have no interest in actually living in this world. I only want to exist in an ivory tower where I don't have to deal with people and their BS. I fear that most people envy my academic success and can't relate to my current depression if I try to explain to them how lately I've been losing my interest in science. I'm constantly sidetracked by other topics that are more interesting to me these days.

like what?