An exercise in futility and insignificance

Post Reply New Topic

I'm in this raw kind of psychological pain. I wanted to avoid writing about it again, because it's never pretty and usually doesn't yield results. Either my text is concise and readable, but only a myopic and ultimately wrong description of my issues, or it is a long-winded and complex text noone will want to read or understand. And, of course, it might still be a flawed analysis.

I'm more and more aware of my limitations and what they mean for my life. I always thought of myself as relatively intelligent, but I see now that in the important areas of life I'm actually ret*d. I just don't know how to cope with it, how to build a life that could be right for me. I've given up on a lot of things in recent years, what you call a normal life, not exactly voluntarily. What's left cannot be called living, it is merely existing. It is not enough.
Yet I don't know where to find the energy or courage to try anymore.

I don't know how to accept that I'm so defective. There's too much that needs repairing and fixing, and I'm just not capable enough to get it done with the resources I have. I've been living with the unholy trinity of autism, anxiety and depression for about 30 years now, and I don't think I've made significant progress adjusting to it. On the contrary, because I didn't know about my autism until quite recently, I burned myself out trying to lead a normal life. It feels like I went all in, and there is nothing left. Now I can't even get back to the at least semi-confident and vaguely hopeful person I was a few years ago.

I just wonder how other people do it. Either my life is exceptionally flawed and painful, or they have some sort of coping skill that makes them love life anyway. I don't know how to enjoy life like this, seeing the potential, being very aware of it, and at the same time perpetually failing to shape it into something real and lasting. And I don't see a point in living a life you can't enjoy.

Not only is your writing is elegant and well-expressed, but I feel the same way. I don't have any answers though .

I do have things in life I enjoy and distractions such as movies and video games. Still, depression and anxiety are normal for me. Meditation helps I think. Being around people or trying to act normal usually makes me feel worse. However, the thought of being forever alone is tough to handle sometimes.

I feel the pain you are expressing all too well-I tried for something more and got totally hurt and still hurt but in a different way right now-I tried and failed and I do not know if I will ever try again.

Depression and anxiety are sometimes a show stopper, but if you are even good at one thing~you can build on that. I've suffered with depression & anxiety for most of my life and have learned to "run my own race" ~ meaning, not comparing myself to Anyone else and doing things that I like to do no matter what anyone else thinks about it. This was one of the biggest stumbling blocks that I've ever had to overcome, but once I did, it was life changing! Good luck and never give up!

Quitters never win, and winners never quit! You can do it!!

YOU, are NOT defective. This is one thing about NTs that really feels like sand. NTs have this perception that people with Autism and Asperger Syndrome are defective because our brain does not function the way their brain functions. They consider us to be "broken" because we are not like them. The thing that is not understood is that our brains are not broken. We are NOT defective. On the Stanford website there are some exceptionally valuable biomedical studies you can access to review. Asperger and Autistic brains are biologically designed differently. I do not believe this is a medical issue that needs to be corrected. I believe this is a natural cycle in nature. It is kind of like bees. There are all sorts of bees in hierarchy. The vast majority of the bees are worker bees. The worker bees are important to the hive. There are a tremendous number of worker bees. There is a Queen bee. The Queen bee is vitally important to the hive. She is designed differently than the worker bees, but without her unique design the entire hive would perish. You are amazingly and wonderfully designed. Asperger brains take the world forward. Researchers are now finding ways for Autistic people to communicate. The trend is that Autistic people are aware and EXCEPTIONALLY gifted and creative. They do not communicate in the same way NT people communicate. Sometimes I wonder if we were given an opportunity to develop within our own community, how our community might develop to communicate with each other and to learn. Possibly with music, tone and pitch. Anyway. Emotionally we face isolation because of our differences. I am even rare within the Asperger community. I am a female Asperger with an exceptional I.Q. No one ever wants to talk about particles or astrophysics. I ask questions no one can answer. I had to learn to be able to research to find answers to questions other people cannot answer. I have had to live with professors and students persecuting me because of my ability, only I did not understand what it was I was doing that caused the reaction I was receiving in class and on campus. We are different. In sociology 1301 class, we learned the gemeinshcaft destroy what they cannot understand. It is their way. It is not our way. Find what you are good at and then throw your whole heart into it. I agree with the above poster who suggested focusing on your work or what you are designed to do. That is the thing that helps me the most. It takes my mind off of all the people who abuse me and puts me right into the place where I need to be. It helps me to forget about being lonely. One thing we all have to remember as Asperger and Autistic is that we have to blaze our own trails. Our work has to speak for us. If you focus on your work or the things that bring you the most enjoyment, you will be the best in your field AND eventually there will be other people, Autistic, Asperger and NT who will find you and you will have something in common to speak about which will lead you to friendships. This is the best I have to offer. Hope it helps.
MelodyC

MelodyC: How do you explain why most people at Cern and other particle accelerators, are probably NT?
I'm passionately into astrophysics as well as other stronly academic topics, but I feel AS is more of a hindrance. I may be intelligent in many academic areas but there are lots of NTs with high intellect also.

LookTwice expressed very well how many of us feel. No matter how intelligent you are, life is so unrewarding, because one's happiness is usually dependent on other people being there for us.
Many of us are sick and tired of being so much more academically intelligent than the people around us, and seeing those people around us who have this thing called happiness.

Those pro-AS loonies tend to bash on the same tired out point that we are able to see things in a unique way and "we are the inventors, engineers, writers, creators of many useful things and ideas" etc.. But they fail to deal with the fact that we are still human. For men particularly, we crave for affection, love, intimacy, and we have hormones that crave for intimacy and sex, but we are constantly reminded that those seem to be privileges exclusively reserved for NTs.
In my earlier years I had always thought that castration would be my "get out of jail" card. It would get rid of many annoying cravings and let me get on with my life.

I've got no answers either, OP, but I 'feel' you.

I used to have things that I was good at and interested in but brain damage and psychological damage have gotten rid of those so I'm not good at much of anything these days. (And it's been like this for 10+ years, so I can't write it off as some transient thing.) Got a degree that might unduly impress some people, but it's useless and I couldn't do any work that I could get based on it, anyway. I also aimed for normal but burned out big time.

There are days where I know what the rest of my life will be like and feel ok about it, though. (Maybe it's just all the psychotropic drugs I'm on.) All I really need is a pet, quiet, and freedom from the demands of humans. I may lose that last thing permanently, though, in which case I'll probably be checking out of the world in the next some-odd years.

Chris71, I do have an explanation for why most of the people who work at CERN are NT. It could have something to do with the fact that there are many more people who are NT than there are people like us in the world, so the statistics would be in the NT people's favor. It also might have something to do with NT people seem to be more aggressive than those of us with Asperger or Autism. My thought is employment at CERN is very competitive. Aggressiveness would give NT people an edge for obtaining employment at CERN.

While I do acknowledge there are NT's with high intelligence, I also understand that my abilities as a person with Asperger Syndrome are unique and do give me an intellectual edge. It can be difficult to be among people who are accustomed to being the most intelligent person in the room. It was startling to become aware that my presence in a room with these people would have a negative affect on them and that the response would be to attack me. My perspective about intellectual people is that we can all come together and truly enjoy working on our science together. It would be remarkable to be among people who put science first and love it as much as I do.

NT people do not view science the same way we view science. They view science as a social status. I view science as an extension of my design. It is not a social status. It is what I am. I eat, breath, sleep and dream about my science. If I am so blessed to have someone to speak to me or to work with me specific to any of the sciences, but especially particles and astrophysics, it is very exciting to connect with someone who understands the beauty and mystery that is science. This is how I socialize. This is where I find beauty. This is where my strength as a scientist resides.

Perhaps it is a great disservice to our community when NT people point out that our strengths are in our different ability and perspective. Our real strength is the love we have for our science. It propels us into the place that is correct for us. The differences in our perception can be a useful tool, but it is our drive and passion for the things in our design that give us our unique edge.

It could be while some well-intended NT people attempt to assist us to assimilate, they do not truly have the ability to consider us from an Asperger or Autistic perspective. At some point as a person with Asperger Syndrome, you have to learn to "let go" of the NT perspectives about you and your life and understand YOU are in charge of your life.

My journey for understanding who and what I am taught me that ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance does not allow me to understand myself to be in a better position to protect myself and to guide my life in the direction I want it to be driven. My life-experience has taught me that this is not some NT placate or phrase. It was not until I came to a better understanding about the biological differences in my brain and to analyze the misconceptions of NTs about people with Asperger Syndrome and Autism that I was able to find balance in my life. The knowledge gave me the power to make decisions that are correct for my life and the person I am.

LookTwice's post caught my attention last night because I was experiencing extreme self-doubt about my ability to communicate with NTs. This is a cycle that always results in loneliness because I begin to evaluate there is no one in the world like me. It is an emotional hurt that is very deep and not easily dispersed. There are some people that are kind and make an effort to help, but it does not alleviate the fact that there is no one who is like you. No one who shares your level of intelligent or your passion for the thing for which you are designed. These feelings are what brought me to WrongPlanet last night. It is an emotional pain we all share.

The Haven is not a place to discuss intimacy issues. There are other places on the board for those type discussions. I will point out that men are not the only sex that experience the feelings you described. There is science in place to support both sexes experience these type of emotions equally, only in different ways.

Thank you for responding to my post. It does help to know there are adults with Asperger Syndrome of which to connect.

MelodyC

NT people do not view science the same way we view science. They view science as a social status.


That's a rather sweeping generalization.

Well, it's been nearly a month since I posted this.

I didn't dare look at this thread for a few weeks out of fear I might not be able to handle whatever response it evoked (including the possibility of no reaction at all). So, thanks to everyone who replied.
I'm not going to address anyone specifically, since trying that would only lead to me not posting at all because of my internal filters getting in the way. I am (and was), by the way, not trying to speak for anyone else. Instead, this will be - again - a long, self-involved ramble.

I don't want to pretend that I'm posting again to clear things up, or provide answers. In fact, I feel I'm pretty much in the same place I was a few weeks ago, although it's hard to be linear about myself and my experience.
Shortly after posting, I started taking high dose SJW, which again showed its potential to push me into hypomania for a few days. It altered my brain chemistry enough to give me access to a reasonable amount of positive emotion, although as always, the experience also had the quality of being detached from reality and somewhat nauseating. This kind of hypomania is very short lived though, so now I'm trying to figure out some sort of cycle that works well enough to keep me going.

We can go into semantics about whether I'm defective or not, but the philosophy of that is not really important to me. When I say I feel defective, then this is not a self-deprecating statement, it's merely a concise summary of how I experience life.
I'm talking about what stands in the way of my happiness – my inability to have a normal relationship with other people, for example. There are a thousand processes going on in my head that I would categorize as just not very helpful for dealing with my emotions, with my experience and with what I want from and give to other people.
Yet I have this craving to be connected, to alleviate this strange sense of loneliness. I'm not talking about biological urges, although those are problematic too. I'm talking about me dodging calls from the one person that cares (or cared) about me, about being too much of a coward to reestablish contact. About not knowing what to say or how to express what is going on with me, what I'm thinking. I talk about having a meltdown while said person was in my apartment a few months ago, turning a pleasant visit into this embarrassing and soul crushing nightmare. I'm talking about the incongruity between what I perceive as „I“ and what I become when other people are around. I talk about not being able to think and function as soon as I'm not alone, and many things more. I talk about my inability to handle anger, sadness and all those other complicated emotions like an adult.
I talk about my ongoing lack of direction and purpose, my very delicate relationship with past and future and the brittleness of everything. I talk about feeling the need to cry, punch myself in the face and jump off someplace really high at the same time whenever I don't remember to distract myself from thinking.

I recently heard David Foster Wallace talk about this insurmountable fact that we just cannot be in someone else's mind, that we can't really grasp what is going on with that other person over there, and how it creates this existential kind of loneliness. We can't even be sure other people exist. There is a lack of insight into whatever and whoever is around me, something that surpasses ideas of psychology, something that is in a way very theoretical and scary.
I have never encountered anyone I perceived to have thought processes and idiosyncracies similar to mine, but whenever I hear DFW talk about writing, about being human, about solipsism and its consequences, I feel like I'm basically him - minus the talent, of course.

There is not much I'm really good at that could save me by absorbing all my energy and attention. I sometimes have the illusion of being good at things, but that happens mostly during hypomania, a time when I don't really require much to back up beliefs about myself.
There are a few good pointers in your replies, and I think they might have convinced me about ten years ago. I have struggled with the idea what I should do, with my fleeting and ever changing interests. But these mood swings are really hard to deal with. One moment you're absolutely fascinated by something, excited to spend more time with it. The next moment you think about it – nothing. It has lost all its relevance. It takes away even the illusion that I'm in control of anything, and it takes away the illusion that there is something that can solve things for me, that can make me happy if I pursue it.

I am trying to focus on work and a few other things, and it helps to temporarily push things out of my mind, even though I have a lot of issues regarding work as well. Same thing for video games and other forms of entertainment. They either fail to provide enough of a distraction, or, as in the case of one video game that I played a lot in recent years, I don't cope well with its competitive nature anymore.

My core problem is that I feel lost, confused and alone, have felt so for a long time, and I'm not hopeful this will change in the foreseeable future. I'm tired of this tension inside of me, the perpetual feeling that disaster is just around the corner, this inner struggle to keep all the garbage and ugliness from surfacing in an unfiltered manner. I'm tired of being unable to just enjoy life.
I see other people making claims about understanding me, but I'm sceptical, I still feel very different and alone with it. After all, these are just a bunch of words looking at me when I turn on the computer.
Maybe things would be better if I had a bunch of people who felt similar in the neighbourhood, people I could just go to a movie with without having to pretend. Maybe everything is simple and I just need a hug every once in a while. I don't know, I don't think so.
I'm often convinced that there is some sort of life situation out there, something that could make things a lot better for me; but just as often I think that it is just a fantasy, something as unreal as the TV and literary fiction that I consume in an attempt to feel less lonely.

The typical NT response would be some irritating comment about a wall of text.

I don't know you, I won't claim to understand you. I can relate to a lot of what you said. But sadly, I can't really offer any real advice. All you'd get is an acidic misanthropic barb, followed by some vitriolic advice about never trusting people. It's really sad, because I have lived that kind of solitary life where I have this need for companionship. Apparently, I am horrible at picking companions because they have this amazing tendency to turn on me. Yet here I am, talking to people. I'll never learn.

I know the whole thing sounds trite. But when I look back at my life and see all the pain and misery and look to the path ahead of me leading down into oblivion, the last thing I really want is anyone else having to go through that kind of hellish life.

You'd think after the all the pain and suffering at the hands of humans, I'd want the opposite. Strange.