Does it bother you to see your peers with certain things?

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What I mean by this is does it bother you to see your peers with things you don't have? If you see your peers with a significant other, getting married, or having kids and you are alone does it make you depressed? Or if you see your peers starting out in their career and you still live with your parents and have no job or a part time in which you can't get ahead, do you get depressed? Do you get depressed when you feel that your autism is setting you back from doing certain things or do you not care that much? I know people who are not autistic but get jealous whenever they see an engagement on Facebook because they don't have a significant other in their life. Some people also get jealous when they see their Facebook friends going on lavish vacations and they aren't getting to go anywhere. For me, things like these don't bother me. I know that I am different. For other people, autistic or not, not having certain things that other people have really bothers them. I've never understood this. I've never felt the need to go out of my way for something just so I can be like everyone else. I just do things that make me happy. I don't compare myself to other people or try to compete.

I can certainly get the occasional moments of depression from witnessing couples doing their thing, but oddly enough, it depends on the situation. I've grown to be able to suppress it for the most part, especially around friends and acquaintances. But if I come across a young couple displaying their affection in public, that still manages to trigger the depression.

I contemplated seeing a therapist or something about it at one point, but I never executed that plan. I'm not entirely sure it'd be worth the time and money, in all honesty.

Watching my very normal "twin" cousin progress throughout childhood into a fully independent adult hasn't been entirely easy.

Plenty of peers , in terms of age, have done many things that, I might never be able to do properly.

For them, it appears like second nature when they drive a car and get a job and relationships

Yes I feel jealous and inferior

The key is to put more emphasis on moving your life forward and less emphasis on feeling jealous

Getting rid of jealousy is not necessarily required or happening or possible


Some Doctor Spock types correctly point out that everyone is in a different situation

And then compare yourself with how you did when you were younger



But that doesn't make sense either


When I was eleven years old, I ran a mile in seven minutes fifty six seconds. Now that I am35and postmenopausal, it is not happening again. Short of liposuction

Eleven year olds have a competitive advantage at running over ,35year olds






My sister is a medical doctor and I have only had minimum wage jobs

Jealousy





where do I begin

It does bother me when people who didn't have to try as hard as me in everything get through life. Have stable jobs etc. But then again i guess it was my fault for trying so hard at everything. Now i don't put an effort for anything.

Yes it does. But while I have kind of accepted that my NT peers will typically be doing stuff like clubbing, parties and vacations with friends, it actually bothers me MORE when I see peers that are socially awkward doing things that I'm not.
For example, I have a cousin who is my age and has always fell behind her peers intellectually and she's also often in her own world and not always very good at following conversation. She doesn't have any friends, but she has a boyfriend. I don't think she's on the autism spectrum but she still struggles in some things. I often find myself comparing myself to her more because I'm just desperate to feel reassured that I'm not the only one in my family who is different.
This is where I wish I had a relative around my age who is more challenged than I am, like severely autistic or ret*d or just anything that doesn't class as NT. Then I won't be dangling at the bottom, I could know that there is someone "below" me socially. Then that relative could look up to me, and I could even help them and stuff.

But no, everybody related to me has to be NT or even if they do have some difficulties they're still more NT than me. Has to be me, me, me, who has been dealt with the bad cards.

when i see people getting married and having kids i know they will likely regret it or complain about the good old days when they were free and independent. Stockholm Syndrome takes over of course and they rationalise it.

I would like more of a social life tho, that's kind of something I'm working on. i don't like to be envious of others, it's a waste of my mental energy.

It bothers me when I see peers who are very social effortlessly making new acquaintances and being likable to the new acquaintances right from the get go.

I'm not attracted to material wealth, so seeing peers that may go for having all the "toys", flashy car, etc doesn't make me jealous in the least.

Sometimes I find myself with twinges of jealousy that some of my peers, high achievers, have in fact achieved great success at work and financially but then I circle back to reality and remember that I pi**ed away about ten years of my life being a lazy slob with no motivation before I decided to set goals and work toward them. Those peers deserved their success because they worked very hard to get where they are.

In regard to those "high achievers" and others who advance socially and professionally, I do get frustrated often thinking something like: "How the hell can they be accomplishing all of that?!? There are only 24 hours in a day. What secret do they know that I don't???" It's enough of a challenge for me to have a steady job, be a husband and a father and try to keep the house from not looking like a trash heap. And, I fail in those areas fairly steadily at that.....

"peers" in terms of age

Plenty of people much younger than me, have jobs, friends, drive cars, whatever

Not everyone has a job or friends or a car

It bothers me how sometimes it looks like they do things with little effort

Things like drive a car, work at jobs

But jealousy gets you nowhere

But jealousy is not tabboo

To be honest, yes. Especially cars, stable jobs, apartments/houses, friends, and significant others. I try to be happy for other people, but it's hard.

Yes. Mostly when it comes to people having children.
However, when I see how easily a lot of people have it, for instance in doing math (Which I am very challenged in) I get frustrated because I see my efforts often greatly exceeding their own but I still fall behind.

A fifth year electrical engineering undergrad told me that if she were to have spent, wasted or invested as much time studying as me, she would have gotten straight A's

And then I flunked structural engineering

13 years ago and five hundred miles away

And still obsessed with it




Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Ain't good at any of the seven multiple intelligences



Sometimes jealous and frustrated

Gave up in "life" a long time ago





You do not get a merit badge for effort

relationships, work, school

Nothing comes naturally



Without exaggeration

I get more bothered when people who I least expect would have babies, have babies. I also get jealous, because I can't ever see me having a baby but I'd like one. And when someone like your best friend has a baby, everything changes. But I am forced to be happy for them, otherwise I get told that I can't control other people's lives.

As long as they worked hard and never wronged me or others to earn what they have, I'm happy for them. Why would I feel bad about a good and honest person succeeding in life? Turn the tables for a moment. Suppose you worked your ass off and went through hell for years to finally afford a nice house, and then one of your jealous cousins insulted you. How would that make you feel? Bottom line, you don't have control over others, so focus on your own life. Other people's lives are none of your business. If you want something, then go and earn it yourself.

I don't let them know I'm feeling jealous. I think it's just from being bitter that I have a disability and they don't.

Lots of people get jealous from pettier things, like some women get horribly jealous if they think another woman is prettier than them. It happens among humans.

I also get bitter because my anxieties are so high that I actually fear pregnancy, also I have a high chance of passing my ASD on to my child. And I wondered about adoption, but I looked into it and apparently it's really hard to adopt. You've got to be 100% mentally stable, with a rich and secure life, and everything.

So seeing other people succeed in things that I can't just makes me feel bitter. But doesn't mean I project those feelings on to them. I'd just congratulate them, then go off and beat myself up about it when I'm alone, until I come to accept it.