Did doctors say that you were just "spoiled"?

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Questions like this disturb me. Yes, I grew up knowing, first and foremost, that everything about me was wrong, and I would never, ever get anything right. These are very frustrating memories, but I really wonder if it was even possible for me to assimilate the necessary information. That is, it's an interesting notion to think that I might have done better if anyone had understood why I went astray and dealt with the situation "properly" (whatever that means). But ultimately I had to learn certain behaviors that maybe my brain simply wasn't capable of absorbing. I hesitate to say things like this, because the statement can also make it easier for me to take the lazy way out and give up. On the other hand, there's certainly a degree of truth here. I've thought about it backwards and forwards countless times over the years, and I really don't know exactly what the problem is, or what I can and can't do about it. I've got all the data, but my vantage is subjective. Anyone on the outside may be more objective, but they don't know what I know. I guess this is a fundamental problem with psychology, which is why I generally think of psychology more as a play science than a practical discipline.

At the end of the day, I don't want a headshrink, or even necessarily a friend. What I really want is something no human can give, a word from God. Preferably a validation, to tell me it's not all my fault, like I'm afraid it is. Maybe I'm just lazy and spoiled and selfish, and this has all been a pitiful binge of self-indulgence. There are certainly plenty of people in the world I'd say that about. Yes, some people are just "spoiled". In the complex blend of human affairs, it's certainly true that I could have done more. But how much more? Ten percent more? Or a thousand percent?

I can't answer these questions, but I think I've accomplished something by framing them. That may be as good as we can do. Beyond that, to be alive is to struggle, and out of that struggle comes -- hopefully -- some positive growth. If there is any greater order to the universe, then I think I'm stating a fundamental part of it.

I felt a strange surge of joy when I learned that the name "Israel", which was given to Jacob when he returned to reconcile with Esau regarding the stolen birthright and ended up fighting with an angel, means "man who struggled with God". Somewhere in that tale lies the hint of the validation I seem to need.

I'm sometimes told I am spoiled by people I know, but to me it's another tick of a box that they're quite mute in the any reason based thinking.
I can see how they come to the conclusion, I just find it a little hard to respect most when they dont seem to look at 'why' it appears that way.

No one ever told me I was spoiled for the simple fact that I lived in a small town and they all knew my mother. If you left out a toy, she would throw it away in front of you and you would never get another toy like that. If anyone fought over a toy, regardless of whose it was, she would throw it away. We never got warnings. If we did something wrong, she would smack us immediately and say, Are you happy now? Which of course, provided no answer as to why you were smacked in the first place. So no, I can't say anyone would have said I was spoiled. They just thought I was strange. Mostly, my doctor (who did give me prescription drugs for migraines he had no business giving me), teachers, etc. were protective of me. My father and brothers were protective of me. Certainly no one thought I was normal and just over-indulged though.

Your whole post could have been taken from my mind. I think about those things a lot.

And...I dig that about "Israel". I am kind of obsessed with studying religion. (It might be a temporal lobe epilepsy thing, or I'm just weird, whatever.) Anyway, even though religion in general is fascinating, the one that speaks to me is Judaism. And for just the reason that you mention. It's not sacreligious to struggle with God. I might struggle, but my goal is to get closer to God, that's the important thing.

Actually I never heard a doctor say I'm spoiled. When I got tested for AS the phycologist didn't say anything. Did a rapid number of question and then I was done.

When I was a kid my parents hardly ever took me to the dr. But I did have some teachers that complained I need to look people in the eye, should participate in classroom discussion. But mostly I was just labeled a shy. I did see on a dentists chart once that I was labeled as "has a bad attitude".

Wait, you mean that's not how it usually goes? No wonder that s**t never helped. I never went for more than once a week a couple months at a time, though.

I never went to a doctor because of AS, just because I never did my homework. I actually never even realized I was weird until sometime in high school. I guess my parents didn't either, or at least, not beyond the not doing my homework thing. I've been diagnosed with ADD twice, but never spoiled, which is kinda funny, cuz I was spoiled (still am. Wish I wasn't. I haven't learned a thing in the 19 years I've been alive. But I'm not about to ask my dad to stop paying my rent for me).

Ha ha, don't you just hate it when people telepathically steal your thoughts and publish them as their own? There oughtta be a law...

I don't know whether this is appropriate, but since you latched on to my comment about Israel, I'll go on about religion. I was raised in a secular Jewish family, so I grew up "knowing" Judaism was merely a mundane set of obsolete customs. For example, I was told that Jews didn't believe in an afterlife, and that the kosher diet was developed to avoid health hazards such as trichinosis. So it was clear to me there was no point in being Jewish, in that Judaism offered nothing that rational humanism and science couldn't deliver.

Sometimes I would sink into depression from which there seemed no possible remedy. Aside from fear of dying, I could see no reason to continue with life. Something was missing, something very important, but I couldn't put my finger on what this thing was. Eventually, I happened to read certain philosophical works that helped me achieve greater clarity. (One particular essay that stands out was Leo Tolstoy's essay, "A Confession". For what it's worth, the text is online here: http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/tolstoy/confession.html.) In a nutshell, my realization was this: Life is inherently meaningless without a transcendental philosophy, because the material world is finite; all things will end, including the universe itself, and therefore all human effort is in vain. In that sense, my depression was a completely rational reaction to the worldview I had been taught. If other people weren't depressed, it was simply because they were too stupid to realize the implications of their philosophy. They, unlike me, could bask in their vanities and pointless hedonism. Or, during their unhappy moments, they could blame their dissatisfactions upon earthly issues. They either proceeded on the irrational assumption that life mattered, or they simply didn't care.

It was all well and good to realize that I needed a transcendental philosophy, but I wasn't capable of accepting an unbelievable thing simply because I wanted it to be so. I couldn't accept a supernatural power that violated common sense. Doesn't rational science promise to answer all questions, and thus preclude explanations that involve a God? It seemed there was no way out of this box.

Over a long period, I eventually came to realize that science, as wonderful as it was, simply cannot answer all questions. For example, although I understand some scientists have put forth theories, I don't believe science can ever explain how our mechanical bodies "came awake" and we became conscious beings. Human consciousness is a deep mystery. It cannot be measured or even detected, and indeed it is an article of faith that other human beings are conscious as we are. This connects to the question of free will, which we subjectively believe in, and yet it provably cannot exist in a universe governed by cause-and-effect at the macro-level and quantum uncertainty at the micro-level. Science simply cannot account for humanity as we know it.

Then there's the question of good and evil, the idea of which is fundamentally religious. From a strictly materialistic viewpoint, there's no qualitative difference between raping a child and bouncing one rock off another. I understand the humanists claim they can derive human rights without citing God, and I once believed this, but I've come to realize it's nonsense. We are subjective, and only God (if He exists) is absolute. Humanistic morality can be nothing more than a set of prejudiced opinions.

Since I already believed in free will and absolute good and evil, I realized that I had already made my personal "leap of faith"; I just hadn't realized it.

It was Dennis Prager's book, "Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism", that suggested to me that Judaism could help fill the void part of my soul. Imagine my surprise upon learning, late in life, that religious Jews actually believe in God, and the Old Testament addresses these difficult questions! (In retrospect, I am shocked and annoyed that it was possible for me to grow up in such profound ignorance. But that's the subject of another rant.) More importantly, this God of the Jews did not ask me to believe anything that violated either my common sense or my understanding of hard science. He stands outside of time and space, having breathed life into us and given us His moral law. It's my responsibility to translate that law into action. That's the framework in which we operate, and it's one I can sink my teeth into.

Well, I ranted more than I expected to here, so I'll leave it at that and hope this is welcome.

I don't really understand the question. You would never find me at a doctors office or something of the like. I never did anything outside of shopping for games or books. Once I found the things I wanted and bought I was ready to go home.

I was not told by a doctor that I was spoiled, and although I had a late diagnosis of ASD, it was quickly determined in a single visit.
I was however, told by the Dyslexia Institute that I was lazy because I was not performing well at school. The fact that I was continuously bullied and had gifted level IQ was not realised or considered at the time, although I was obviously very intelligent.
Due to my intensity, directness and general lack of social awareness, I have often been thought to have been ‘spoiled’.
The most recent person to accuse me of this was a friend’s mother, of whom brought attention to my supposedly ‘poor behaviour’ quite recently and on my twenty-first birthday.
Due to the nature of my Asperger’s, I did not realise I was behaving inappropriately which only served to ‘prove’ to others that I was spoiled.

These NT’s are so difficult to please!