Does anyone feel like the "failure" child or is it

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goldfish21
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14 Oct 2014, 5:46 am

For a few years I felt pretty frustrated when comparing myself to my siblings.

My symptoms were strong and I wasn't able to work full time or make much progress in life.

Meanwhile my younger sister was working, my older brother has a career he's been in for more then a decade, and my twin brother had been working at the same job for several years, too. My sister got by ok, my brothers both earned decent money/benefits etc & meanwhile I felt like I was going backwards as my work & financial situation got worse.

I know they say not to compare yourself to others.. but it's pretty much human nature to do it. Of COURSE I compared myself to my twin brother and others' progress in work and life and by comparison I most certainly did feel like the failure child for a quite some time. BUT, then a couple years ago I figured out how to treat my symptoms & have done so over the past year and a half or so with great results that have allowed me to be back to work now full time+ hours for over a year now. I'm happier & healthier than ever in my life, and in one year I've saved about the same amount of money that it took my twin brother to accumulate in about 8 years of slowly saving away. At this pace I've now caught up to him in many ways, passed him in others, and am about to continue moving forward until I blow right passed him & other friends and family.

So, yeah, I felt like the failure child for years.. so frustrated that I couldn't apply my education in real world applications & make any work/financial progress.. but now that's all changed and I'm feeling more and more like the child that's going to make the most of myself & my capabilities as time moves forward. 8)


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BirdInFlight
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14 Oct 2014, 12:58 pm

I feel like a failure not merely in comparison to others/my siblings, but even in terms of what I wanted out of life, for myself, and failed to achieve with the ease with which they've achieved theirs. It's not even about failure in what they have but failure in what I thought I could reasonably have too, and tried, and failed. I will never make enough money to live even comfortably, for example. I work hard but I get nowhere. There's more but I don't want to get laid into for laying things bare.



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14 Oct 2014, 1:42 pm

My cousins on one side all got fancy-schmancy jobs with big pay. One of them married in her 30s, the other one is probably gay.

Actually, I look at them and feel pretty good about myself. I am happier in my life than I would be in theirs. I'm sure they feel the same way.

My cousins on the other side are alcoholics and junkies. One of them still works the POS job he got when he was 19 and knocked up his girlfriend. Drinks like a fish and is a bit of an ass. The next one can't hold a job more than a year and takes more pills (not as prescribed) than Timothy Leary and Hunter S. Thompson combined. The third one, how do I put this nicely, basically makes a living on her back (she's not a whore any more, but that's basically the deal she has with her SO-- she will cook and clean and keep herself pretty and put out on demand, and he will hand over his paycheck).

For some strange reason, I compare myself to these three and feel that I come up very, very short indeed.

Yes, I stack up well compared to an investment banker and a lady who appraises art for that expensive auction house in Manhattan. Yet I come up short compared to drunks, druggies, whores, and welfare hustlers. This is perplexing to me. It would seem to augur that y'all may also be too harsh in your self-assessments.


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14 Oct 2014, 1:44 pm

Luzhin wrote:
Good question. So, where has my family been? NASA, Raytheon, McDonnell Douglas, a professor at a major university. Me? I'm a custodial engineer (janitor) in an office building.

Do I feel like a failure? Not in the least. Sure, I'm different, but I still feel very lucky at how my life has turned out. I have a wife and children who love and care about me. We have a comfortable home. And, I have an incredible storehouse of knowledge (my interests, of course) that I've had the opportunity to share with people.

And, while most of my family have been very successful in their chosen fields, they are also some serious jerks. I wouldn't trade my life for theirs for a million dollars.


I want to be you when I grow up.


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corvuscorax
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14 Oct 2014, 2:15 pm

I don't really feel like a failure. My parents have actually stated that they really are proud of me, despite the challenges I provided as a kid.

I guess it's because I was diagnosed later, and I wasn't really subject to a lot of stereotypes and stuff. I was just a weird kid growing up, not an aspie. So I never had people resort to the "well they have aspergers" excuse that I see a lot of parents resorting to. Sure, I had it, but it wasn't a definition of who I was at the time.

I honestly believe that a lot of the issues encountered by people who have aspergers and their ability to become independent is more due to faulty parenting and overemphasis on a diagnosis than necessarily the inert problem itself. Humans, in almost all cases, are at least somewhat malleable and can be "directed" towards at least moderate success. Of course, success is largely based on luck too, so not everyone is going to get a home run, unfortunately, but by raising children to learn their world around them instead of trying to protect them because they have a condition will help them approach the real world, which doesn't allow "aspergers" as an excuse in most cases.

If anything I tend to beat up myself for perceiving myself as a failure for mistakes, but that's because I am an extreme perfectionist and I get really upset if I screw something up.


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qFox
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14 Oct 2014, 2:23 pm

After my brothers my mother wanted a girl, since I turned out to be a boy she has been kind of cold to me my entire life. My father has some pretty big issues which have taken a real toll on me. One time he is extremely friendly and pleasant to be around, and just at a snap of the finger he can become extremely narcissistic and will constantly try to make me feel guilty and bad. This is very painful and confusing because I both love my father ( since he is only of the only people who care about me ) but other times I can't stand him since his personality turns around 180 degrees. My brothers are social creatures and all didn't have trouble finding partner in their early 20s and had children. Ever since my mother has been obsessed with her grandchildren and has never ever paid any attention to me. She will only ever seek me out of I can do a chore for her, not even asking nicely but in a rude / nagging way as if I am a liability to her.

So yes, I have felt quite inadequate. While I am much more intelligent and have much higher grades, I am much less happy than my brothers. Intelligence has been more of a curse to me than a gift because due to my intelligence people expect a lot of me. I have received zero support from social services because apparently they judge well-being with school grades and family thinks you are doing great because of school grades. While in reality my grades weren't fine because I was motivated, happy or just doing well: they were only fine because my intelligence replaced all those factors. I have grown up in extremely cold environment and have experienced long term bullying, which neither my parents nor the school cared much about. My youth has been taken away from me and it has pretty much marked me with permanent damage. Even when I finished high school with best grades of my class my parents only felt I did adequate and never even bothered to congratulate me, while I saw other parents cheer and party just for their kids passing the exam. It's extremely demotivating.

Right now I am trying to seek ways to move out and start over on my own but I can't, for one they won't give me SSI because I study in university and for two every time I bring up the subject my father will constantly put guilt on me. He doesn't want me to live because his narcissistic side feeds on my naïve and helpful personality. He can't do that with my mother or brothers because they offer the resistance he needs, I simply can't. I would just move out despite that if I could, but university is taxing enough for me already and if I leave university I would have to deal with a gigantic debt. Because university is so stressful I can't hold a part-time job and because I can't hold a part time job and am not given SSI I cannot move out. It's a pretty bad situation...



Kiriae
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14 Oct 2014, 5:17 pm

I am a failure child and it is the reason why I don't have any siblings. I asked my parents why I don't have a younger brother or sister and they told me they wouldn't be able to raise another child if it was just like me. So yeah. No much more to say.