Aspergers is not an excuse.

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I don't mean specific things. There are MANY things I cannot do. I've given up being a musician, for example.

What I'm talking about is a general outlook on life.

Too many people just give up on life.

To be honest, a few years ago I didn't think I would be able to do any of this. Even when I finally did, it was not done naturally like any normal person - for the most basic of things, I had to intensely research, run into problems, get stressed etc.

The interview for example, I've practiced for... 2 weeks. No way in hell would I be able to manage straight away or ace one naturally. It was a bit robotic but my boss seems to be a bit socially awkward (seems to be a typical trait among designers), so it helped remove any nervousness or social awkwardness that I often have when it comes to socialising.

As for people saying "oh wait until you're 40, things won't go so well!", I don't really care. Sorry if that sounds callous, but your problems are your own, and shouldn't be projected onto me. Just because I'm happy on what I achieved so far does not mean there are no further goals and challenges. Sure, probably could end up getting sacked sooner or later, but at least I'm in a place where I have actual experience for similar jobs. I don't really get bullied though and seem to "blend in" as the team I'm in are just like my boss - socially awkward and a bit weird. It would be a different story if it were a retail job, but anyone doing creative work tend to be less judgemental.

At the moment my current goal is to renew my passport, and that's proving to be quite stressful for me. That said, I don't want to just give up on it.

Last edited by ashbashbeard on 22 Sep 2016, 1:12 am, edited 2 times in total.

I think your last point did come across a little bit "preachy"...but...

Having said that most of us here are encouraged by your perseverance. I personally think your journey isn't finished and I'm sure you more to do in your life. All the best and good luck.

Note I have had my limited successes but not where I would have liked to be a success. I would have liked to be able to design electronics or machines but limitations in math due in part to severe PTSD due to incidences related to math when at my foster home such as being beaten to unconsciousness when having a difficult time with algebra made any attempt to learn more in the way of math an emotionally extremely painful exercise. I was offered help in this area by a very famous engineer friend of mine who designs electronics & all I could do for the next 2 days was cry because those incidences kept replaying in my mind & even now just typing about this has left me in tears. I can do math that I have learned up to that point but any thing beyond that is just too painful to me even now after more than 40 years being removed from the incidences.

That is not to say I have totally given up on life though there have been times that I came very close to doing just that right down to initiating a couple of plans for suicide including quitting my job & starving with no food or drink at all for two weeks one time. I became severely dehydrated too the point that if I kept going at that I would have died in a matter of probably 2 more days if that. The fact is though I am still here. I am still working though that may change very soon due to medical reasons.

The job I'm doing now I would have not been able to do when I graduated high school due to medical issues to do with my eyes but I eventually fixed that sufficiently to pass the necessary tests to do my current job when I was about 26 years old but it was still another nearly 14 years before I could convince the DVR to give me the necessary training to do this job so yes I have struggled immensely to get to this point & yes I had to give up on some of my original goals to get to this point in my life but at least I was a limited success at something well enough to make a living at fore 20 years. Am I totally satisfied ? No, but it was the best I could do with my abilities at the time & I'm learning to be happy with what I can do. Eventually I may be able to do some of my other goals & over come my PTSD pertaining to math & design at least one thing before I die. That is my current goal.

That is wonderful! I love reading stories of people overcoming challenges. It inspires me.

Goddamit, Germanium----you have one ability I wish I had: Driving trucks!

If I were able to drive a truck, I would have been free!! !

No way some famous engineer would have taken an interest in me.

Sorry about all the crap you went through. But you overcame the crap.

Not everyone is as lucky as this guy though.

It wasn't luck.

Yes it was.

Here are some examples of the marvellous luck you have had:



You were lucky. Many people with AS are not diagnosed until much later in life and consequently receive no support whatsoever as children or adults and nobody makes any allowances for them whatsoever. All they receive is blame, blame, blame.



You were lucky that your parents were even trying to care for you at all. Some people on this forum have parents that were very nasty / abusive to them because of their AS. Some people have received no care whatsoever from parents or from the relevant authorities.



You were lucky. Some people with AS do not get diagnosed and do not get put into special schools and do not get any help. Consequently, they struggle in mainstream school and have to drop out. In contrast, you were diagnosed as a child and given special schooling. And you're trying to claim you weren't lucky?



You were lucky. Some people with AS had (and have) no family "fighting" on their behalf.



You are lucky to have people in your life to talk to who can motivate you. Some people with AS are completely and totally alone and have nobody to be on their side or motivate them.

If you had lacked all of the above things, I very much doubt that you would have achieved all the things you have today. You have concluded:



but in my opinion, the real point of all this is that it may be possible for people with AS to achieve their goals if they are lucky enough to have been born into a life where they receive:

an early diagnosis
special schooling
a family to support and motivate them
somebody to fight on their behalf for them against the state
a supportive girlfriend
and an employer open-minded enough to hire somebody who has AS and zero work experience.

I had an early diagnosis...way before the advent of Asperger's. In 1964, in fact (Infantile Autism). I was then diagnosed with what, in the later 1960s, came to be called "minimal brain dysfunction."

My mother was supportive in a practical sense--but pretty unsupportive emotionally. I give her credit, though, for possibly enabling me to "stop being (classically) autistic." I didn't have verbal speech until age 5 1/2.

My father, basically, left me alone, disciplined me like a normal kid, and was very laissez-faire most of the time. We didn't have a "close" relationship--but he did all right by me.

I'm going to tell you what probably was the key to my (limited) success:

I NEVER KNEW I HAD A DISABILITY. I knew, of course, that I was "weird," and that there was "something wrong with me."

Yes, that was the key. I had many, many problems in school, almost got expelled. I went to special schools, to "normal" schools. My mother threatened to "send me away" quite a few times. I almost went into a group home when I was 13. I was a latch-key kid after my parents separated, and I could have easily gone down the wrong road.

What kept me going was the fact that I KNEW that I was going to graduate high school, and I KNEW I was going to college (though, in actuality, I didn't get my Bachelor's until age 45!) I didn't listen to the naysayers.

I knew I had to get out of the toxic environment that was my mother's house. She's not a bad person, and she was very good with the bureaucracy--but she was also, as she described to me herself, "a b***h on wheels."

I was fortunate to get a job which didn't involve too much social interaction, and made use of my typing ability. I have this job to this day.

In terms of "supportive girlfriend," I had a girlfriend in high school who was suicidal. I had to give her ipecac syrup once. She would also act psychotic at times. She didn't listen to my advice.

I do understand what you're staying, Thumbhole. I really do. I don't believe in banging one's head against the wall, and in futility. Rather, I believe in "getting around" things in my life. I had to do many alternative things which most people wouldn't do.

I really don't believe in people conceding failure because of "having a disability."

People can be lucky in terms of having good family support and early diagnosis, but they still have to work hard and go out of their comfort zone to achieve their goals and stay in a good situation that they earned.

It is clear to me that the OP did not achieve his goals only through luck, he had to do all kinds of things that did not come easily, work very hard, go out of comfort zone, etc.

I did not achieve any goal by luck either. Even with good family support (but not early diagnosis), I worked to achieve any goal, sometimes very hard over a long time for more difficult goals.

My parents never listened to teachers and doctors about me. If they had, I don't know what would have happened.

My mom had a support system around her to help her figure out how to help me and to figure out how the whole IEP system works and what her rights were as a parent.

I had an IEP from early childhood all the way until I graduated high school

My mom helped me figure out how to achieve my goals

We moved to a different state to be closer to my grandparents and because we needed a small school where teachers and principal wouldn't be so overwhelmed and bullies would stand out more if they pick on a kid.


Was I lucky to have parents who tried to be understanding and work with me and seek help because they found me to be difficult? Probably. That is what parents are supposed to be doing anyway if the child is truly a problem for them, go to a therapist than blaming it on the child and using it as an excuse to abuse. Also my parents were middle income so my mom had money to pay for my private testing whenever the school said what I had going on with me or what my problem is. She had that luxury to take me to a professional for a professional opinion than relying on the school and having them do whatever they want with me thinking what I need and my parents can do nothing about it. So was this all luck?

I had middle income parents
Mom who knew to take your kid to a therapist if you are having problems raising them and don't know what to do with them
Mom who was social and knew how to talk to people and reach out help
Neighbors who were supportive and we lived in a HOA neighborhood
We could afford to move and we already had a house there my parents owned and the renters had already moved out


Some kids aren't so lucky because their parents don't even try to help motivate them and help them figure out where to start and help give them a start to help move forward, parents don't even try to understand their child and try to do the one size fits all parenting approach, they leave it all to the schools to handle them and they might be too poor to do anything about it, parents don't even consider a therapist if their kid is that difficult or because they are too poor to afford a therapist to seek help. Some kids get abandoned through the school system because of the wrong label they give them. My school tried to say I had a behavior disorder and wanted to put me in a behavior class because whatever system they had for me wasn't working and because it wasn't working, they wouldn't change their approach so they decided to try and shuffle me off to a class and say I had a behavior. If my parents had been too poor to afford a psychiatrist, that would have happened to me and I don't know what it would have done to me. Plus some families are stuck where they live and not everyone can homeschool or have their kid go to a special school (that wasn't an option for me since everything was normal to me so I mimicked behaviors) or move to a smaller location with smaller schools.

Well, he is giving his point of view. I'm sure he didn't intend to be condescending.

That is great. But perhaps the Aspergers actually helped you.
All that intense interview practice & you aced the interview!

If you honestly knew the half of it, you wouldn't be typing such nonsense.

You mention me being in a special school - a school where I still got zero support or even a proper education because Ireland has almost zero services for autistic people, since they assumed that I was mentally disabled rather than having what I'd deem a social disability. My parents had to do it haphazardly because they didn't fully understand.

You accuse me of making assumptions and yet you make them yourself. Look in the mirror and take that chip off your shoulder, else just piss off.

Last edited by ashbashbeard on 23 Sep 2016, 6:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Nobody is playing at "oneupmanship".

I was merely drawing your attention to the fact that you have been relatively blessed in life and you appear to be taking that for granted.

If you make a habit of swearing like that at people, you will not last long in any job, young man.

I see you've now edited this part out:

You need some tough love and to have your mouth rinsed out with soap.



I did not mention you being in a special school. You mentioned it. I make no assumptions. I am merely working with what facts you chose to divulge. If people don't know the half of it, that's not our fault. It's up to you to mention all facts you wish people to know. We are not mind readers.

You mentioned in your original post that things didn't go too well for you at your special school. I'm aware that from how you describe it, it was far from ideal. But at least your AS was detected and you made it all the way through secondary school and through college with some support (albeit not the form of support you might have deemed ideal). Not all people can say the same.

As already stated to you multiple times by multiple users, we are glad for you that things have gone so well for you, and nobody has a problem with you coming on here and sharing your good news. What some of us (myself included) have a problem with is you coming on here and telling others that our AS is not an "excuse" for us to not achieve our own goals. In addition, I have a major problem with you swearing at me when I merely point out to you that you have (based on your own description, not based on any "assumptions") been lucky in life compared to many others.

I am not merely comparing you to myself. I stress that I am comparing you to many others. There are many people on this forum whose life circumstances have been far worse than mine. You are wrong if you think that I am indulging in some form of "oneupmanship" and trying to claim that my life is worse than anybody else's. Compared to some people, my life has been sheer bliss.

We have one American user on here who has been homeless for years and living on the streets. Many other users have also suffered homelessness and did not have the good fortune that I did to live in a country where there is a safety net of social housing. I am much, much luckier than US forum users who have suffered homelessness, because my homelessness was dealt with by the UK government and I was provided with housing. In many ways, I have been extremely blessed and my life has been great compared to a lot of people's. This is not about me. It's about YOU and your attitude and about you being called out on it, that's all.

Last edited by thumbhole on 23 Sep 2016, 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I edited it because it was a bit too harsh. Apologies.

However, you are the type of person I don't want to be, or others with AS should aim to be. It's not "tough love" when you're complaining that people have some success, no matter how small it is.