Day-walker

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I've always used that term to describe myself. Not quite aspie, not quite NT. Most of my friends just think I'm on pills all the time. I'd give anything to be NT, but this illness always finds a way to sneak up on me when I'm most vulnerable. I've tried everything to completely cure myself, drinking heavily on top of sleeping pills, isolating myself, even videotaping how I walk, talk, eat, sleep, everything. I'm convinced there's a cure, but if not, I'd rather be brain damaged beyond the point of memory or have people think I'm a junkie (which I kind of am, not gonna lie) rather than an aspie because after all, at least people get that. All the positive reinforcement and therapy in the world can't help me, as long as I have this disease, and that's how I look at it. A disease that needs to be cured. It obviously affects the people around me and I'm willing to do anything to be normal, even take my own life.

Sorry you feel that way, bro. I understand where you are coming from, I'm a half-aspie myself (half-assed aspie?). Though it occasionally does cause me relational troubles (most recently, very severe troubles nearly including the loss of my marriage and all my extended family, though thankfully that was recoverable), I've learned to live with it.

In the years before I figured out what I was, I tried everything you mentioned and more. I was on Ambien for 5 years, developed a huge drinking problem, smoked enough weed in college to choke Cypress Hill, and sometimes mixed ambien with xanax just to try to get away from myself and my troubled thoughts (ProTip: DO NOT EVER MIX AMBIEN AND XANAX!! - when it hits you drop like a frickin rock right where you are. I'm convinced I almost died one night doing that, after waking up in the hallway with zero memory of what happened and a big bruise on my cheek from my unconscious face bouncing off the floor because I passed out mid-stride while walking from my computer chair to my bed. Thankfully I woke up just before the rest of my family did, because I was right outside my kids' bedroom doors.)

Autism is not a disease. It isn't acquired, and you cannot cure it or even treat it. A way I try to describe it to NT people is that it's my operating system. Some computers run Windows, some run Linux, and they can only do what their OS is designed to let them do. My brain runs ASD-OS, and that's just the way it is. It's like colorblindness, there is no cure or treatment, you just have to learn to adapt. Part of my recovering my relationships (above) has been being honest with folks I've affected about what is going on, and why. The other part of it has been carefully dissecting ASD with the help of literature and my own experiences, and understanding why I do what I do and which parts are beneficial versus harmful. I can't answer that question for you, but thanks to that exercise I am able to appreciate some of the benefits (like being very observant, synthesizing information in ways others do not, my strange sense of humor and highly abstract thinking) while being aware of the social awkwardness and idiosyncracies that I need to fight or guard against. Frankly doing this requires that I NOT be drinking or on anything most of the time, because it requires an extra layer of abstraction in my thought process but I'm much much happier now that I can look at a situation and think "Is that the ASD causing this?" - it helps my empathy to ask that question and humbles me so I can think of others' perspectives, or at least try to.

I don't know whether this is of any help to you, but hopefully at least you know that you're not alone in the way you're feeling and others have found some ways that were helpful to them in coping. You can find your own ways, if none of this sounds useful. Just don't give up on yourself and if you use drugs or alcohol use them for fun, not to suppress who you are. Best wishes to you, man.

It's a hell of a lot better to be an Aspie than a junkie!

I think of Asperger's as a "neurological alternative."

But what about:


lol an attempt at humor, but even if you where 'normal' your behavior would effect yourself as well as others..what makes you so sure being normal would make you any better of a person than you think you are? As for prefering people think you're a junkie...to each their own though I hear a lot of nasty stuff said about them so not sure you'd want that. I don't usually tell most people I have aspergers most people who know of me who aren't very close probably just think I'm a stoner...and well I sort of am but initially a lot of people may be more accepting of that than aspergers. But offing yourself certainly would not make you 'normal' and beings I've tried it before I can say its not pleasant.

I don't think of myself as "suffering" from autism/Asperger's. I don't think of myself as "having" autism/Asperger's. I do get colds, but I don't "get" autism. Autism is an alternative state of mind which could result in disability.

I am a person with an "autistic"/Aspergian view on things.

One final thought for the OP: You appear to be struggling because you don't fit the "normal" NT profile. There is a fine line between being "not normal" and letting that affect your relationships. I won't pretend that isn't a difficult line to walk, because it most definitely is. That's why I posted my story about my marriage and family struggles (DM me if you'd like to talk more about relational issues), not out of self-aggrandizement but because I am going through the same struggle and have had the same thoughts. I'm a bit older (37) but I'm happy now that I have finally figured some things out about how to manage relationships and others' expectations of me. It takes objectivity, which is hard to have about ourselves but probably something that we with ASD have an easier time with than most.

Now, look around you. What is "normal" in this society? Ignorance (or sheer stupidity), meanness, self-indulgence, xenophobia, lack of critical thinking skills and objective reasoning. Do you really want to be "normal"? I sure as hell count it as a blessing to be abnormal in those respects.