Accepting life as an asperger

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Hey there. Just sharing some thoughts:

After many years of jealousy for neurotypicals and their lives, I realized that I'm almost like a cat wanting to be a dog, or vice versa.

I'm a different being, almost from a different species.
Imagine a cat wanting so much to be physically strong and threatening as a dog, or a dog feeling terribly frustated because he can't jump on roofs and be fast as a cat.

I feel so bad for not having the social life that NTs have, with all their friends and relationships. But... I have my own pros and cons, and I think that the only way of not feeling so frustrated is addapting my expectations about life.
Accepting that I will never have their lives, but that I can be happy in my own way. I just have to find out how would be this new perspective about how to be happy.

Well, would like to hear some opinions about this. Thanks for reading.

Acceptance, sooner or later, is necessary

But autism is not physical, so it is easy to be in denial

Plenty of "holier than thou" precious lil "people" had the nerve to tell me "you are not autistic!"

It's like wtf

Kubler Ross stage of grief

Denial

I think you can have acceptance but still have regret because of what you know you're missing. When you have some acceptance of yourself, you can begin to explore yourself and your abilities. I'm at a point in time when I'd certainly accept a cure for my autism in a heart beat, but I am also seeing some interesting benefits. I sort of have taken an objective view of myself, and viewed myself as almost a science experiment. So, for the past coupe of years, I've been acting the way I always have, but also trying to observe myself objectively. The fact that I can even live my life while using my brain power to literally observe myself doing it is pretty cool. It's like my brain is a multi-threaded processor that can only handle linear tasks, but it handles those linear tasks with incredible speed and efficiency.

The other day I hired a neighbor to replace the steps going up to my home. We agreed on a price of $50. I was considering using him for much bigger tasks (my roof needs to be replaced, for instance), but I wasn't sure if I could trust him, and I certainly couldn't use my social skills and ability to read his facial expressions to tell. I needed objective evidence one way or the other. So I told him I only had $60 and he could pay me back the $10 in the near future. Needless to say he hasn't paid me back....

The other day he drives by in his truck but than he stops and backs his truck up. Within less than a second of him backing his truck up, I already figured out the following: 1) He's going to be drunk 2) He's not going to have the $10 he owes me 3) He's going to search for the money but than find he doesn't have it and 4) when he doesn't locate the money, the reason for it will be because he's just acting and trying to buy some time. I can't tell you how I could figure all of that out so quickly, but needless to say, here's what than occurs: 1) The guy gets out of his truck and falls because he's drunk (I have to help him stand up) 2) He starts searching for the money 3) He acts surprised 4) He admits he doesn't have the money.

The funny thing is, I'd normally have done something like the above and thought nothing of it. Now that I know the capabilities of NT people, I realize that I have "special" abilities that seem to show up more often than I realized. Maybe you should observe yourself, you might find that you learn things about yourself that you didn't realize were special until you really took the time to pay attention. You never know!

I agree completely. My wife often accuses of being oblivious, but she's also sometimes amazed by things I quickly intuit about people (especially their character / trustworthiness) that no one else seems to notice.

Yes, I agree with what you're saying. Sometimes I have insight into people that surprises NT's when they discover I'm right. I have a theory about this. I think that autistics have more access to the linear part of their brain simply because we DON'T have access to the part of our brain that allows for Theory of Mind, etc. So we basically take note of the behaviors of NT's, what they are wearing, their mannerisms, etc. and than we categorize them. When we meet another NT that displays similar behaviors, mannerisms, etc. we can usually deduct correctly the way they will behave and the type of person they are. It's not like this method is going to work all of the time or anything, but you can get some pretty freakin amazing results many times.

I could be wrong, but I strongly suspect that's how I can "read" some people so quickly. I also can take seemingly minor events that take place and I'm able to get insight into their greater character. I once had a "friend" who I found out enjoyed shop lifting. I broke off the friendship and the friend later got into some serious trouble with the law (stole from his employer big time). Anyway, that's the weird thing about autism, it's more than a lack of social skills, sometimes it's an ability to cut through all the BS and see something for what it really is.

There are two "superpowers" I identified in myself as directly connected to ASD:
1. Hyperfocus - not the best for being a mother but great in programming computers;
2. Independent thinking - I don't read easily the people around me, so I make decisions on my own, not on herd mentality.

I'm never going to be "an Asperger." I'm a Homo sapiens LOL

I don't think people should judge one merely for being socially awkward, or interested in esoteric things.

I accepted myself a long time ago; I had no choice in the matter.

Exactly!

...with free exploration of life, as you, not someone else, perceive it.

I suggest that willingness to fearlessly question any assumptions that you have about what's ok, is essential.

...and not letting others define reality for you. When acceptance of other people's, or society's reality is subconscious, then a strong willingness to question the most ingrained assumptions is needed.

When I was a kid, I should have, at some point, sat down and said to myself, "Ok, what's going on? What am I alive for? Whom am I living for? To live the dull and dead life that the adults seem to decree, or to explore life and follow my feelings?."

That sounds obvious now, but, as a kid, conditioned from the start, it was impossible. ...but necessary.

I'm talking about the situation of living when, by Aspergers, your natural reality is contradicted by NT society.

Michael829

Consider that, I this socially fragmented modern world, NTs suffer from lonelites all the time. The modern world is horribly lonely for an extrovert. You (or I ) will never have to experience that horror. We are lucky.

Seeing as the future may be like an episode from Black Mirror where the currency is how well you cope in society and you are rated on a scale to determine what job you can do or if you are below the threshold you would be sent to labour camps or imprisoned somewhere for the way you are. Not much hope for myself in any case so accepting life in general is not worth thinking about.

I honestly still have a hard time doing this despite being diagnosed last summer. I have plenty of friends who I suspect of being near the spectrum if not on it because I honestly don't know how one defines a neurotypical because I defintely don't feel different. I have gotten better at this masking thing but I have a hard time falling into the "herd mentality" as someone called it. There are times when I'd rather be able to mimic others with conviction and then it draws me back to the point of exactly what is so extreme about my extreme if I'm healthy? I guess what I mean is that once we stop peering over our shoulders or over the fence at our neighbors and focus on ourselves, the gutter gets mended and the roof doesn't leak. Granted, I've been suffering from a sinus infection from the past two weeks and have misearbly fallen behind in three of my classes but I was on top of everything when I just stopped caring if I "looked" normal. Even when I don't know the answer to the question, I still immediately answer so that the TA doesn't look awkawrd poised at the front of the room waiting for someone, nevermind everyone else afraid to look dumb.

when i was 21, got diagnosed.

noticed a lot of autism symptoms before then. my precious lil "parents" did too. and then they told me, and told me i was doing it on purpose, and that i was wrong.

after moving away from San Diego, it got easier to accept autism.

moved somewhere more diverse

and now i am 34

gradually getting used to it.

do i wish i could fit in better, like a NT? yes

and acceptance is a constant struggle

Just having self diagnosed myself at the age of 56, I find it a bit of a relief after the shock wore off. Now I don't have to fit in if I don't want to and not feel guilty about it.

NT's are often miserable to mentally ill but a lot of times seem better at hiding it.

Look at our mostly NT world today. Does not seem great to me.

It's hard to accept life as an Aspie when other people give you a hard time because of your struggles. I still have to live the life of an NT, as in being forced to go to work. At the moment I'm financially stable doing part time because I live at home, but there's going to come a time in my life where I will have to financially support myself, which means having to work full time. But the job I'm in now probably won't pay my rent and bills if it was full time, because it's low-paid. But I can't see me getting a better job. I was lucky to get this job, after being unemployed for 5 years. Getting a new job sounds a piece of cake to some, a bit daunting to others, but for me it's absolutely frightening.

I feel this Asperger's traps me. It's like being stuck in an invisible net that no-one else can see, but is really hard to break out of and it's holding me back. So my pain with Asperger's isn't about fitting in socially. It's about work and money. I find that side of life really hard. My Asperger's affects my worklife more than anything else. And people around me don't understand. They just say "oh none of us like work" and expect me to get over it like they do. They also think I'm being lazy. What they don't know is how it really feels to be inside my head. Well, I don't blame them, who'd want to even imagine what's going on inside my head? Constant chattering thoughts, irrational anxious thoughts, distracting thoughts, bad memory... How can you possibly be happy with all that going on in your head throughout the day, until you go to sleep at night?

Its like you read my mind with this(pun intended). Weird how I can sometimes predict things.