Fifty

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I am starting a topic. I am over 50, single and having a lot of trouble as I'm scared or stuck most of the time. I can talk when necessary (make a mess of it). I still have things I'd like to do but haven't done anything for years.
Don't like doctors. Any one else understand - or get past this at all, then reply.

(Thread moved from wp.net 'site' discussion to In-Depth Adult life discussion)

You dont have an obsession? Maybe you would feel better with one. I used to think that going through years of research on some topic or activity was just the biggest way I annoyed people. Now I just enjoy whatever it is that is holding my attention.
My dogs find me fascinating. Social life? No, but I no longer care.
If you think you are weird, ride a city bus.

I'm 56, married, 6 kids (two who are adults, 4 still at home) and realized I had screwed up my life so much because of AS and not knowing I had it until I was 50.

I get so frustrated thinking about sometimes. I will latch onto things I like just to keep my sanity, and even if the topic de jur changes it give me something to focus on.

thanks for the replies and the welcome. Words are escaping me at the moment but i'm thinking about all this.

I am intrigued by your ability to stay silent. I always talk the most when I am speechless.

Some of us learn pretty early that keeping quiet is safer. Avoiding contact with people works pretty well too.

I didn't really start talking to people until I was raising children. I'd try, sometimes, but it never seemed to work.

OK! I'm 52 discovered my AS at 51. I do talk to people though. It's part of my job.

impression right, don't mix with people well is an understatement. always ruin conversation.
i used to have drawing and painting as my obsession.
i stopped when people told me you should do this with that; meaning selling art to be a proper and normal person.

I am sooo glad to see someone else has that problem with people trying to turn what you like to do into something you should make money on. It seems like everything I do, someone says that to me. Art--"sell it" or much worse "get a booth and sell it at an event" Research--"people would pay you to do that" Wallpaper a room "I would pay you to do that in my house"
Talk "you should write a book" --pretty sure that one is code for 'shut up'.

Lets take something you enjoy, that you can do alone just to please yourself with no pressure at all, and turn it into something with deadlines, critics, impossible human contact...and even by saying that they have put a thought in our head that messes with us when we do our fun thing.

In writing this I just realized that those people are being totally inappropriate. Maybe they are revealing that they need to be paid to validate what they do. They need reward to like what they are doing. A different problem, but a problem nonetheless.

If they are people that dont know me, ive gotten away with "I dont need the money, im independently wealthy" --that shuts them up. If they know me,
its a helpless feeling of trying to make them understand that I CANNOT.
People have actually gotten mad at me when Ive told them, No. Then Ive got that arguement in my head to ruin my fun thing.

One of my adult kids visited and said to me, "why do you do all this when no one will ever see it?" I think I looked at her like she had grown another head. I stammered out, "I will see it." Even my own offspring does not understand that doing something with it in my mind that it should please someone else would stop me from doing that.

I didn't get a diagnosed until I was 56. As with most of us, I always knew I ws different. AS finally helps me make sense of my whole life, and helps me learn how to take care of myself. Before I was trying to go by NT rules, success, money etc etc, and was full of anxiety and depression. Now I feel joy within myself because I'm accepting myself as I am. I'm glad I found this site where there are more people like me to talk to, and hear what you've all been through.

when I can't reasonably avoid it and I have to have a conversation it seems I always go too extreme one way or the opposite way. I interrupt people/get too enthusiastic or I say things that somehow make other people mad at me or they think I'm mad at them. I just don't get it.

I am ending this now thanks for responding.