Does this describe your Impairments?
She describes the consequences of these symptoms as:
- isolation and poor social support systems
- a sense of failure in attaining interpersonal or occupational goals
- chronic stress in daily living
- a lack of coping abilities resulting in maladaptive responses to stress
I would say the first two for sure. I have developed skills in dealing with the last two.
I am a professional with a graduate degree, site financial manager. My marriage has become a business relationship, a sort of dead zone in my life. In coping, I have a 32 year mistress I have been seeing 6 years. She has been married 4 years, is a NT, and is very personable and attractive (was cheerleader in HS). She danced at a club where I am VIP.
In Chapter 1, she describes 7 patients she has seen (during the intake process) to demonstrate how the disorder impacts people differently in terms of: ?age, gender, level of intellectual functioning, level of independence, academic achievement and severity of symptoms?.
She describes the consequences of these symptoms as:
- isolation and poor social support systems
- a sense of failure in attaining interpersonal or occupational goals
- chronic stress in daily living
- a lack of coping abilities resulting in maladaptive responses to stress
That pretty much nails it for me. Thoughts?
Yes. That is absolutely me to a tee. Plus chronic depression.
- isolation and poor social support systems
Yep. I've got my wife and my brother and that's about it. Any other relationships I make are pretty superficial, or they fade away over time.
- a sense of failure in attaining interpersonal or occupational goals
I don't know if I would use the word failure. I do OK. I would say that I'm pretty much constantly aware that I set my goals pretty low though, and I'm not really pushing myself to accomplish as much as I'm probably capable of.
- chronic stress in daily living
This varies, I guess. Earlier in my life I had useful coping mechanism that I call "not giving a s**t". When things would start to stress me out, I would just minimize their importance in my mind relative to "the big picture". I even managed to convince myself that it was a virtue. Everyone else was so uptight about getting all this "meaningless" stuff done, while I was laid back and "easygoing". As I've gotten older, this has become more difficult, especially since I've become a parent. These days, stress is very much a daily thing for me.
- a lack of coping abilities resulting in maladaptive responses to stress
Yes and no. Like with the previous item, I think I actually built some decent coping mechanisms for dealing with highschool and college life. It wasn't perfect, but it worked for me. As I've gotten older, and now more aware of my place on the spectrum, it's become increasingly clear that I haven't really adapted those coping mechanisms to adult life. For example, my coping mechanisms for a lot of social interactions are geared more towards not standing out and not being too off putting to the people around me. That works well when you're trying fit in and avoid bullying in highschool. But it also means that I don't actually get much out of the relationships myself, so I don't work to maintain them, which has caused problems for me as an adult.