What advice would you give to your younger self?

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You have Asperger's Syndrome.

That I am not normal, and that I shouldn't hold myself and my life up to the expectations others have of their own lives.

-Not everyone is as nice as you
-Not everyone is as honest as you.
-Not everyone is as generous as you
-Not everyone is as understanding and accepting as you.
-That is their fault ,not yours.

-You are not your parents parents, and are not responsible for them.
- You are not your siblings parents either, and neither are you responsible for them.
- Focus on your childhood and adolescence, because you'll never get it back.
- Just because someone gave birth do you, does not give them a licence to neglect verbally and emotionally abuse you.

Don't care what other people think.

- nobody owes you anything, you self-important little prick.

- everybody lies.

- get a Fin haircut.

- you will invent time travel one day, just be patient.

The only problem with this is that younger moi is even less equipped to listen to sense.

All situations will assume I did not tell my young self anything prior.

1. A little bit at a time tell him you have this thing currently not known about called Aspergers-Autism and explain how it effects everything you are about.

2. To your 10 year old self in 1968. Hit them back. I know this sounds crazy because you are the smallest boy in the class and are uncoordinated and will lose the fight and it will hurt like hell. And the next fight will be worse for you and the fight after that even worse. But eventually they will get frustrated and you will be respected not them

2. To my 13 year old self in the summer of 1971 away in Boston in teen trips camp. You asked these two girls up to your room and they have asked you to give them a list of what you plan to do with them before they would agree to meet you in your room. You are confused because you do not have a clue about sex, and think that it is something that you three will all figure it out as it happens, because sex is a natural reaction. These girls are more like you then you understand at the moment. Tell them we will play spin the bottle, tell them anything. The worst that could happen is that they will say no and nothing happens which is exactly what will occur if you freeze and do nothing. On the other hand this may be the last chance at sex never mind a threesome you will ever get.

3. Although I am still not sure about this one I am going tell you any way. It is the spring of 1979. You have been best friends with this shy conservative girl since freshmen year at college. It is a friendship born of respect because you both did not give up your principles despite bullying. You transferred, she took a year off, this new school was good, you continued to write letters (letters, you have no idea how quaint that will sound). She transferred to your school (was she following you ?) You are now a senior and graduation from college is just a few weeks away and you and her are having a brief discussion where you and her have just mentioned that you are both still virgins. A thought has come up in your mind. It is not the first time you have had this thought. But you are planning not to act on it and there are good reasons why you should not act on it. You have a great thing going, why would you want to change it? And once sex is mentioned your relationship is forever changed. Even more important she has been abused by her father and if you whom she trusts just turns out to be a guy who wants to get in her pants, that could really hurt her. You are not thinking this but as a conservative girl what could be happening is that she expects you to make the first move but since you haven't and because graduation is coming up she is giving you a not so subtle hint that your brain is not wired to understand. If you do not act on this thought you will lose track of her after graduation and you and possibly her still will be wondering what if? No doubt about it, asking her if she wants to have sex can go very badly. What you don?t understand yet, is that there are points in life where a decision has to be made, go on or leave. Unfortunately a lot of the time you do not get advance notice of this and you don't know that the decision you make will greatly effect your life. That conversation will be that point for you and her. If it goes bad it will hurt but you (and her) but you would not still be wondering about it.

Summer, Fall 1979 you have graduated. Call or write to your college friends, professors etc. Strange request I know, college is over and your categorical mind wants to go to that next stage in life. You probably won?t believe what I am about to tell you and will ask why did you finally give in and turn into a drug addict. Merit won?t mean nearly as much as now this idea called ?networking? centered around contacts will decide if you have a career or will always struggle. I won?t bother telling you about everybody will have to pretend it is about exchanging information.

It?s is a nice spring day in the late 1980?s and you are in the best job you will ever have. This is the best time in your life. You are working a small company with people your age with your interests and you are not an outsider but a liked member of this group. You have reason to be proud. Through hard work you have overcome your nightmarish childhood and teenage years. As proud as you are now I am even more proud myself knowing I did it with moderately severe Aspergers. But that pride is tinged with sadness because I know you are going to make a career altering mistake today. You are aware there is a problem today. What you don?t know is that this is one of those turning point days mentioned above. You are in jammed in a car with your colleagues and they are angry. They feel there catholic religious observance Good Friday is not being respected by their Jewish owners/bosses. You fear that the cohesiveness of the team will be hurt and that you as Jew will be blamed for something that is not your fault. You note that you also did not understand the importance of Good Friday. The solution seems logical and simple go to the bosses and inform them but do not rat on your colleagues. Ending a religious division before it gets out of hand seems to be the right thing to do. DON?T DO IT, PLEASE DON?T DO IT!! !. . While naively trying to do the right thing you are playing a game you do not realize you are playing a game called ?office politics? that you are most ill equipped to play. If you do this here is what will happen. There will be an office meeting, the upset owners will deny prejudicial intent. They next few days will be tense as the bosses will pressure you to give up the complainers which you can?t do because as the only Jew in the car everybody must known it was you who told the bosses about what happened in the car. The storm will blow over and you will think you survived. Things will seemingly be back to normal. A couple of years later a recession will hit necessitating layoffs. I can?t prove anything but the layoffs will be apparently structured to avoid the appearance of bigotry. A women, a black and a Jew would be fired. you will be that Jew. If you do it you will position yourself in such way you will have to be fired. A Jew will have to be fired to give the appearance of no anti catholic prejudice. Especially the Jew who was the obvious complainer. In the next few days your career will slowly decline then end.

To all younger "me"´s:

"It´s not your fault"
"You´re good enough as you are"..and
"You´ve got potential. Go for it!"

I would tell me to take the step and suiced, your life will anyhow be a great disaster.

Those were harsh words.

Off the top of my head, I would say.....

- don't worry so much about what your younger sister says/thinks, she's a very unhappy person who's trying to bring you down to make herself feel better.

- get involved with more things in high school

- it's not your fault that your maternal grandparents favour the male grandkids who are into sports.

"Hey, Little Rocket. This is Big Rocket from your future. Yeah, I realize that technically it?s not possible for me to communicate with you from the future. But don?t believe that. As it really is me.

I have the following 5 pieces of advice:

1. You know how you wonder why you feel so different. Well, it?s because you are. You will get diagnosed with Aspergers later in your life. You know all those things you struggle with? Well, I can explain them all with this diagnosis. Your lack of friends (and no, I do not count your stuffed animals and blanket as ?real? friends)? Check. The sensory issues? Check. The planning and goal setting issues? Check. Your constant worrying? Check. Your depression? Check. Your poor motor skills in sports? Check. I could go on, but don?t have time. Anyways, there is some bad news. It?s not curable. So, you must learn to live with it the rest of your life. I suggest you simply learn all you can about it (more information will be available in the early 1990s). Accept it. Don?t fight it.
2. Be skeptical of the personal advice you receive from others (known as neurotypicals). It might be appropriate for other neurotypicals. But, it likely will not be appropriate for you.
3. Commit to writing in a journal daily.
4. The next time you visit the Dr. K, the Psychologist (which you will visit in 3rd and 7th grades), throw him for a loop. Mention Hans Aspergers and ask him to research this guy. Tell him he can become famous if he is able to translate his works before others beat him to the punch.
5. You will start working in the mid 1980s. Save a lot of money and buy Cisco stock in early 1992. Buy as much as you can. Sell it on May 1, 2000.?

Edit: Oops. There were only 5 pieces of advise, not 6.

Futile. If it isn't one thing its the other, and I'd rather go with the devil I know...which in this case is me.

"To thine own self be true"
Pay a lot less attention to the "good advice" of other people which is based on their own prejudices and stereotypes. Instead listen to my own desires, make my own decisions and stand by them.

Gut instinct is almost always right. Listen to it.

Before getting upset over something, ask myself if it will matter a year from now or ten years from now. Respond accordingly.

At the end of my life, regardless of how how long or short it turns out to be, I'll be dead. Death is the end. No more passing GO or collecting $200. I can't change that. There is no point worrying about that. Every day in the meantime is a gift. Time to do what I believe in with my life. Time to make a change, to contribute meaningfully to society.

"The rest of life is a scam, kill yourself".

What I would tell my younger self... well.

When i was younger, my life was hell, at home and at school. I wanted to end it, commit suicide, but i held off because of hope of the future and because I saw my life so far as an investment. I didn't want to cut it short before it paid off. Cuz what if tomorrow was better, but I never got the chance to see it? I lived hoping tomorrow would be better. It never f*****g was.

I would have told my younger self to "cut your losses now, it gets better later, but it's not worth even one more day of this crap and you have years before it gets better..."

I also would of told my younger self "your mom doesn't care about you, it's not just her being upset at your dad when she says she hates you she really f*****g does, and won't protect you, stop wishing for things that just will not happen. Stop giving her your money that people give you and use it on fun things for you, or buy a tape recorder or camera for proofs of things that happened"

"Try to talk more, tell someone something, anything, of what happens. I know its hard and it is easier just to continue on than to do something about it but you really do need to do something..."

Don't take everything so seriously. Just relax and enjoy your life.

I wouldn't have listened.