Were you a gifted child? How are you seen as adult?

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I had to look up Welbutrin on Wikipedia to figure out what sort of condition you and Romofan were talking about. Depression, apparently. There are prescription drugs that help, I took some in my teen years briefly. I think at some point the doctor indicated it is best to wean yourself off if at all possible, due to a tolerance building up as the body adjusts to the new chemical and compensates for it to try to restore what it regards (maybe erroneously) as normal. But my understanding comes from long ago, it has been many decades since I got up to speed on the psychiatric drugs available now.

I self-medicated with alcohol and pot for a long time, and yes one can look back and regret those years of mental fog, spiritual empitness, reduced productivity, but there was living, playing and working going on then even so, it was not like being comatose or held prisoner as some unfortunates suffer even now while we freely type away expressing our innermost concerns.

Also remember many human beings, maybe most if you count all our ancestors, got killed or died before they reached our age, most died before the age of 30, so I think me personally I'm doing better than par for the course. We are blessed in this modern era with longevity due to abundant food and water, not everybody enjoyed that.

I'm not down with that TL;DR. I say, TS;BS! The longer the better, as long as you are making sense and not sharing freeform poetry. There's a reason I'm not on Twitter.

You explained the therapist game rather well for me, I understand now why we all consider our therapists to have been royal jerks. The therapists learn the art of manipulation, a dark art, in university and from their colleagues. They are using "any means" to get what they perceive to be "the desired end", a "cured" patient that makes them look good and competent. I guess that is their little short cut to compensate for having a brief 45 minute session, they are trying to maximize the mileage. I just always detested these therapists and thought they were completely useless for anything beyond arousing rage and anger. They were always and forever trying to trigger me, they would grope around for that soft spot and plunge a dagger in it.

Funny how, 35 years later, little ripples of that rage tsunami, I can still feel it a little bit. I can still recall the name of one PhD. doctor that I hated. I see now, they are playing that game you described, that fit him to a tee. If the patient goes off script, patient must receive negative reinforcement.

Well, society is still coming to grips with how to deal with the human mind, how to repair, how to modify. Right now we are in the primitive era yet. I can't say whether times have progressed much from 35 years ago. I do know that society has no good solution for folks with dementia. Probably the attitude of most is, you take your lumps, you know. Not my problem. Not many folks looking to really solve problems. I do like Bill Gates, at least he is trying to solve some problems here and there, that is more than most billionaires do. If he's an Aspie he's a poster child.

In my case, the drugs that worked for me were Abilify and Strattera. An antipsychotic and an ADHD drug. I tried sooo many substances, licit and illicit, without much success as I grew up, trying to establish a modicum of control over my unruly mind. Lots of alcohol, which did not intoxicate me but rather made the world "slow down" for a few blessed hours.

I couldn't focus very well, or sit still for very long as a kid, and my lack of co-ordination was the stuff of many jokes. I would begin a conversation and then the words I was using would literally escape me mid-sentence---what was I saying? It was sort of like alzheimer's but I was only ten! Maths or foreign languages were all but impossible for me, and most teachers regarded me as lazy and unserious.

Thinking back, just about the worst thing about growing up when I did was...the clothes. I was a teen during the Seventies, when all sorts of unholy polyesters and fake fabrics were in vogue, and it sucked. I hated the feel of so many items that I refused to wear all but much worn second hand stuff that was formless and style less but did not oppress me.

The kids today should thank their stars that they live in a world with proper understanding and medications for this...condition? Many Elder Aspies had to fight every day against a condition with no name....unless it was "minimal brain dysfunction" or some other crazy construction. I grew up knowing something was off about me, but not having a clue what.

I was never gifted. Both my parents are my biological parents, although sometime I imagine they would have loved to gift me to someone else, even if it were just for a day.

What kind of artist? I would create audio/music.

Am sure you might of made a fine gift . Even if just for a day .

Thank you...

My therapist wasn't even trying to cure me (read: help me feel better). If anything, she enjoyed keeping me in a state of perpetual misery. Time and again, I asked her to help me get "happiness pills" (a phrase I used to describe antidepressants, since I didn't know the real term). Time and again, she brushed me off with glib platitudes or berated me for wanting a quick fix. That's where I learned she was an enemy, and found my own antidepressants in my parents' whiskey stash. Today, I take Effexor 75 mg.

Exactly! My therapist wasn't expecting someone as shrewd as me, who figured out her hidden agenda but was too powerless to go against it; so, she tried to gaslight me into thinking the agenda didn't exist. Most NT patients, on the other hand, can either play along with the therapist's script like movie actors or assert themselves strongly enough to psych out the therapist.

My opinion is, everyone is different and if a drug or drugs results in improvement without serious side effects, or if you can manage the side effects well enough, then all's well. I am in favor of legalization of most non-addictive drugs. For me, strict abstinence for all substances seems like the ticket, for you, your testimony is that you found two elixrs that have really helped.

I had a psychologist friend, and he put it this way, that the anti-psychotic medications are truly needed by some, and that they are extremely unlikely to be abused in any way. I am straight-edge but I realize that medications do help a lot of people, it would be ludicrous to believe otherwise. Now, he was in favor of legalization of everything under the Sun, but I draw the line at stuff like opiates and meth. I wish we lived in a world where we all could medicate and self-doctor but there are a lot of bozo's out there, and they drive big hulking SUVs and own firearms. The instances where smack or meth might actually be useful (surgery, hospice) are uncommon enough that I think they can be brushed aside, the potential for abuse is too great.

I have a question for you, and I think it may help. How do you see your relationship with Effexor and/or other antidepressants, is this going to be life-long thing, or will you wean off, diminish dosage over time, as I have heard is the common practice? My own belief is, weaning off is the preferred end, that antidepressants are a stepping stone to use in order to reach a state of strength. In that state, it becomes possible to rearrange things, make necessary changes and adaptations. What is your opinion?

Drugs are such a tough subject! I am now personally opposed to recreational drugs. I'm lucky that my overindulgence in alcohol did not kill me, and I suspect that many Aspies don't react to such chemicals in 'normal' fashion.

Since it is human nature to dabble in escapism, though, I realize that any such public policy would be folly. Besides, the corruption which inevitably comes with any crackdown on such substances is far worse than addicts run amok. And it would be sheer hypocrisy to not recognize that after having my fun in my teens and twenties I wish to deny such to others.

I do take antipsychotics and nonstimulant ADHD drugs. Every now and then I quit and try to do without...but my head simply doesn't respond. Straight Edge and Cold Turkey are the best drug policies, but my flesh is alas too weak

i actually tried alcohol-not much-
when my kid got injured (again for the umpteenth time) from a seizure (as usual) requiring emergency hospital visit..
(as usual) and it was so bad i could see his bone (in his temple area)

.was so depressed i did it..

and thought i was fine.. .

and that's the day i broke my foot by stumbling.
clearly it had a bad effect.

but at least i got a break.. although i couldn't handle that as well...

you are SO MUCH like me (in the way Aspie-ness presented) ! it's actually shocking me.. similar to some stuff another user IsabellaLinton told me..
i guess that's why they can form the category for it.. because the shared characteristics are undeniable..

i barely spoke too and it also came out liek that.. trailed off mid-way.. lost..
kids also made fun of me..
i was so bad with clothes.. that's how i broke my tooth

i would remove my arms from sleeves secretly and go around during recess like that hoping nobody could see..
still do that but not in public...

lack of coordination.. always the last one picked for anY P.E. activity/team ... felt so humiliated..
etc
i also thought maybe i had early signs of dementia, when i was in my early twenties..


i would call XH to ask him basic things like which aisle to go in during groceries,
in a panic..

or have him stay on the line or call him repeatedly so i would be able have an 'anchor' and i bet that's a huge part of how he got sick of me.

my XH's mom used to call me 'low-functioning and dysfunctional' and she was the only person who said it straight up
and she was right..

others seemed to think i was gifted but the matter which it was demostrated to me was less than desireable to myself but now . Realising that at the time , Autism was not well documented,
And ranked right along there with mongoloidism , and other varieties of humans that did not fit the standard NT definition .Much worse No standards of care hadn't been devised , It had become painfully obvious to society many years later . Even to this day standards of care for Other than
NT persons. Are woefully inadequate , worldwide . imho .

My opinion is "meh". I really don't care if I taper off Effexor this year, or allow it to be a lifetime thing.

If world history taught us (societal "us") anything, it's that bad things meant to be temporary always, always become permanent. Enhanced airport security. Patriot Act. Militarized police. Social distancing measures. Quarantines and lockdowns. Wearing masks. Riots in American cities.

On the same note, my alcohol habit at age 12 was meant to be a one-off thing, to help me feel better after traumatizing therapy. Guess what, I still drink frequently at age 37. Smoking during college was meant to be a stop-gap measure until I'm old enough to buy alcohol legally, which is more effective than cigarettes. Well, I still smoke, even if not daily. Having sex with an escort, at age 22, was originally supposed to be once and only once, to lose my virginity. I still have sex with escorts, albeit with a 3-year hiatus from 2017 thru June 2020.

So who's to day I won't be taking Effexor for life, even though I got it last year to pull myself out of depression? It's dirt-cheap under my insurance plan. And when I first started taking it, it sent me into massive euphoria! I even made out (snogged) with a woman in a nightclub after inadvertently mixing it with alcohol.

My first IQ test taken as an adult destroyed any notion that I was "gifted". While my "Verbal" totals were comfortably in the 90th percentile...the other scores were awful.

My abilities to "code" symbols, "design" blocks, and assemble objects were pathetic.

It's like God stitched together an English teacher and a French-Fry spilling minimum wage worker