the future, being totally alone, etc

Post Reply New Topic

disclaimer: I'm assuming I'm allowed to start a thread on this forum, I'm 26 but I moved out of my parents house at 18, have been employed.

Some time ago, a friend was telling me I should do some form of exercise, that otherwise I could die young of a heart attack. I replied that one has to die of something, and he said yes, but it's painful for those left behind to see someone die. I shrugged, thinking that once my parents are gone there will probably be nobody who will care at all whether I live or die, and therefore if I don't live to old age nobody is harmed (ironically this same friend, who intends to go into politics when he returns to his country, has said he does not wish to live to be old, but would prefer to be killed for taking a courageous, honourable political stance). I have two good friends now, but friendships are fragile and mine never last. After yet another person turning vicious against me, I was reminded of that conversation - especially the thought of living to see the day there is no one alive that is not hostile or indifferent.
My only real regret of failing to truly connect with others is not having any children - got badly burned in a relationship (5.5 yrs) and all subsequent experience of even trying to get into romantic relationships has been so uniformly and thoroughly bad that getting into a half decent one seems a bit like winning the lottery - it would be nice but I really, really don't expect it to happen and have largely come to terms with love being something that happens to other people. There are worse fates than a life without a partner. It is wiser, I think, to accept that which I cannot change (the world isn't going to change for me and I cannot change the very core of who I am) and try to make a virtue out of necessity by investing the time, energy and money I would spend on relationships on other things.
I regret not having children for several reasons, most obviously the urge to raise a child, but also that the parent-child bond is the only type of human connection I have any faith left in at all. Also, a child is a future, a successor, not in the sense of carrying my name or something, I don't care about that, but in the sense of being a future one can work for, something that will still be there after my death. If there is a future, there's something worth fighting for, it may be worthwhile suffering for it, sacrificing for it, but if it's just me, there doesn't seem any point in the struggle - if it's just for me alone, it's simply too overwhelming. As for this last motive, something that has makes it stronger is that I don't see much else, apart from striving to be a good parent, that I could do with my life that I would judge worthwhile - my professional field doesn't really interest me anymore, and if I were to hit the jackpot I would leave it tomorrow - however much or little I could achieve in it, I see little point in it. I would have liked to have been a writer or a painter, but lack the talent for either and in any case there's the need to make a living, meaning doing either full time isn't an option.
I am not suicidal, and have not been for a long time - not because I'm content with my life, but because I couldn't do that to my parents, and thus it's just not an option.
Anyone feel the same? Thoughts, comments?

I knoe how you feel, the paternal urge is a whoe ot stronger than the media woud have us believe. Couple of things I'd like to point out though; you're still very young and have penty of time for fatherhood and you may not care about dying young or not but I guarentee you'd prefer to have a healthy body as you enter middle age the misery of ill health beats loniliness any day of the week my friend as wel as actually increasing loneliness/isolation.
If you're looking for meaning in life then good luck with that but maybe it would be faster to just create some. For example for the first time in my life (i'm 30) I've started setting goals for myself, nothing major just stuff like getting a flat on my own and getting fit and healthy, getting my driving licence and car, just little things but the list keeps getting longer. They don't add up to much of a meaning but they do complete the picture of your life, the details we would normally miss out due to us not caring or preferring to do what we like doing instead.
Another goal that woud be good for an aspie who actually wants to integrate with NT society woud be to learn as much as possible about non-verbal communication and how to use it. This way you can dip in and out of the NT world taking what you want or need while not being dragged under by the stress of trying to work out what's going on in other people's heads.

Hope that made sense to you but got a feeling it didn't as I'm really tired but good luck to you anyway

I have often felt like romantic love was for other people and I was deficient in some way I didn't understand. It is not a good feeling but I have to wonder when I really question myself about my choices in relationships. I wonder if I don't self sabotage because I'm afraid I will lose myself. I am someone who really needs alone time. I don't think I could stand being "on" all the time to satisfy someone else's expectations. I have a son (long story) and I have never regretted having him for one second. It is hard but I knew it would be and I made the commitment. It is also the best decision I ever made but that was for me and might be the worst decision for someone else. Have you ever thought about adoption? It's something you would want to think very carefully about. The truth is however that parenthood is harder than you ever thought it could be and also more wonderful than you ever thought it would be. No one knows how to be a parent at first. The important thing is you decide to do the best you can no matter what. My son was a late baby and so I have had the opportunity to see friends and siblings raise theirs and see them become perfectly nice people despite the ogres I knew them to be at 13. So I try to have a little faith. Oh and my son is very easy to be alone with.

I wouldn't inflict life on anyone...life is just wage-slavery unless you're born into an elite. Born into slavery? That aint no 'gift'.

For all that it's hard to make a believable case for life being worth living, it's usually a fairly easy thing to go on doing as long as someone's getting pleasure out of it somewhere.

Most of the times I've really wanted to stop playing, it's been the anger and frustration I'm feeling that pushes the idea into the foreground. That being the case, and those being lousy reasons for inflicting people I care about with the responsibility for dealing with my death, I decline to do it. Call me lazy....

pbcoll, there is someone for you.

Actually there are many people with whom you could be happy.

We are all in the same boat. We are born, we live, we die. We are alone.

There IS someone for you.

That's a sad story

I guess I'm not very good at cheering anybody up when they're going through really bad stuff - when I hear of their predicaments I usually feel that I have no strong solutions, and just feel very sad that it's happening.

So all I can do is to declare my sympathy for the awful thing you're going through, and hope that something will turn up. At least you've got a couple of friends - and you never know, they might stick around.

They say a lot of Aspies eventually lose all interest in friendship, because of repeated failure to make it work. Personally I never entirely gave up hope, in spite of overwhelming evidence that it's all a waste of time. I still screw up all the time but there's still that irrational blind faith in me that won't quite let me throw in the towel. I suppose that fath must also still be alive in you, in some small way, otherwise you wouldn't have posted what you did. I hope you keep that flame from going out. You're not alone....not everybody is indifferent to what you're going through.

I have thought about it, but I don't know how feasible it would be for a single male to get approved - I don't think it would be possible at all in Britain and, more relevantly, I don't really know in my home country, but I don't think it would be easy. Plus, I worry about how I would cope with a full time job and raising a child at the same time, without a partner's support (my parents worked full time, but there were two of them). I do know someone that raised his children on his own and worked, I know it's possible, but I don't know how well I'd manage, I'm scared of screwing up.



Thanks - don't worry, the same happens to me, I don't know what to say to cheer people up.



I gave up on friendship, and almost all other human connections, for a while - I was going through a very rough path and everything seemed to be falling apart a the same time - a death in the family, the breakup, my then best friend abandoning me when I needed his support the most, and a bunch of other stuff. I kind of shut down emotionally, and it took a while to emerge from that. At the time I saw friendship as utterly worthless - I don't anymore, but I do see it as fragile and transient. Likewise, my relationship was such a central part of my life, and now romance is simply 'not applicable.' While this is not something I'm happy about, it's something I can come to terms with.

*puts his troll hat on

Who votes for the OP to find a new avatar?

I've had this same internal turmoil after bonding with a friend's son. I'd love to raise a child ... mold them from a screaming poop-machine into a walking, talking person. But, as you said, I don't know adoption protocol at all but I highly doubt it's commonplace to allow a single male to adopt. Then I'd have to figure out day care, and finding a place with two bedrooms, and how to afford everything ... it's something I'd love to do, but logistically I don't see how it's possible.

I was first drawn to the idea of having children when I was in a relationship - I wanted to marry her and start a family with her, it's not that I hated children or anything before (I'd done a little bit of work with children before that and had enjoyed it) , but for the first time I looked forward to having my own one day - we'd already even thought about names. After the breakup for a while I didn't think about it either way, but then the urge returned, and I've done a little bit of work with kids since and it was good. When a child does something nice or funny and clever, I sometimes think 'I'd love to have a child like that.' Ironically enough I like children more than a pregnant colleague of mine I share an office with.
The only people in my home country that I know who have adopted are all married couples. So even if after I graduate I get a job good enough to support two people, I doubt I would even be considered (actually, I don't know if a lone individual is even legally allowed to adopt in my country), and anyway the logistics of working >40 hrs a week and raising a child are not promising.

I know one guy, with normal social skills, who says he doesn't want to get married and will adopt when he's in his 40s - he'll probably change his mind as he's only ten, but knowing his mother and sister I'm not surprised living with a woman doesn't seem such an attractive proposition to him now.

Geez I can really relate to your story pbcoll and I'm the same age. It bothers me whenever I think about the future of my family being gone....as ridiculous as that sounds. I still feel extremely dependent and emotionally fragile. I've already been through 4 suicidal attempts and they're not fun. So I'm not sure if I want to die or live through it all. I try and cherish the ups rather than the downs. Keeping or even having friendships have been extremely rare. I also don't see myself in any romantic relationships anytime soon.

Anyway, you have my sympathies pbcoll. I can't really give you good advice except don't kill yourself over it. I've done some stupid things at moments where I felt real down and then felt totally different about it the next day. Sometimes I try and enjoy the simplicities in life like the weather and my pets....yeah my pets.

pbcoll, I could've written your opening post word by word. But I'm 21 years older than you, and with a history of adversity that you probably don't have (abusive family, difficult emigration to the other end of the world with totally different set of nonverbal rules to discover and [fail to] adapt to, a failed career due to the change of location, discovering the existence of AS at age 45 after a lifetime of blaming myself).

You're too young to feel the way you do, because if I now had the insight you and I have but was 26, I'd still have plenty of time to mold my life more like I want it to be. For me it's too late for almost everything, but for you it's just starting. I'd say treat your depression and use all your wisdom to slowly but surely get where you want.

I wouldn't give up hope. You are young and odds are, if you really want a LT relationship or children (or both), you can figure out how to do it.

Ironically, I thought I did not want kids when I was your age. Then, 13 years later, I changed my mind.

Having kids has since turned out to be the best thing to happen to me in my (nearly) 47 years of life. They are the first (and, to date, the only) two people I have actually been able to bond with in any meaningful way. Hopefully it continues as they get older!

I'm now working in reverse trying to bond with my wife of 18 years... Now that she understands (as of the last two months) that I really do love her, I just don't know how to show it in ways that she previously expected, I think we have a pretty good shot at it.

If that works, then I'll try bonding with my parents and my sister...

Never say never!

Don't worry, my parents are in good health so I'll probably have strong reason to stay alive for a while.



You've gone through more than I have (my family wasn't abusive, at least certainly not deliberately) - though I have experienced the struggles of moving to another country more than once - let's just say at this stage I just want to move back to my home country for good, with all its ills, which are not trivial. Incidentally, this ties in with the whole having children issue - for myself alone, I can assume all the risks of going back but if I had children I certainly would not go back, I would either stay here or go to a third country. I also have a failed PhD behind me.



It's not so much an issue of age - my dad is older than you and he still changes things in his life, discovers new interests, engages in new things, etc - for me it's more an issue of ability or capacity; getting into a relationship I would actually want seems beyond the realm of possibility, for example. I don't feel I have much wisdom, as I regret nearly every singly major life decision I've ever made.



A functional relationship for me seems totally beyond the realm of the possible - singlehood seems much better than putting myself through another failed relationship. I'd be happier in a half decent relationship, but being single is perfectly endurable, and the more years I remain single the less it bothers me. Sorry, I'm tired right now and probably not making much sense.