Question for old fogies only

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I was born long before AS was identified as such. I am now 72. Due indirectly** to my AS, my life has been one long floundering disaster which has never had meaning or purpose. Primarily, I put this down to the fact that nothing in my entire life has ever held my interest for long***.

** I could explain this, but it’s far easier if you simply accept it.

*** Has this happened to you? More importantly, did you overcome it, and if so how? What have you discovered that gives continued purpose to getting up each day?

I have a similar view on life at 52. I was not blessed with singularity of purpose. My only talent is in art and I can't even get motivated to do that. I try to keep it simple and enjoy the moment for what it is. I've released myself from any expectations to "make it". If I can leave this world a little wiser and do what I can not to cause unnecessary pain for anyone else I'll consider it OK. You might read The Power of Now by Eckhardt Tolle. It requires a discipline that I don't naturally have, but I will say the times that I have achieved that state of mind, when I was simply experiencing without mental judgement or commentary I do feel that upswell of joy.

p.s. according to spell check upswell is not a word. Too bad.

Born the same year as Asperger's, I believe, but way too early for it to get to the US. Junior year high school [I will not recite the factors] I happened on what became an abiding interest which to this day provides entertainment and employment [though levels rise and fall].

I have some interests, but with the exception of recorded music, the amount of attention I am able to focus on them and how long the interest lasts is variable and finite.

I liken my ability to maintain an interest (or even to perform simple tasks) to the poles of a magnet - when there's a compatible match, I lock on with rapt attention and single minded focus, but when the poles are incompatible, I can actually feel a physical aversion that literally will not allow me to engage.

I am 51. I stopped floundering twelve years ago, when I found someone who believed in me so much that she wanted to marry me. That put me in a position of not being able to fail. My "special interest" is not an obsession, it is a marketable skill, which I have used to establish a career. I am doing what I know best and making a living at it. I always knew I could do something with it, if only an opportunity would come up. Then, at long last, it did. So I believe I have always had a "singularity of purpose," but had many other obstacles to overcome before I could do something about it. I never had the problem of not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, so it is hard for me to fathom what it would be like to have no idea, no interests and no direction.

I discovered Aspergers when I was 52. My (second) partner was despairing over my failure to deliver, my newly acquired MBA wasn't helping and I didn't know the answer. If you know where I was coming from at the time, you'd know how hard that was.

Since the diagnosis, it's mostly been downhill. Well, the outside world may be slowly revising its opinions of me, and at least things haven't got much worse. I've some room to move when the urge to scream bites too deep. And my partner - yes, we're still in touch - has somewhere to sink her despair.

I'm lucky, in a way: an affinity with computer machinery has provided me with ready income for half a lifetime now. It's just that I can see ways in which we (inhabitants of the domain in which I work) could achieve so much more for the effort we expend. Not being able to share that tends to poison the experience of expending the effort.

I don't think disinterest has been the hallmark of my life, though there are signs of it getting like that recently. My special interests have always kept me alive, and I only get bored with them when they stop developing and when I can see no new horizons to enhance them. I live for the things that fascinate me.

I've always had this thing about working for employers, everybody else seems more interested in the assigned tasks than I am.....mostly I'm just waiting for home time, though I've never had to tolerate zero job satisfaction - I've always been able to find a few worthy things to keep me from going nuts through the sheer tedium of just achieving somebody else's expectations. But the whole thing seems to have gone backwards, and every time I've carved out a reasonably suitable niche for myself, some idiot decides to reshuffle the cards. So now I'm sick of it and I can't be arsed to do the whole process all over again, just to get moved away from it.

i discovered AS at 43, in the early 00s. i can understand the quicksilver interests, i have thrown out more foodstuffs due to it going bad because i lost interest in it. this shames me. this was when i had more money in an earlier semi-professional life. now that i am living in poverty, i have no money to expend in half-baked schemes.
i have NOT overcome "it" and no longer entertain any hope of doing so this side of heaven. i have no real talents, which used to make me feel worthless but now i lack the energy to really give a good-god-damn. the only reason i get up each day is because - well, i really don't know for sure. i spend as much time in bed as possible, until my aching back forces my @$$ up and out of the rack. i am just biding my time until my creator decides to call me back home. he is very patient. i try to do helpful things for the few people in my life, but they are weak and ineffectual.

In some ways, I feel like I am headed in the same direction. Do you have any suggestions on how to improve the situation?

I wish you the best of luck,

Lars

I was diagnosed at 55. At least I now know why life is been so difficult. That is a positive. However, I often feel like I have no direction in life, either. I get really interested in a subject and learn everything I can about it. I seem to sort of move from thing to thing. I learned to paint and enjoyed it, but once I felt like I was doing pretty well with it, I sort of lost interest. Same thing with sculpting, or any number of other things I've tried. Seems like I can maybe master things like that pretty easily and they do not involve interacting with others. But then I lose interest and start to search for the next thing. I never feel quite satisfied with life. Like something is missing. I've always felt like something was wrong with me and that I was different from everyone else. I felt like everyone else had a rule book except me, but never knew why until I was diagnosed.

Maybe everybody wonders what their purpose is, but more of than not, other people seem to me to just be sleepwalking through life, like they don't really want to think or talk about it.

I'm not sure I qualify as an old fogie yet, but I'm hoping my kids will give me all the purpose I need for the rest of my life.

thank you sir. us folk gotta stick together. the only comfort i can offer anybody, is the cold comfort of reality- reality is defined as that which doesn't go away when you no longer think about it. this said, you can push it [reality] to the background by immersing oneself in one's own alternate reality, a vivid fantasy world. my fantasy world started out in vivid semi-lucent dreams then invaded my waking world as well. i just put my mind in another place, when i am not busy with sundry daily living tasks [i can't multitask]. during pauses in the action, i am away from it all, totally absorbed in an alternate world.
short of this, the only way i can imagine my foundational reality changing [for better or worse] is via some outside agency, such as a financial windfall [a boatload of $$$ really IS the all-purpose elixer for what ails one, as long as one is smart about it] or some kind of disaster. parenthetically-speaking, a person's chances of success are very nearly the same whether or not they buy a lotto ticket, a person has a similarly remote chance of winning via a ticket they purchased or of finding a winning ticket on their front lawn. this said, if i could part with a buck and then somehow won the lotto HUGE, like 8 figures or so, i could guarantee that my life would change for the better. money can literally buy happiness, even for this old fart. it might not be the type of happiness that one would immediately imagine, but a type of happiness nonetheless, and this beggar would not be picky about it.
if one is financially well-off and can retire in affluence, that is obviously a plus. "speaking" to Lars, i don't know how old you are, hopefully you are younger than me and still have time, useful talents and further chances to change your course. if you have any marketable skill/talent at all, use it to its fullest extent, save as much moolah as you possibly can, invest as much of it as you can beg borrow or steal, with real professionals [unless you are a sharp money manager yourself], live as cheaply as possible until you can retire as early and as well as you can. then use your remaining years for therapy and/or metaphysical study- when your head is in the clouds [so-to-speak], the mundane cheapness of life back on earth fades in importance.
in the meantime, if you are hurting now, remember that your brain [the average non-multitasking non-gifted brain] is only capable of holding onto one thought at a time. so when the hurting thoughts are foremost, push them out of the way with replacement thoughts- ANY thoughts, all the new thought has to do is push the old bad thought out of mind. sure, the bad thoughts tend to recur, the key is to keep "hitting the delete button" of your mind, and the bad thoughts will get weaker and eventually disappear.
i know this is weak but it is the best i can offer.
god bless:+)

My motivation is my wife and my children. Even though both are a continued source of stress. My life revolves around putting food on the table and clothes on their backs.

Without them I would have no purpose and would probably be sat alone somewhere rotting.

I have yet to be officially diagnosed, but the symptoms & I match almost perfectly.

I spent quite a few years unemployed & on welfare before a friend--now my husband--helped my get my act together. He helped me get to college, which eventually led to a string of jobs (some lasting only a few days) before I found what suits me: fuel desk cashier in a truck stop.

There are some who look down on those in my profession, but the truck drivers really appreciate a few minutes kindness & courtesy. Many have told me that they wouldn't be able to do my job.

I'm now 54 & reasonably content with my life. I'd rather be back out on the road (I have a Class A CDL), but due to extenuating circumstances, I have to be a "civilian". At least I get paid to hang out with truck drivers!

I am a 55 year-old male who has never found a niche or sufficient motivation to pursue a dream. A Peter Pan with thinning hair, bad skin, and no ability to fly, I have drifted with the currents my entire life, feeling myself to be more of an observer than a participant.. Pan's nemesis was Captain Hook - mine is an addictive and self-destructive personality based in part in my Asperger's and in part to an abusive upbringing and consequent lack of self esteem. I am struggling to break the psychological and congenital bonds that have prevented me from succeeding in life, with some success. Alcohol, illegal drugs, and tobacco nearly ruined my health and sex addiction imperiled my marriage but I've kicked those monkeys' asses and am hopeful that I may yet win in other aspects of life. Provided the brain aneurysm I was recently diagnosed with doesn't cripple or snuff me. Ain't life a b***h? Well the embolization I will be undergoing in April will likely take care of that issue and I will be posting here intermittently for many years to come. And if it doesn't I can't say I've had a bad run and, to quote Peter Pan, "To die will be an awfully big adventure."

I certainly felt a deep sense of emptiness when my son grew up and became independent, and even after all this time I don't think I've completely got over it. That sense of purpose really held me together.

I'm not quite the same with supporting wives and partners though. I don't seem to get off on the "male breadwinner" role. I think it's important that both partners are economically independent, otherwise the non-earner's freedom to quit the relationship is compromised, so they can find themselves sticking around for no other reason than the money. I've heard of guys who, on losing their breadwinning role, have felt as if they've been castrated.

Nonetheless, the commitment to mutual support I've known in relationships has been a powerful motivating force, though it's mostly the emotional pact that's charged me with that sense of purpose.