Difficulty reading these forums

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I have aspergers. As a consequence, I don't spend alot of time thinking about relationships. I have my own 'interests', and other people are usually not among those interests. I don't like sports, the bar scene, television, gossip, or climbing social or economic ladders. I don't even enjoy family barbeques or family get togethers.

I spend time with my wife, I take my kids to the park, I like reading (non-fiction), I like the internet, and video games. I go to (isolated) beaches for solitude. Sometimes if I feel restless, I will go on a long drive or take a vacation.

While I can see numerous forum topics here that I know I have lived through, and are of relevance to me, I have difficulty forcing myself to read them. I don't like thinking about relationships and conflict issues.

Yes, in my personal and work life I've been to hell and back because of my Aspergers. Yes I expect continuing conflict in both my personal and working life that I don't look forward to dealing with. I know I should be trying to improve myself and address my issues.

Somehow part of me just wishes that others could just accept me as being different. Allow me to walk the path less travelled without judgement, and hate.

However, I have been and continue to be harrassed. Bullied for years, accused of thinking of myself as 'special' or deserving of 'special treatment'. Really, if it wasn't for the economic necessity of earning a finanical living, I would isolate myself almost in a bubble, accepting other NT's as they are so long as they don't try to force their way of life on me.

So I have difficulty reading these forums, because doing so is like trying to force myself to behave like NT's, and to quote a phrase 'pretend to be normal' rather than live my own 'different' life to its own conclusion.

Do others here feel similiarly or am I just wierd?

Quiet celebration of differences topic

We still welcome people to WP, even if it means opening up the possibility of a "relationship," though this term is also open to interpretation.

I have writing relationships with members here. They post, I reply, and there may be back and forth communication. Yet this is what being involved here at WP is all about, unless you just want to read the topics, but then you have expressed that you do have difficulty reading these forums. If you have private relationships with your family and such, then this is where you are at this point in your life.

Good luck.

Welcome to WP Repent,
You are not weird, don`t read the serious stuff, some of us hang out in the games forum which can be entertaining at times.

Everyone is made most welcome there, I only joined last month.

It does pain me sometimes to see others enduring some of the same crises and agonies I've experienced in my own life and knowing that there's not much I can do except acknowledge that they are not alone in the experience. I find, in fact, that if I offer advice it's frequently rebuffed anyway, because no one wants to hear that their problem is a direct result of their disorder and the outcome, while predictable, is not the one they're hoping for.

On the other hand, I consider it a support group - and it's some comfort to know that I am not and have never been alone in the challenges that I face. For more than four decades I was made to feel weak, isolated, freakish and essentially of little worth in a world where I was convinced I was a singular mutant - a social Elephant Man, unlike any of the millions of 'normal' people around me.

Its been exhilarating and cathartic to see daily evidence that I am not the only person on Earth who has had exactly these same experiences - that in fact there are others who daily experience the same challenges and limitations I've struggled with all my life. It isn't just me, and I'm not some unique museum exhibit - there's a whole nation of us, and we're not mistakes - we're just different. And only by demonstrating our numbers will we ever show the rest of the world that we belong here, and successfully demand the simple respect we deserve, as human beings.

Willard:

Thank you for your reply to my 'Difficulty reading forum posts' topic. This was what I needed to hear, that although I admit that I am the source my own problems, that others have suffered with the same issues. Also your statement about receiving basic human respect, this is something I have longed for quite a while.

Thank you!

I used to belong to a forum that was for fans of a band, and the people on that particular forum were obsessive with "making friends." People would send me PMs all the time with heart emoticons and gushing. Not romantic ones, since most of the members were teenage girls, and I'm a woman in my 40s, more like needs for acknowledgment and affection. It was exhausting. I always had to figure out how to reply, and it felt sort of forced, having to send them hearts in return so they wouldn't feel rejected. But it was kind of sweet too. I find that I sort of miss that.

I've been told that Aspies feel strongly about human contact in either direction, whether to have no use for it or to crave it, even without knowing how to do it correctly. I see a lot of people here who seem haunted by their aloneness, and I wonder if we couldn't be more active somehow in finding ways to relieve that among ourselves here on WP.

That's the idea, but a forum is kind of like looking out the window and hoping you see something that catches your eye. It's a long and exhaustive process for an overactive mind in and of itself. I mean, look at me for instance. I'm completely bored. By design. It's my choice.

So here I am waiting for a potential discussion, but so far I feel like I've just been yelling and ranting at an empty street. Which is fine and understandable, I'll continue to do it. But...it's rather difficult shaking off loneliness or whatever emotion you'd rather not deal with at the moment.

So why not send someone a PM? I've never done it myself, on this forum, because I don't feel like I know anyone well enough and because I'd be worried that I would be bothering them, but that would be a way of making the forum more social, if that was a common thing that people did.

There are 2 things that have been really helpful to me in the last few weeks:

1) Finding a local adults-with-aspies group, wherein I find that I'm pretty NORMAL - a feeling I've never had in my entire life. And,

2) Finding this forum, which has a lot more stuff than could be covered in the local group time. This is also a support group for me, and when I need to see I'm not alone in my life experience, I can almost always find that here -- but when I just want to blow off some creative energy or do something fun, I too just go hang out in the games area for awhile. There are some very fun and funny people all over WP, but the games area breeds them like rats