Life Appreciation

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When I was younger I felt like a loser in a big disadvantage compared to other people in my age, because of my autism spectrum disorder. But as years passed by I started to appreciate my life a little more than that.

Can you explain how has this issue been for you in your life?

thanks

Because for a child today their primary ambition is to fit in with the social environment of school more that see themselves as a family member. Being hindered in reflexive social engagement seems to be a high hurdle for the young.

As time passes one both acquires better social skills as well as recognize that navigation individual relationships is more important and easier that group dynamics (which can sometimes approach theater).

The more one considers education, one begins to see that the industrial mechanical processing of children has many negative aspects that are often overlooked. Consider the book, "The Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto.

This is an interesting question. My brain structure is a little different then most NTs. They change from a child to an adult around age 11 or 12. At that time their left and right sides of their brain finally combine together. Many NTs go on dates, get married, have children, find jobs, work for years and retire. But in my case, I was different. Because of an accident at an early age, my mind never grew up. Life was fine until age 11 or 12 and then all hell broke lose. I never made the transition from childhood to adulthood. I just remained a child. As the years passed, I just grew a mustache and everyone just assumed I was an adult. But I remained a child. Unlike adults, I never stopped learning. My knowledge became huge. Life was always interesting. There was always something new and exciting to learn. Now I am 74 years old. I suffered a massive stroke two years ago. It was a life ender experience. But my mind is still learning, and learning, and learning.

^Very glad you survived that and can continue to learn without boundaries. I too learn new things daily, which becomes a way of life. I have several ways of keeping my mind sharp, mostly involving memory. Apart from Scrabble and crosswords, I try to recall all the world's capital cities and the flags of the world's nations. As the latter is more abstract, it can be far more of a challenge to learn than a list of names.

I appreciate the gift of LiFE. Life is wonderful and beautiful. Just the experience of living uplifts me every day and I think that life should be enjoyed by everyone and everything that God creates.

I've always appreciated my life because I'm always in it. I think I'm a decent tour guide.

I've always been glad to be alive except when I was at a very low ebb, which has so far been very rare. I was late being diagnosed so I never saw myself as disadvantaged in that way, and I still don't see my main disadvantage as being ASD or any other health issue.

I'm very quick to whinge about the bad things in my life, but that doesn't mean I don't value being alive. If anybody tried to kill me I'd try very hard to stop them.

As a young adult, I didn't know I was Autistic, but I knew life was fairly horrible for me and up into my 30s, I would have been happier to do without it. Now I am in love with life. I have enough experience, tools and financial means to have life go fairly smoothly. With my diagnosis, I have more grace for myself. I still have daily anxiety and 2-3 meltdowns per month, but I have more moments of pure satisfaction and joy. A beloved cousin of mine didn't make it past 29 (and I almost didn't), so my goal is to make sure my kids get into their 30s - so they can also appreciate life. It appears it will be easy enough for one and hard for the other.