What do you regret the most about your life with Asperger's?

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I regret the way I was toward childhood friends, at school and to my family, I wish I coulda came off as nicer, more social and easier to get along with, this will haunt me the rest of my life, and I know had I not had AS I woulda done much better and probably been happier today as a result.

I regret not knowing why I felt like I was "different" until this year (I'm 37).

If I had known what it was that was "wrong" with me all along, I would have been proud of learning and adjusting as much as I have to the social world, instead of ashamed at how I didn't get it and having to work for even a rudimertary understanding of what is instinctual to NT's.

I see I'm not the only one here who feels that way - I'm in good company!

I regret nothing except my gi tract problems.

I do regret
...saying some incredibly stupid things to some of my past friends

...not demanding more respect from my peers in adult hood.

...letting the theater group I once involved myself with treat me like an idiot.

...doing something very embarasing and noticing it two weeks to a month later.

...purchasing a beat up, unlivable mobile home because mother thinks it would be so "wanderful' if I had a home of my own.

I know better now.

I sometimes regret my inability to socialise properly, and finding out sooner would have been nice, but in all, every step I have taken in life has led me to where I am now, and it could have been a heck of a lot worse. If I had not been the way I was as a kid and adolescent, then I would have taken a very different path and probably been a sheeple.

I regret my inability to regret things i may or maynot regret, if i were able to regret things i may have been able to regret.

well take the risk, and turn off that deafening systemising running in your head! - http://unlearningasperger.blogspot.com/

I despise the way i did not communicate to people how i felt. I let them take advantage of me purely because i did not want them to think bad of me and i thought they were trying to be my friends. For example: on the day of my year 10 exams i had to catch a bus to school. A group of girls surrounded me on all sides and started asking me questions about my big brother and sister who have lower functioning Autism. After they got their ammo they proceded in linking my odd mannerisms with Autism and were saying 'so thats why your such a freak? its cause your got the same problem isent it" and this behaviour contined the whole bus was listening and i couldent get off the moving bus. I was trapped helpless i wanted to jump. When i got off i ran to the toilets and i took a pill bottle from my bag. Inside were 7 painkillers. I swallowed them, tears streaming down my face i felt so alone in an hour of need. Eventually I went to the exam still bawling the drugs had made me drousey and i was amazed it wasent more seriouse than that. I sat and got low scores on my paper and i couldent tell the teachers why i was so upset when they asked. I knew it was my fault for being so guliable

I think just feeling stifled. Yeah, I was really immature when I was younger but a huge part of that was finding out that I had AS back when I was 11 and having the bomb dropped on me that I'd never be anything, would never amount to anything, and might as well give up. Of course I was real lucky in the sense that I was able to make a lot of friends in highschool (good friends btw), really challenge that concept of me, and move toward being who I really wanted to be and getting what I wanted rather than letting other people dictate my identity to me. Of course with that euphoria came a lot of backlash as well, while I was able to self-improve by huge leaps and bounds (dedicated myself to it for 10 years, day in and day out because I really felt it was practically a life and death matter to meet my NT counterparts on the level) I did find that having this means that even if you can read the people around you just fine and even understand social situations the outward expressive impediments it causes still tend to keep you locked in a channel where you can't fully attain that no matter how tough, persistent, or clever you may feel that you are. That and like anyone, I've always had an overwhelming need to be something, be somebody, make it big in one way or another, really try to outrun my past just by doing well and gaining prestige. Kinda got that but then again I realized that I still had a lot to learn about life, a lot to realize about what it is to have a 9 to 5 professional job, and how much of your life time and energy you really sacrifice if you want to make over 60k per year (seems like the more money you make by traditional means the more hours and the more babysitting responsibilities you'll have - ie. controllership for instance).

I think if anything really does grind on my nerves right now though its having certain things, fundamental things, being out of my control and they're things that society really gives no flexibility on. Like any good adult I realize I'm on my own in this world, I need to put everything I can into solving what ever problems that confront me in life on my own, and that for the things that my physiology and neurology literally won't let me have - regardless of how much of an inhuman amount of stuggle I've put into it at times - those things I just have to find a way to make peace with or hope that I can find another avenue to get around those things as I gain in wisdom, about the world in general and about how my own mind and body work.

I regret being unable to understand people, in turn leading to me being socially outcasted.

>>>>Perhaps this is the other edge of the sword I mentioned. Do you think you would have turned out "better" if you had no idea what AS was?

Yes, defiantly, my poor husband, he heard about it at work. People just use that kind of thing as an excuse to be mean. I'm not so sure autism awareness is a good thing. I think it takes some of the mystery out of life looking to personal faults for other peoples wretched behavior.

The hardest part for me is not being able to connect with people the way I'd like, that glass wall that stands in the way keeping me inside myself too much of the time -- and the worst part of that is knowing how people are probably interpreting my distance/quietness, coming to inaccurate conclusions about the reasons for it, which causes them to stay away making a connection even less likely to happen.