Now that you know... are you harder or easier on yourself?

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while i'm glad to have finally found out about all this...

i'm having a hard time with that ever-ongoing quest to condtion myself to functioning flawlessly in this world...

i think in the past year, i've experienced that "aspie-flareup" where some of the things you do get played up (maybe cause you're simply noticing them more)...

and for things like that... i'm glad i know cause i'm easier on myself... probably cause i have an explanation now...

but for all those other things... mainly interactions and such with other people... explanations don't mean crap. F***ing up in the realworld is completely separate... and they don't wanna hear AS this or blah blah... and im sure for the most part, explanations aren't worth the effort anyway cause people are either unware or you start using it as a crutch...

so aside from the perks of knowing for my own good... i'm finding that i'm way harder on myself for the things i have to do... i realize my job has a lot of social demands (teaching) and that it's a very dynamic learning environment (meaning while my work has routines that i like to DO... their applications have far less routine and there is a lot of room for F***ing up)... i used to struggle with these things and just feel that maybe i wasnt cut out for this type of thing... and i'm glad that i now have more gumption due to my higher awareness... but EVERY time i catch myself doing something stupid... i still wonder whether i'll be any good at what i do. cause for every stupid thing i can catch... how many go unnoticed?

don't worry... i'm not gonna quite my day job... lol i really enjoy what i do, so i know that's the main indicator... i don't need fame or anything for what i do, so i'm fine with leaving the nobel prize for someone else...

i guess i'm just starting to lose that lack-luster that is "discovering AS ect" and am still having to deal with all this CRAP. so am just being very ambivalent towards myself...

for me... it seems like a similar case of deciding whether or not to tell a YOUNG kid they have AS or whatever cause while KIDS ARE SMART and some part of them deserves to know and would benefit from it in the short term (relief)... but they do lack a lot of self disicpline and there is a lot of potential for them to simply use this as a crutch their whole life...

this is kinda what i'm worried about for me. i'm obsessed with being hard on myself... but i'm worried that i'm just over doing it. bah, damn hindsight and its perfection... i need to know what to do now lol

actually... a beer is sounding pretty good right about now...

lunch and a beer.... one step at a time... breathe. lol

I have been harder and easier on myself since figuring out what was up with me. Now that I understand why I behave a certain way, I tend to forgive myself when I do something that isn't "normal" but I am harder on myself when I do things I know I should have control over.

Right now I'm far easier on myself. After all, I've spent 40 years trying to figure out why I thought and reacted to certain things than "normal" people, and why some things were far easier for me and other things were much harder. That's a long time to wonder "why am I different?" and "what's wrong with me, why didn't I FEEL sad when Glen's mother died?" Understanding, or at least starting to understand, the reason is an enormous relief.

Having said that, I'm aware that this attitude could well change in the future. After the diagnosis of most "conditions" the next step is the "cure". I fully understand that this isn't possible or even DESIRABLE with AS. However it may lead to frustration that I can't simply take a pill or do some stretching exercises to solve the negative aspects. I'm hoping this won't happen, but such things tend to be hard to control.

Merle,

But then look around here at what's happened to the ones who did know. What did they get? I'm not seeing good results, but maybe I've missed them. I see kids given all this "intervention" to make them NT and being told the way to happiness is NT - something they can only pretend to be like we did anyway and will never actually be. So they look at the world in a mirror, a reverse image of what they will never be and are told over and over and over (by well meaning NTs who still have no clue regardless of how well meaning they are) that the only way to happiness and success is by being NT. Soemthing they can never do. Not to mention it's complete BS. There are jobs that pay well and are not social (in fact it's a detriment). Do they tell them that? No. It's all being social and NT is the way to happiness. Do they have any actual proof of this? No. It's their conjecture based on their view of the world. It's useless to people like us. We can't be like them anyway. It's part of why I decided against seeking an actual diagnosis. I mean they can't read me anyway so it's a guess on their part at best. I can't deal in such subjectivity. In the end, they have nothing to offer me. I took care of myself. When they're done, I'd still have to take care of myself after they tried to make me feel like I'd never be anything if I'm not NT. I don't need them or their stupid advice. So I walked away from them just like I did those kids in school. I find my own kind or the interesting people I like for whatever interest I like. I pick the people intelligent enough to accept difference. The world is full of average and normal. They have their own lives and I have mine. Theirs is not for me or mine for them. That's how it is. I learned this when I was eight and I just waited to get out and have my own life. I've done nothing but find my own way since. I look at the kids here who keep trying to push their way through that mirror. They're still Alice going down the rabbit hole or Dorothy in Oz. I don't see any happiness there. I don't feel like I missed a thing except more lies told by people who know nothing. It's pathetic that my teachers in the 1960's knew how to handle it better than these people. They should be ashamed.

As for whether I am harder or easier on myself since I realized, the answer is neither. Somehow I realized when I was a kid that my brain wouldn't cooperate about certain things and simply didn't recognize certain things. I never thought I didn't want to do things. I never thought I was stupid. But, I did know that something was wrong with certain things. Despite that, I liked myself and the way I thought. I loved my writing. I didn't see where those kids were so happy anyway. They didn't even seem to know what they wanted and at their age, they probably didn't. Most adults I knew didn't know what they wanted either. I did and I was determined to get it no matter what it took. So that's what I did and I didn't look back. I did what made me happy and the hell with what made those other kids happy. They weren't me. They had nothing to do with me. So for me, nothing's changed. All it did was confirm what I knew already (and what my husband figured out on his own), that my brain has some differences and that's that. It is what it is. It can't be fixed. I've learned some compensation tricks and I use them to get along and get what I want. I still do now. They seem to work as well as anything they came up with and many cases better.

Anyway, that's all I can do. When someone has a good suggestion, like my cuz did, I take it and use it. Otherwise, it is what it is. To tell now would ruin my career and it's served me well. They aren't going to help me anyway. This is it. Best to enjoy who you are and let go of the rest. You can't change it anyway. Find people who can accept you as you are. Forget the rest. They aren't good, bad or indifferent, they are just not like you. The best thing you can do is accept it and go on. It is what it is. Remember you do not have to be NT despite these nitwit experts who know nothing about how you really are, you can be just as you are and some people will accept you. NTs only have a few real friends themselves. They have plenty of acquaintances. You can do the same. That's still true in my life even after I knew.

i know it's an individual path... i just don't wanna beat myself up black and blue over something that i could maybe just deal with.

ive been improving by avoiding certain situations... that's about as best as i can cope with some things... yet i recognize the problem... i just never seem to choose the right course of action whenever i have to face the problem... which brings me back to the avoiding the situation in the first place. this is more what i'm worried about... how to handle things and whether this aversion is the best answer i CAN get... so that i can just be easier on myself... or should i keep stressing myself and probably (?) never improve on these qualities...

i'm fine with choppin wood/haulin water... as long as it serves a purpose... i have never really been slack and don't plan on being so... but there's a difference if you expect to chop wood with a plastic spoon or haul water when you have a leak... what's the wisdom in continuing along that path?

I sort those things by deciding is this really something I need to do to make me happy or get me to where I need to be to make me happy? Many things are not needed when you really look at them. Be careful of those things we do just because we feel we should according to other people.

The worst is when you hit those situations on the fly. I either meltdown, go through it and sleep for a day or two or just walk away. I'm not good with the unexpected.

lol but what if it's work related happiness is an indirect assessment but related

maybe i should just club my smart scientific cutie over the head... let him work... and i can just do art and surf WP the rest of my life

Methodically weigh how critical it is and if you have a coping mechanism you can use. If you it is and you can, do it. If it is and you can't, ask around and see if anyone has figured out a way. Just go through it like any problem that wasn't yours. The solution will present itself (although sometimes it isn't what we want to hear or figure out). But, it's better to know than not know. Right?

No sense in being hard on yourself or too easy, just do what you can and let all of us try to help if you can't. That's why we pool all our brains.

Harder, definitely.

I'm generally easier on myself but sometimes find it's hard to do !
Before I discovered AS,I always knew there was something different but I just accepted that
I was eccentric and it gave me a certain degree of self-confidence.Although I now realise that
confidence was sometimes misplaced and blinkered,nevertheless people appreciated that
I was relatively secure and comfortable with myself and responded positively.
The conundrum since I discovered AS is that although I'm more self-aware,it means my confidence level has gone down because in hindsight I can see a lot of faults I had before
which I simply glossed over instead of facing reality.I also feel a little guilty for not
forcing myself to investigate earlier why I seemed to think differently from others.
On the whole I'm happy to face up to the challenges now and rebuild confidence on a solid
foundation instead of carrying on in blind faith as I was before.

...alot easier on myself now.

I just wish I had known someone who knew enough about it years ago... and they could have set me down and said..."HERE this is WHY you are the way you are."

Not an "official label", diagnosis...I don't think I would have learned as much as I've learned or become the person I am by intervention....

I just wish there was more knowledge about it so maybe I wouldn't have done so many stupid, self-destructive things in an effort to "fit-in" somewhere...I spent too many years not really caring about which way my life was headed because it seemed no matter how hard I tried I was always going to be just that "crazy/weird" girl that everyone avoided...and when you get called things enough times you tend to start believing them...I was no exception.

No pity-party. It just feels like I wasted so much time...and I'm another one that wonders what "might" have been or what I could have become, or where I would have ended up. I've had a good run too for the most part...although sometimes life was a bit of a "train wreck", still is some days...it's still been fun.

Very easy on myself, life has been great ever since, i've been persuing things I like.

Pretty much the same as I ever was. Kicking myself
for being lazy - trying to motivate to do anything.

When I first started posting here, I felt especially
more lenient about myself, but I don't see where
knowing means a damned thing. I still need to do
what I need to, in the long run.

Professionals say I’m hard on myself – I don’t’ see it. I’m just a humble person who doesn’t wish to point out his positives encase you compare them to mine and it saddens you; I’ve always been like this and I’ve only been autistic for a few months….

I’m no different in how I view myself now compared to then: sure, I have some intertextual reasons for why I’ve been unable to do things my peers have grasped with fluid dynamics…but this is only a single (or a few) facet of what defines me. If I cannot do what you cannot do…that’s cool, I’m not you; I’m sure there’s things that I can do with ease that you find difficult to grasp, that’s cool too, you ain’t me.

What I've found in my sheltered life: if you try to force yourself to be what you're not it's a lie that you're telling yourself and the world.

Na…the professionals are wrong, I’m not hard or soft on myself at all…I’m just me.

I've only recently been diagnosed (Aspie/ADD). I took some time to replay my life in my mind under this new context, and have relaxed a little as a consequence. I forgave myself for doing all the stupid things I did in the past, and for not grasping what are touted as the brass rings in life. Most of my life problems were due to not figuring out the one thing that ZanneMarie figured out early: life is about making yourself happy, however you define that for yourself, and accepting yourself for who you are.

I was taught (and it was beaten into me) early that you shouldn't be selfish. Then selfish was defined for me. Selfish is thinking of yourself first, and that is bad. BAD! BAAAADDD!! ! Oooo! so bad! Bad I tell ya!! ! Selfish is not doing what we - your family, job, community, and country - want and tell you to do or be. I swallowed this whole line - hooks and all. Selfish? Oh, no! Not me! I'm a good boy. Wore "good boy" as a badge. You push the button, I'll do or be whatever you want. And if I don't have the capacity, I'll die trying.

I was happily pursuing a career in zoology and art, which I had passions for, when my dad asked me to go into pharmacy to help him out. I hated pharmacy, but didn't want to be "selfish". Earned the degree, told dad I was ready to help - dad smiled and said he hadn't really wanted to start his own pharmacy, was just worried that I'd end up in a low paying career and couldn't support a family. (His fault? No, mine. Should have listened to my own compass). Did I learn? Ooooh no:

Was 26 years old and had never dated. The things I enjoy most you don't really need to do (or can't do) with someone else: read, paint, draw, think, write (except here on WP ) distance running, distance swimming, observing animals, etc. And I'm not exactly equipped for a relationship: can't hear when thinking, daydream a lot (space puppy), get lost in conversations, nap in the day, awake at night, sometimes sleep for 17 hours, sometimes awake for a week, jump up in the middle of the night to hike or draw, do 5 day thinking sessions, enjoy living deep in the woods, studying animals (putting bats in the fridge, once a horse's leg), and I myself am more wolf than dog, etc. And its not like I ever get lonely...eh? Wassat? Pretty bizarre, but that's who I am and what I like to do. Mom and dad and all of my friends started ragging me that I needed to be married. My friends had the girl picked out and everything. It would be "selfish" of me not to produce grandkids, etc. Poor girl! I'll never subject another woman to me again. It wouldn't be fair to any woman. So I tried to shoehorn myself into a 9 to 5 daytime pharmacy job dealing with the public living married in a suburb. Wow! (My forehead is sloped backwards from slapping it so much! ). (Their fault? Again mine).

The stupidity goes on endlessly until I arrive at the "AhHA!" moment that ZanneMarie did at age 8. Started singing: "I gotta be me, I gotta be me..." I ripped the wires off me that were attached to everyone's "selfish button controllers". Everyone freaked when their controller stopped working. I've been happy ever since.

But I still drive myself to do my best. Because I enjoy that. And now under the framework of "if it is right for me". If not, to heck with it. I don't have a whole lot of time to be messing around anymore. Gotta get with it, live life my way, and get done what I want to get done with what time I have left. Now aware, I have no excuses. And now I'm unplugged.