Exhausted by life

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Hi, I'm new here.

I'm a 33 year old woman with Aspergers. I live alone, I'm really clever, and I can't get my life together.

A few months ago I had a really nasty breakup with a man who I thought was perfect. I'd discovered he was cheating on me with someone who was the opposite to me: very loud, brash, "funny" and needing to be the centre of attention all the time. It would have been so much better if he'd just broken up with me rather than cheating on me for months. He continued dating her after I ended the relationship, and they are still together. I've drifted away from that entire group of friends now.

I'm very intelligent and well-qualified. I have three degrees, but I can't hold down a job. I can't even earn minimum wage half the time. I struggle to form friendships and easily get into fights.

Like many women with autism, I've grown up learning to mask my problems when I first meet people. As such, I only have very short-term connections with people. After I've known someone for a short period of time, I'll realise that I no longer know what to do or say. People get bewildered and disappointed when they discover that I'm not a bright, outgoing person, and become wary of me.

Maybe this is too much to say, but I'm pretty much suicidal. When I talk to counsellors they praise me for how well I'm doing. I've survived so much alone, that people think I'm fine. But, I'm not. I'm trying to do everything by myself, and I can't.

What do you have your degrees in?

What are you REALLY interested in?

Sorry about your breakup with your boyfriend; he was probably seeking to "have his cake, and eat it too." Having a quiet, intellectual woman and a loud, brash woman at the same time.

Very sorry to hear this is happening to you. You absolutely did not deserve to be lied to and betrayed. In terms of the social issues, we have some similarities. I'm a woman as well, and about your age, with a very poor ability to make and maintain friendships, and relationships. What makes me happy is reading about spirituality and/or physics, yoga, 3+ hour walks in the woods/by the beach, and other solitary activities. I may occasionally get bored, but I am Never lonely, even though I spend a lot of time alone.

It might help to tap into something that interests and inspires you, something has nothing to do with working/making money, or something you find fun to do. Is your counselor someone that you can really talk to, and say you're not really fine? If not, I hope you find such a person. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk more

I logged on to talk about a recent break up as well. Perhaps it will help if I share it here with you, and then we can both feel exhausted together. I broke up with my boyfriend two days ago. Today is his birthday. He is an alcoholic and I thought I could tolerate it but I found out that he was maintaining an emotional affair with another woman THE WHOLE TIME and that he is constantly on his phone but never talks to me. I was the least important part of his life. I was neglectable. Growing up, I have always been neglectable. My past relationships have been abusive, this one was neglectful. It also would've been easier if he had broken it off with me sooner, perhaps when he lost interest sexually about a month ago. He said he wanted a meaningful relationship but he got one and threw it away. I was excluded from his public life and neglected in private. He told me that he didn't want to do anything for his birthday so I offered to make him a nice dinner. He wouldn't get back to me about what he wanted. He never initiated conversation. He never introduced me to any of his friends and refused to meet mine. Even if he is doing something tonight, I wasn't even invited. I am grieving so terribly right now. I thought he was going to be the love of my life but he is ashamed of himself and was probably ashamed of me. He wants a popular NT that leads him on and treats him like trash. I feel like I am a diamond in the rough, a real catch, but every man I ever have had a relationship with has treated me like trash. I think if anything, we both owe it to ourselves for walking away from something sh***y, even if it was the hardest thing to do. We deserve better. We deserve to be loved and cherished. I am also unemployed but hoping to make my way in returning to school for computer science. I hope that you find your way as well, and thank you for sharing because reading your post helped me to feel not so alone right now.

This reads as if you have a low functional level. I don't intend that insultingly - I have been told a higher than average cognitive level coupled with a so-poor-it's-near-negligible functional level is the explanation for my problems.
It basically means above-average in intelligence, so able to know and understand perfectly well, just incapable of doing.
The short tenure screams of this too - you can only bluff for so long before burnout, and others are rarely impressed when you're discovered to be not half as "together" as you originally seemed.
Inability forming friendships is just classic of autism unfortunately. What therapists don't seem to understand while they're busy trying to bolster your self image by praising how well you apparently cope is that they are simultaneously negating, downplaying and invalidating your struggles, and what it costs you to appear as collected as you do. They basically behave as if you seem fine, so you must be.
I find "masking" less actually helps this. If you're upfront with the fact that actually no, you're not infallible, you're autistic, that seems to reorient you in the eyes of people like this. Plus it may also help you - masking is exhausting. You're putting all your energy into that, and very little is left for anything else. Giving up that front frees up resources as well as lets others know plainly what they're dealing with. Seems counterintuitive, but often true.

What is the exact reason that you try to do everything by yourself? Is it from a difficulty with communicating with others, or is it to prevent dragging the people you care about into your struggles? For me, it is the latter. Most of my struggles feel like an endless pit that I can never escape from, and I don't want to drag more people down with me. However, I have learned that opening up to the people you care about and removing your mask won't drag them down, but rather they can throw down a rope to pull you out. I went through this exact experience very recently where I could no longer keep a very important issue to myself, and my family has been there to support me through it. Now I have gone back to masking my feelings, but I have gained something that's irreplaceable. There are now people that I know I can go to if and when I need to, that know what I'm going through and can work towards understanding my situation better.



Don't feed people that lie. There are more factors to it than just as a symptom of autism. Your environment, and how accepting and understanding the people around you are, both of these are major factors that can't be ignored. People on the spectrum are perfectly capable of forming friendships, it just takes more time and patience. Another major factor is learning how to behave in acceptable ways, which takes being capable of self awareness. And a lack of self awareness is mainly typical in NT's as well as ND's; it is more of a human trait. Autism makes it difficult to form friendships, but it is not what causes friendships to break apart or not form at all.

Yah that wasn't worded brilliantly in retrospect. Perhaps a better word would have been difficulty. Many autistics find it more difficult to make and maintain friendships, that much is no lie. And I agree it definitely has a lot to do with the people around you, but still, that difficulty is often there. Neurotypical people certainly can have trouble with friendships, but it seems to be more dominant an issue in neurodiverse folks.

That's just an unfortunate circumstance of communicating online. It happens all the time to me. All it takes is to use one wrong word and the entire meaning of what you meant to say changes. I'm sorry I was very misunderstanding about it, I have a bad habit of assuming the worst in people, and I'm thinking of taking a break from WP for awhile until I get that resolved. Thank you for keeping calm about it; I kind of figured that you didn't mean it that way. I need to learn to question people's intent behind their words instead of automatically assuming the worst.

Thanks everyone. I had forgotten how difficult communicating online can be, particularly with other people suffering from autism. I used to use forums a lot about 10 years ago, and remember how easy it can be to feel insulted / misunderstood / belittled when many of us experience difficulties expressing ourselves. I hadn't expected any replies, so thank you to everyone who has written here. Apologies if I struggle to respond well.

Put simply, I don't have another choice. Many neurodiverse children experience rage and anger from NT adults; we are bewildered where we are constantly yelled at for breaking rules we didn't realise existed, and that make no sense. I was often severely punished as a child and usually had no idea why. Nobody else seemed to have such struggles. By 13 I was taken out of school and educated at home, but I didn't get much outside help. Not getting much support, I've had to do so much alone. I've taken the help that I can get but it has rarely been enough.

It's true I don't want to drag people I care about into my problems. But I also struggle to let myself get close to people in the first place. I have loads of people in my life, but I don't let myself really become a part of their lives.



This may be true. I'm honestly confused about how to judge myself on this. I am perfectly capable of doing anything, I just put things off. My life is often in disarray, but it shouldn't be. For example I know perfectly well how to log in and pay my credit card bill, how much I need to pay each month, and by what. I'm just bad at getting things done. I know what to do and not doing them worries me, but that's never enough. It's so obvious to everyone that I CAN (or at least should) live independently that they get frustrated when I keep making the same mistakes month after month.



I honestly can't do this. The thought terrifies me. So many people have known / suspected autism but then been less than compassionate about it. The worst recently was a colleague who had an autistic son. She should have known better than anyone but she was the worst in terms of judging / criticising me for not doing things that she deemed "normal" (e.g. neurotypical). She criticised me for things like not being proactive, using email too often rather than using the phone etc. She essentially told me off for not doing things she hadn't even asked me to do, e.g., not being able to read her mind. I find that kind of language very destabilising.



I can't do it for very long. I get on best with people I can be honest with, but I am very wary. I had another manager who I could be very open with. He saw me cry, he saw me get frustrated, he saw me lose my temper. I even yelled at him once or twice when I was very upset (and of course apologised deeply afterwards), but he never once tried to punish me for it. His acceptance made such a difference.

Unfortunately that acceptance is very rare and generally speaking I don't trust people. I feel like admitting to my autism is like giving people a huge stick that they can attack me with.

I'll address the comments about relationships separately xx

Isn't it nice when things don't degenerate into an argument.
I get the same way - always assuming people are attacking me, assuming the worst intentions in them. Maybe being autistic makes us more inclined to be defensive and think everyone's out to get us, because it happens so often. I took a week or two off wrong planet a while back because I was sick of all the arguments, so it does help to take a breather if you need to.