Hello! I'm new and I feel absolutely lost lately.

Post Reply New Topic

Hello everyone! Warning, this will be a depressing and whiny post. I'm a 30 year old male, undiagnosed but I am fairly positive that I have high functioning autism. I've suspected it for many years due to the symptoms that I have. It was more or less confirmed to me about five months ago when my son was diagnosed. The doctor said due to the genetic factors and the symptoms I experience, there is a high likelihood that I have it as well. It would be nice if I could get a diagnosis as it might qualify me for assistance, but looking around on the web it seems extremely difficult, costly, and time consuming to get one as an adult.

Lately I'm absolutely lost. I don't know if this is an early mid-life crisis or what, but I haven't been this shut down, depressed, and isolated since I was 15. About three years ago I split up with the mother of my children and started living on my own. I tried to remain positive, so I enrolled in a local community college. I just recently finished and I'm now having extensive difficulty finding work in my field. I feel quite disappointed with the software development major that I chose. It's just not fitting for the state that I live in, and relocation is not possible.

Up until recently I was working two part time jobs. One of them laid me off however, and the idea of picking up hours at the other one is about as appealing as stabbing myself in the eyes with a fork. I'm currently not making enough money and I have to do something, but the lack of motivation I'm feeling lately is proving difficult to overcome. Work is something that has worn heavily on me for the entirety of my adult life. Almost every job I've had gives me this unbearable sense of anxiety that is hard to cope with. I can usually grit my teeth and bare it, but lately it's just getting harder and harder to force myself to do anything. I have a sense that I would like to start some kind of business and work from home, or maybe even pursue some kind of meaningful work that involves helping children in need. I feel completely lost and deflated every time I try to start looking into my options though.

All of my friends are more like distant acquaintances whom I maybe see once every couple of months. To make matters worse, my ex (the mother of my kids who I would greatly prefer to cooperate with on co-parenting) frequently succumbs to fits of rage and irrational behavior. Occasionally these episodes get directed at me, leading me to feel intensely anxious for days or weeks and interfering with my relationship with my kids. I suspect she may be bi-polar, but I have been repeatedly unsuccessful in getting her to accept that there is a problem. I'm also quite distant with my parents and other family members. Other than my kids, I just feel incredibly alone. My kids are the only human beings that I currently feel a meaningful connection to. They're only seven and eight and they really deserve better parents than the ones they got, but I can say that I do my best to put down my problems when I am in their presence.

Looking back on the past few years I can see that I've slowly been sinking into a horrible depression that's been getting increasingly worse. To make matters worse, I've been using alcohol way too frequently to self medicate (though I am strict about never drinking when my kids are around). I'm now starting to worry that the depression is getting bad enough that I may not be able to dig myself out of it alone. I mean, I've managed to get through a lot of depression in the past, but it's rare that it gets so bad that I am unable to motivate myself to take baby steps to get back on track. I've literally sat at home the last two days staring at my computer screen, thinking that I need to do SOMETHING to fix things, but I just can't seem find any concrete steps that are worth taking. This is most isolated and depressed I've felt in a long time. I think I was around 14 or 15 last time I shut down this badly, and I feel that I was lucky to have a couple people in my life that could help pull me out of it. Now I don't have any such people in my life. I thought I might try posting here and seeing if anyone has some helpful advice.

Other than that, nice to meet you guys! Looks like an awesome community.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!