Can Aspie have a happy life?

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Hi, my 5 year old son has been pre-diagnosed Asperger's Syndrome (not confirmed yet). He is not noticeably awkward and is very appreciated by fellow kids where he tends to assume leadership. But he shows no interest in his friends activities. It starts to show now that he is becoming more isolated. At school he will play on his own, have interests different from other kids, and has said for the first time that he doesn´t like school (a surprise because he allways did). I am really worried because, although he is very smart and I'm sure can be successfull if well loved and oriented, I feel he will have a hard time to lead a happy life. I say this due to my own experience. I suppose I'm AS because since I first heard and searched about it, I´m pretty sure that explains just about everything in my life. And I didn´t have a very happy life (mostly in chilhood and teenage). I tend to be very enthusiastic in the beginning of things but allways end up disappointed or frustrated. But I can't really complain about my life. I just can't take a lot of joy out of it. How can I help my son to have a happy life?

Sure. Special interest is key, IMO. A big problem is economic autonomy in adulthood. But I think in some countries you can get some public help, right ? Given a sufficent amount of money to live, an Aspie would be perfectly happy even with zero friends, IMO.

yes.

i agree about your comment that with enough money some aspies would be happy. not all of us though, some prefer a little bit of social contact. (i would like occasional social contact, not too much though)

I would't say that he has no social skills. He just doesn´t have a common social interest. He´s on the lower side of AS spectrum. He will have a productive life but I don't want him to struggle with psychological stress.

What gave me a happy childhood was being given food and clothes and a roof over my head. I was allowed to be a kid and have fun, play with other kids. I used to think my childhood sucked but I realize I had a happy one and a normal one too because I had parents who loved me and spent time with us. I wasn't abused or anything. Sure I was targeted and picked on but I was treated fairly at home. My mom took the effort to understand me and try. She made mistakes with me such as getting mad at me about my obsessions or getting mad at me for being emotionally immature or not liking me playing with younger kids. She also got mad at me for taking "stop that teasing" literally and thought I was being a brat even though she knew I was literal so I will never understand why she thought I would understand that. She gets mad anyway if I shove it in her face so I don't bother asking. Nothing much changed after my diagnoses except my mom stopped getting mad at me about stuff and taking away my obsessions. Instead she just tell me to go watch my favorite movie and it keeps me calm.
Also she never made me feel different or abnormal. She treated my brothers and I the same. Whatever she did with me, she did with them such as being visual. She also signed me up for activities such as pottery or gymnastics as therapy to help my balance and motor skills. Plus my little brother had difficulty balancing his body too and gymnastics helped him. But she always consulted me first before signing me up and I would decide to try it. Only thing I can remember being forced to do was track. I can remember doing t ball and I don't remember deciding to do it after being consulted. My parents put me with normal kids and didn't put me in the special league.


But now as an adult I am happy with my husband and not much income and doing a low paying job but I make more money now than I did in Montana. Someday I will be making over ten an hour again. I quit my last job due to lack of hours and I got a new one for now. It's only temporary and I am making less again but that is also temporary. I still don't have friends except acquaintances in autism groups I go to but that's it. I had friends growing up of course but not much. I was also used and my mom just let them come over to play anyway because she wanted me to be happy and I wanted kids to play with. She didn't want me to be lonely. Plus I think she wanted me to develope friendship and social skills. It's great having kids play with your autistic child and great that they are having friends and kids to play with. I didn't understand the meaning of using someone then.

I know I wasn't much help here.

Whether or not his life is productive will depend heavily on how much those around him allow it to be so. It won't be a lack of ability or skill that holds him back, but his disability in socializing that will often cause others to shun and ignore his efforts.

I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but you can't prevent him from having to deal with psychological stress. He's in for a lifetime of frustration and disappointment. That doesn't mean every minute has to be a miserable Hell. He'll have highs and lows like anybody else and moments of accomplishment and happiness as well as those of tragedy. All these states are fleeting.

You can probably expect more low moments than the average person has, but I think that tends to go along with high intelligence anyway. As the saying goes "Ignorance is bliss" - its easy for people to be happy when all they see is the sunshine overhead and not the storm coming up from behind.

Well, both me, my wife and my daughter have Asperger. My life sucked, my wife life sucked. But now we are happy, I think is common of Aspie kids to be unhappy baddly. What I can suggest is to don't stress him with social interaction and focus on his special interest trying to expand his knowledge.

Depends on how accepting those around him are. Personally, I wasn't happy in the social department 'til college. Just let him find his own path.

Thank you all for your responses and support. He is a very happy child with a lot of family interaction and a balanced social life. I suppose only now he'll start to realize he is somewhat different. It is a terrible feeling to feel lonely in a crowd. And to not find pleasure in the little things can be very demotivating. We´ve allways tried to keep him busy with activities and sports and that seems to work fine.

Yes, for us was university.

My son is happy. He's 12. He has support for areas that trouble him, most teasing has been quickly squashed, and he has two solid friends. They are just now forming a Dungeons and Dragons group, and he really enjoys that. He is in Boy Scouts because he loves hiking and camping. We've spent a lot of time figuring out and then controlling the things that stress him, and we don't try to stop his behaviors that he needs for self calming. He knows that he is AS and knows that famous people like Bill Gates are probably AS, too. He isn't troubled by depression or anxiety as co-morbids, so that helps; his disposition is happy, and as soon as we saw life trying to squash and change that, we got a diagnosis and an IEP. Make the world adapt to him a bit, so that he doesn't have to adapt so much to it.