For those feeling jaded...

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It seems like the feeling like our lives are being stolen out from beneath us is ever present. Achievements are ephemeral and in-between them we realize that we're forced to live lives closer to objects than people in that we're asked to stay in, our modes of self expression are something that people just can't follow, and in that sense we get to see all the beauty in the world but through bittersweet eyes as we watch it all from the other side of the glass.

Anyone want to have an in-depth discussion on this facet? Yes, I'm talking PPR deep existential stuff on our plight. I'm feeling a bit emboldened right now and I'd like to see what we've got as far as cards in our hands that we can play against this. I don't mean the establishment so much as taking on the universe and tipping the odds in our favor to where we can have what we want of lives and be able to share our humanity, our hearts, etc.

I dunno if I'm up to deep discussion. But I feel like I'm constantly playing catchup where everyone else is. For instance I'm just learning to drive at 27.. just went on my first date in years.. and just finally going to college. I feel like I'm running a deficit on life experience, I've wasted 10 years and I can never get them back.

I mean there are 17 year old's who are more "Adult" than I am by the standards of the society that I live in and it really kind of pisses me off. It pisses me off to think of all the things I missed out on when I was 17 because at the time I was 17 I acted, emotionally, more like I was 10, still playing with toys and videogames and not caring anything about cars or girls. It really pisses me off because my mom didn't seek to encourage me not to do those things, didn't encourage me to learn to drive, didn't encourage me to go to school when I was 18, didn't encourage me to do anything except stay home, and continue to act like a child. I've finally seen through her plot now that I realize just how helpless I was when she wasn't around to do stuff like drive... I intend to change that. It's not hardened my resolve to drive, get back to work, and get the hell out of dodge.

Sounds like she didn't know what to do and probably didn't have the tools herself. I'm sure she loves you, biggest trick is just making sure that you do what you want in your life and put as much effort or even time in as it takes.

I'm kind of in a similar spot albeit 32, back at home, hopefully saving for investment property, working on other ambitions between martial arts and music, but the most bizarre part of it is realizing that I'm nothing like anyone that I know, that I have no roadmap to follow, and that trying to figure out what a normal life is supposed to be for me, in my circumstance, is incredibly tricky. I'll be trying to get a second opinion to see if I can get some thoughts from a professional or two, if they best they have is a blank shrug and "You're on the autistic spectrum - this is just how it is" I suppose I'll sidestep that recommendation and keep trying to be and do things that are supposedly out of my scope. What I hate about that though is I feel like I've been crafting myself into someone who literally doesn't exist, its not that I'm not being me but I'm a collection of things that NT's consider mutually exclusive and because of that most have no place for me; dealing with me on that level is apparently a bit of a mind-altering experience. Lol, oh well. Seems like the trick is not being bitter, trying to actually claw my way up over that and even trying to be light, humorous, and as teflon as I can be to it. Don't know how things will turn out and whether my future looks more promising or more eerie; most important thing for me to remember though is that I won't be doing anything that I don't want to do so, from here on out it'll be me continually pushing myself to make the best of my life - even if this world and this life are a waste most involved on this planet and almost everything we strive for is a bit of an illusion anyway.

Nobody in my life seems to really know what to do with me. I was very much unaware of this up until last year. Learning to cope with this realization has been a challenge, as I do want friends and a semi-normal home life. At almost 29, I'm just now realizing I've misunderstood so much about myself and the world around me. I could go into detail, but this may be the wrong forum for some of these epiphanies...

I've always been aware of the fact that I was nothing like the people the surrounded me. I was different, and this difference kept me closed off to many experiences. Left a loner observing others and wondering how such things came so naturally to them. Most times, I didn't mind too much. I was, too often, lost in my own head for it to bother me that I was excluded. Besides, I've always preferred to play by myself. This, naturally, concerned a lot of my care-givers. "Refuses to play with the other children" is a line that was quite familiar, and the truth is I still am that way to a large extent.

I remember as a little girl (must have been around 8 years old) I was watching a movie that featured an Autistic girl around my age. For the first time in my life, I could relate to someone, and I turned to my mom and asked, "Do I have Autism?" to which she replied, "No honey, you aren't mute. Autistic people are mute." This saddened me, because it meant I was even different than the little girl I was able to understand. Years later, I learned my mother was wrong, but the question of my placement on the spectrum had long been forgotten so it didn't click into place just yet. I was too busy going to party after party, smoking pot/cigarettes, getting drunk, and having sex with random men. I was searching for something everyone else seemed to have, and doing all the things I saw my peers do seemed like the logical way to find it. I never did, though. In the end, all the partying just led me down a path I never wanted to travel in the first place. I was still an outsider, but now I was a pothead stuck home with my mother and no way out of the hole I'd dug for myself.

I ended up meeting a man that fell in love with me (or so he said) and I thought "Maybe this is what I've been searching for. Perhaps I've found it in all this mess after-all." Again, I found myself lost, lacking that which I so diligently sought. In all my logic, I'd failed to listen to my heart. That's the thing with me, my head so often shouts over everything else and I fail to see the logical answer isn't always the correct one.

Come up to June of last year, when I stopped lying to myself and finally ended it. I felt free at first to pick up my search where I'd left off, forgetting there was some very real and painful damage from all my failings before. Still, I press on. I'm finally remembering who *I* am in all of this and what I've wanted all along. What I used to tell people so enthusiastically as a child... "I want to be a writer and make music." So, here I am 8 days from my 29th birthday and I feel as though my life is just beginning. I'm doing all the things I should have done 11 years ago.

I'm still very much a loner, but I've begun to accept it. If it leads to me being a single mother for the rest of my life, then I'll learn to accept this as well. I'm done trying to change to fit the world around me. I am who I am, and those that care will understand and love me all the same.

I'm not sure what can be done to move towards goals and desires, etc..., (aside from purely pragmatic exercises - attaining an income, budgeting, investing, and things of that nature) because, though I have the same personal goals and desires as other people, I fail to understand how one goes about getting those things (romance, inclusion, feeling normal, and things of that nature). I don't know how to get from inside my head, to outside in the world, if that makes sense.

I find myself becoming less tolerant. I used to be fairly open about people's beliefs and feelings, but over time I'm finding them more and more stupid, banal and irritating. I find it deeply annoying that people are attracted to complete BS. I do not hold with respecting other people's beliefs. I respect other people unless they do something to give me cause not to. Their beliefs? No, those are fair game. If you're going to respect beliefs then you can't stop with Christianity and Islam. You have to respect the beliefs of the white supremacists, the homophobes, the 9/11 Truthers and the people who think Elvis is still alive. You can't say "but those are ridiculous". That just means you're picking and choosing. The belief about the zombie Palestinian who'll spare you from eternal torment if you sell him your soul is somehow more reasonable than the belief that there's a government conspiracy?

I started out quite intolerant, because other people were stupid. Then I learnt that they just think differently and that sometimes I could be wrong, and I grew more tolerant. And now I've come to realise that while I can be wrong about stuff, I'm willing to change my mind about it, and somehow this is a talent lacking in most of the population. People are so STUPID. Is critical thinking really that difficult? Is it really so hard to learn to watch your own thoughts and wonder where they came from?