Am i the only one who thinks living with autism is Hell?

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If by "against a cure" you mean "against groups which portray Autism as a horrific malady that destroys the lives of whoever it touches and should be eliminated from the face of the Earth via genetic testing and selective abortions, and those with Autism as miserable, diseased individuals."

Hell, no.

There is no guarantee to anything. Life was kinda hellish for me before I was diagnosed. Afterwards, it became what it is now: a struggle, but an exciting one. I have to struggle with a world with a set of rules I fail to understand. I have to struggle with a lack of confidence. I really doubt there is any one who is really in love with his or her condition. Some of the "abilities" the syndrome has can be used as tools to achieve goals others could not or at much slower pace. I can dedicate myself to things, doing them for hours, days, weeks, months, where others would get bored after half an hour. But do I have the choice? Did someone ask me if I wanted that? It would be cool to have that without the ineptness to organize my life in a way that suits the rhythm of everything else, being reduced to the abilities of a little child when it comes to handling social situations. Lacking in confidence because I have mostly encountered rejection, and never ever unsterstood why. I didn't choose all this, no one did. Everybody carries a burden, sometimes visible, sometimes invisible. I do feel that dealing with my inabilities makes me stronger, as an individual, inside of me, just for myself. I would never go and use my Asperger's as an excuse for failing, for disappointing myself. It can be a reason, but not an excuse. It is the burden that has been given to me, it is up to me how I carry it.

Or, you could just say: Life is what you make of it.

I can only speak for myself, yes living with autism is hell (doing it 34 years now) i think that is why many of us may seem to be in love with their diagnosis. It gives a name to something that had been the source of enourmous amounts of pain. And brought in the possibilty that i wasnt the only one who had the experince. It doesnt do a damn thing to change the experince. It doesnt take away the isolation or the pain.

I f*****g hate it, I hate the awkwardness, and I hate the depression and anxiety that are so often comorbid with it. And I was diagnosed as a small child.

I frequently live in my own personal hell.


I live alone
I have frequent panic attacks
I'm often afraid to leave my dorm
I become anxious when talking on telephones
I'm love shy (working on it)
I can't connect with others
I can't look people in the eye
Every time I have shown interest in a girl, I have been rejected
I live in a dorm where I'm constantly hassled by the police, and I can't own a cat
People often seem to dislike me, and I can't figure out how to correct it
I'm dependent on SSRIs
I am mortal; I will one day cease to be
There is a lot of suffering in the world, more than I can comprehend
I live in poverty for the time being
Meltdowns are humiliating
I can't relate with most people

I crave social contact, but when I am in the presence of others, I become extremely anxious. I'd imagine being constantly thirsty and being unable to swallow to be analogous - you can have water everywhere, even in your own mouth, but nothing can be done to quench your thirst.


And despite all this, I know that many people are far worse off.

I'm with you there. I'd gladly get rid of my autism.

I'm about to move out soon, but honestly living with autism is an absolute nightmare. I don't really care to offend anyone, but if I had the option at birth to not have autism I would gladly of lived without it.

Growing up being a social outcast was bad enough, I'm 21, I work nights, sleep during the day and don't talk to people at all. It's a joke.

Some scattered thoughts:

- People are not the world. People don't dominate the world any more than your nose hairs dominate you. People do dominate each other's attention, and "world" is to a mind all things it pays attention to. Try not to let people dominate your attention.

- Some of the hell you're experiencing may be due to trying to be something you're not. Are you really the social animal your parents and "peers" told you you are, or "should be" (whatever that means)? Do you believe your social needs are as extensive as those of nonautistics, but your needs aren't met due to your lack of social skills? Or are you really serving other people's needs and not your own when trying to be social? Do a lot of your social behaviors not make you feel like you're a bear made to dance on a ball? A disgrace, a rather pathetic shadow of your actual nature?
I feel my limited social skills more or less match my limited social needs. I'm generally fine when alone and there's no noise or other people-generated crap going on around me. But when I'm not being left alone I usually feel miserable to the point of desiring death. So clearly I'm not a social animal. I do appreciate friendly interaction with a few people I know well and trust, but human interaction is not the essence of life. More like salt in food. A nonautistic (i.e. "normal") human life, if I were to lead it, would be like a plate of salt with some bits of meat and vegetable in it. Horrible. Lethal, most likely.

- Some of the hell you're experiencing is due to actually being in hell, in a way. The hell that people make for each other. All the things that bother me because I'm autistic, they didn't exist in earlier times, or to a much lesser degree. There were fewer people, small communities instead of large societies, none of the noise that's "normal" today. It's like humankind is trying to create the most hectic state of affairs possible.

- When there's a mindsplitting noise near you, which hurts like hell, literally, because it takes your attention hostage, and your attention is you, do you wish you were deaf? Probably, then and there. But deaf is forever, unlike that noise. Very difficult for us autistics to remember that all nows are temporary while they so obviously seem eternal from within.

- When I'm unhappy, it's because I care (about something or someone). But deciding not to care would also make me unhappy, as it would make my life feel pointless. So there must be some golden middle there, a decent compromise. Care as much as you can tolerate. No more, no less. And accept that caring hurts, at least a bit.

- Nonautistics reportedly "think in words". No light and no space in their minds, just an inner voice yapping perpetually. Seems pretty hellish to me.

I don't know if living with autism is more of a hell than living when you're NT. I'm not NT, so I can't judge that.

Life has been hard for me. Certainly harder than it has been for most of my NT friends. The simplest things could, and still can break me down completely. There are so many aspects of how people in this world behave that I simply cannot understand. But life is about falling down and getting back up, brushing the dirt of your clothes and keep on walking. By saying "I hate my life, it is a hell" you create a hell for yourself.

I've made it a hobby of mine to study the behavior of NT's like they study us. Turning it the other way around. What if the world was mostly dominated by people with ASD? What would be the weird quirks of the NT's? What would be considered weird behavior? This makes me see some of the advantages we have on them.

Yes, life is a hell sometimes. I chose to blame it on life in general. Make it a lot easier to cope.

I think Autism is hell too, unless you were brought up to cherish it - which I wasn’t. My Autism made my mother on and off Prozac and other anti-depressive drugs since the day I started school (where all my Aspie symptoms came out at once), and I'm still causing problems here in the home today. I seemed to have got set in my ways and everybody's so used to my untidy manner that I'm finding it difficult to change myself.

Also, how can Autism be great if you're brought up in a world ran by NTs for NTs? It's quite impossible. It's like a dog being brought up on a farm full of cats, and cats only. The poor dog would feel very confused and strange. And vice versa - if a cat was brought up with a farm full of dogs, no matter how kind the dogs were to her - she would still feel left out at times, especially if the whole farm was built just for dogs.

Although I'm not as different to NTs as what cats and dogs are to eachother, I still feel useless at times, especially being on job-seekers. I've been on job-seekers for 3 years now, and I have attended placements, work experiences, courses, ect, but nobody will employ me, because of the mad stereotype some NTs have against AS and Autism. They just think, ''ohh she's Autistic - she won't talk to anyone or know anything,'' even though I've given them a CV with GCSEs on, previous work experiences, and sat right in front of them at an interview speaking to them as normal as the next person would. But that's the way this offensive, upsetting stereotype goes. I don't think it's fair because if I was an employer I would give everybody a chance, especially those with disabilities.