I hate myself, or I'm back in self-pity/self-loathing mode.

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I've been on an emotional rollercoaster these past weeks and I just feel I'm gonna be a sad, defective aspie f**kup. I'm 25. I don't have too many friends. I've never been in an relationship. I'm still a virgin.

I don't get why some people here are happy they are an aspie. I'm sure as hell not. I've struggled with this disease for 25 years of my existence. I've been bullied, ostracized, rejected and almost everything sh***y a person can have happen to them. People tell me both here and in other places things do get better as I get older and I'll be able to figure myself out. I don't want to wait until I'm 35 for a relationship, I just feel the social timer and my biological clock is about to run out and I'm just pressured to get laid as soon as I can. I honestly wish there was a cure for an ASD, I'll gladly go into debt to RID myself of being an socially inept aspie. All I want is to be like the NTs out there, socially capable and into "normal" things. Not my aspie special interests which people do shun unless you're the stereotypical unattractive nerd or geek. I don't want to associate with other aspies, because frankly they are people I wouldn't be caught socializing with even though it's much easier to do so in those cases. Isn't that too much to ask for? I'm just f*****g SICK of my lack of empathy, the way my brain works with logic over emotions which results in that logically-based social firewall that hurts me.

I hate how my brain works, I hate how I scare people off by coming off as aloof and emotionally cold, I just hate myself - period. Like I said last time, maybe I should have just committed suicide years ago. I'll never accept the fact I'm an aspie. I'll never be happy with myself. I'm sick of the band-aid fixes.

Yet you come here to ask us for advice?

It's the ones that are deeper down the spectrum or ones with the more obvious signs, I meant to say. Sorry, my mind was boiling over.

It sounds to me (and I do have some experience in this) that you are suffering more from clinical depression than your AS. Have you ever attempting counseling or SSRI medication?

SSRIs are out of the question for me. I want to see a therapist who specializes in ASDs, but I doubt Kaiser isn't going to get me far.

I was on Zoloft and Prozac back in high school 7 years ago. Never again. I think the risks of SSRIs such as suicidal realization, weight gain, and withdrawal syndrome aren't worth the possible benefit of my mood lifting. I just think antidepressants are merely a placebo for me.

My life's been riddled with the same things. I started on an aspie forum back when I was 22, with a very big chip on my shoulder - mainly that I had every intention to quite literally beat this out of myself. I saw it as life and death of honor and, if I didn't sort it out, I needed to die of a brain aneurysm or organ failure from having the petal scraping the concrete for too long. As time went on and being willing to be the worst bully I'd ever known only actually made me weaker rather than telling my subconscious to shape up or die, it occurred to me that there was nowhere else to go - I could either collapse into a black hole and quite likely (and ironically) still have a very long life in that state, or I'd need to teach myself how to accept what is, what I can't change, etc. etc.

What drove me up the wall - I have good empathy, I can read people, my social knowledge was well within NT range especially in my early 20s, just that its worthless if your fundamental instincts are out of line or if you so much as stutter a few times. Over my 20's I went all over the place with groups of friends, had many big groups I was part of (very in and big groups), ran with a lot of the hot crowd, and regardless of how many friends I could make I couldn't find a girlfriend to save my life. I never liked what I saw for the most part and it was based on that I didn't see anyone who'd even come close to accepting me for me, something about my form allows friends in but I think puts me in about the bottom 10th percentile for relationship success. Going forward, I know that I can't be anyone else. Lots of hope is out there for aspies who simply never learned to shower, never learned to read people, or were too sheltered to learn anything about life as people like that fly past me when they finally get that knowledge while I stand still and wave them on. I'm pretty much capped at this point.

I can't advise you on what to do. Ambitions I'd suppose are about your best supplement, be as successful as you can to bring your own happiness. You quite likely may never find anyone and it won't be looks (in fact - being better looking and having instincts toward those of equal looks is what really takes us out of the market). I think the only comfort I found is that a lot of other people's success came at prices that I'd pass on it for, that and it seems like the whole world has problems - whether its short cognitive potential, alcoholism, coming from abusive families, being in the wrong place at the wrong time in life. Admittedly our own predicaments are maddening - there's no sugar coating that, as I also felt for a very long time in my life that for chance to be against me in so many ways as it was was absolutely statistically impossible, the bad luck in certain areas seemed to be well beyond correlation.

No one has a choice in these things though. I hate to say it, you already seem like a pretty cool and with-it guy. I don't know how much more you can change yourself. The logic/emotion ratio change you think you'd need to make is something I can guarantee you'd be utterly allergic to, and if you did have enough success to see how they really interact and how its really like having an eternal six year old at the core of things - you'd likely go right back to who you are now every bit as fast as you could throw up in your mouth. In certain situations at bars, performances, etc., the content of it jumps out if you're at the right place at the right time to see it. I went more logic over emotion simply because, as a kid I was thrown to the bottom of the pecking order and people had me off balance and constantly under their control when I was operating on an emotional wavelength - it took cooking that out of myself to gain my own ground and self-assurance. At that rate though its really a dead end and you'll find that life, and the gene pool, seems to understand that the signs of social defect change with age thus every age group seems to know the tell-tale signs of someone who was persecuted when they were younger, even if it looks like strength and success as an adult.

I hope this isn't all sounding like doom and gloom but I just wanted to impress that others of us are going through the same thing and many of us did spend significant parts of our lives rebelling against our traits and our diagnosis. That said though, I can't predict the future - in 5 years I could be in that situation of married with kids on the way, something odd could happen either with someone else or in my chemistry that would allow that, same for you. The only thing I can tell you - completely abandon the sense of age appropriate mile markers, we generally don't make them, not our fault - as I found, no matter how much I was willing to literally try and beat maturity and adult behavior into myself the maturity I wanted would only come about 3 hours of life after I needed it the most, was willing to give my all for it, collapsed into depression, came to acceptance, then a few months later bam - it would only come as through no effort of my own. Maddening stuff but, this is what it is.

It does sound like doom and gloom. I know I beat myself up all the time and use my NT friends, hell other aspies in an relationship as my benchmark. I'll just never be able to come to terms about myself. I've overcome some great odds against me as predicted by my teachers and the psychiatrists that diagnosed me as autistic when I was a kid, but I'm 6 months away from graduating from college - which my teachers in middle and high school would never thought would happen, and I'm not in a group home with kids more worse off than me - in which a psychiarist recommended my parents commit me to an institution when I was just 4-5 years old. I just feel socialization will be a game I'll never win even though people I have told me love will happen when you least expect it, things getting better as I get older, and such. I just feel I've been handed the short end of the stick.

I think the first step is acceptance. Accept yourself for who you are and realize that there is no such thing as a "cure". Nobody can accept you until you can accept yourself. It sounds cliche, but it really is the truth.

I second this, trying to become a apple while you are a pear is only going to work to a certain extent. Try a find some acceptance in who you are and people who accept you as you are (us?).
In real life there are people who can do that, but it might be a bit of trying times - there might be a little getting used to from non-autistic people too. It goes both ways.

I too am in your position, no relationship up to date, virgin, not many friends (but those who are do matter! instead of the fairweather types). I regularly have my frustrating moments and annoyance why it just can't seem to work even though I worked so hard on it. Those urges for sex and relations are ever present, you are not alone in this all.

I've recently started an account on a dating site (OKCupid) and put up a profile in which I've plainy put in me and attracted some attention with it. I can fake my way through life but that isn't gonna work in relationships, they have to take me as I am and I let some leeway exist for possible adaptation. Have a nice pictures of yourself on it, make a nice description of yourself and just contact some people you think might be fun.

You might run aground with some matches but eventually you'll succeed.

Cheerfully,
Wallourdes

The challenge for people like himself and myself is that doesn't come easy, as in we don't have the mechanisms to just back off. Its almost like we need something of an alpha way of phrasing it to ourselves or a way where we inherently feel like were' adding to ourselves more than deflecting ourselves. My pivot point was when I realize that just hitting my nervous system with blunt force didn't make me stronger or make things easier, in fact it made me weaker over time and it made me even look more docile/timid/nimbish.

Understanding that I realized that I had about five or six years of an extremely committed habit that I needed to break. I think it did at least in its early stages help me realize certain potential and understand where the line was between things I could do and elasticity in that wall which I could hold temporarily but which came much too expensively in a neurochemical sense to hold without fraying in other senses. This is what bugs me when people do overrun Love and Dating with "pfff....I don't know what your problem is, I can do it", we're built differently and SO much goes into this above and beyond 1) do you get it and 2) do you have the guts to get off your arse and try.

I kind of wish I had some more direct advice to offer nthach because I know exactly where he was coming from, even had a phase where I firmly believed that I'd outcooled this condition, in error of course and mainly what I didn't know about what other aspies are and aren't. I think the only thing I can tell him is that this will likely weather itself out, ie. your mind can only put you through existential panic for so long and that he just needs to hang in there for another five or ten years - all the while plotting and scheming (in a positive way) on how to improve the base line of his life in ways that he can control. My own process was quite painful, lots of very bleak abyssal moments between sleep and waking, some very hard-line/sulfurous depression, felt like existence was sort of unwinding on me. The worst of that calmed down, as my friends have moved out of town I kinda feel like I'm up in the air again, entering my 30's in my current state is a rather strange/eerie feeling as well but - I consider myself lucky that I have enough self-investment distractions that a lot of this gets eaten up.

ntach: just make sure you have enough to keep dissipating these feelings. Working out, education, hobbies that have a lot of emotional return on investment as well as building skill sets for other endeavors, through achievement I think you can leave the sense of not making the bar in the dust. The only thing that that sucks, on the dating topic, I think we both may literally be looking for things that simply don't exist at least within our spheres and may not ever, if they will its enough of a long shot that we could never calculate the right time, place, and behavior in our conscious minds to own our outcomes. If I ever have to wonder how a fair minority of NT's even end up permanent singles I think this is exactly how, either other priorities or high/specific standards which are outside their realm to dispel. If you stick to your guns you go out as you went in, if you break down your standards you likely end up in a situation where what you get isn't worth the agony of pressing yourself into something you aren't.

One more note though - please don't do what I did for years: I had this obsession for blaming myself for not being in the right places at the right times, it started to stack on that being in any single place at any single time was an opportunity cost of being other places and I almost couldn't relax over it, ie. my locus of control went to an unhealthy extreme of internalizing. Since then I've kind of flipped almost the opposite way, not in a victimhood sense at all but in understanding certain things - I think - about the human condition and our place within space time that makes all of that pretty much imaginary. This is one of those areas where the only thing that can help is just getting our heads around what's in front of us and the consistent rules we see. Its not so much giving up as, you can't keep your mental health if you continue to own things that are beyond your control. Its one thing when dealing with accusation from friends, family, or at work, to own things for image but owning too much internally is quite a problem in the long run.

For those of us at this mild a reach of the spectrum - its probably more useful to liken ourselves to NT's who's personalities are too deep or esoteric to have many social resources in life that fit them at heart. One could argue they have traits just off of that mentioning but regardless of that they're definitely out there in the world.

Well, with how crap's been breaking loose in my brain and my social life, it'd be unfair to scapegoat women for my problems - unlike a few boys in L&D whose names I won't disclose. It's my brain and how I operate that is causing my agony.

Well, with how crap's been breaking loose in my brain and my social life, it'd be unfair to scapegoat women for my problems - unlike a few boys in L&D whose names I won't disclose. It's my brain and how I operate that is causing my agony.

I'd never suggest scapgoating women either, it makes just as little sense. IMO no one really has a choice. Just as you feel like your wiring is frayed and hopeless - so is everyone else's, You figure that women also have diffuse awareness, emotion hitting them in ways constantly without barriers that you or I would have a hard time fully imagining, I tend to think their inherent needs in men may as well be built around the pivots they have that they can't change. Certain personality types of both genders will just luck out with more people as they're frayed in a way that may be beneficial on that level (and then - they could be terrible negotiators, not have the common sense to hold a job for long, fiscally have no clue how to save or live within their means - everyone has their own demons). In that sense none of this is really anyone's fault - it just 'is' of its own movement.

Looks like there isn't an easy way for me to accept me and the other issues that plague me. I can't get rid of the root cause, which would mean I would need to commit suicide which is NOT an option.

I need to get in contact with my psych, but antidepressants are not an option - like I said I was on Zoloft and then Prozac in high school, I nearly killed myself on Zoloft. And I hated the weight gain as well. I just think most psychiatric drugs are snake oil.

I'll put it this way: the things you like a lot about yourself and take pride in are just as legitimately inherent to you as the things that aren't - so, I wouldn't ever try to typecast yourself or try to re-frame yourself in a way that fits a stereotype, regardless of how society is toward those who won't.

Keep pushing yourself through school, get a good job, keep working on extra curricular strengths. Right now music's kind of at a point where I'm re-examining, however my improvement in my Kali/Kuntao classes and learning foreign language are both going pretty strong. The more you have of things like that and the better you get at peeling apart your own emotional layers to understand what's really going on the better things will get. Also, generally speaking, most people grow happier as they get older - your 30's, 40's, and 50's won't necessarily be the abyss your anticipating, rather you'll have better mastery of the world around you likely, better social relations, more maturity and mental stability in your peer groups, I also have friends who've tried tracking who has the happiest and strongest marriages - their conclusion, mostly those after 30.

Also, don't know if you've ever heard of Dennis Prager, he has a book you can get on Amazon.com used, really cheap, called "Happiness Is A Serious Problem" - I'd recommend it to anyone, its really about the 'what is reality in reference to myself' illusions that cause a lot of the grief people can feel in life.