Wasted potential

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I'm not even sure where to begin. Ever since I was a child, people have been telling me what enormous potential I have. I am a decent writer, I had a huge vocabulary thanks to an immense enjoyment of reading I discovered before age 5. In the early grades I wasn't quite a prodigy, but I got excellent grades in elementary school and I still do decently now in high school. What people outside my family don't know is that I was never really trying. I do homework, I work on projects, but I always had trouble studying for tests. I went to class and learned the stuff. To me that was all the studying I needed. This worked out fairly well for me until somewhere around the 5th grade, and even then I was doing well. But ever since then, the amount of effort that I give to my schoolwork became less and less of the percentage needed to succeed in school. and that was not the only problem that became apparent as I got older. I have awful personal hygene, since I used to never shower or brush my teeth until my mom or dad made me and/or reminded me, and even now, I don't do it consistently. When I was a kid, having a lot of trouble getting out of bed to go to school in the morning was somewhat expected. But I still have this problem at 17, and although I reach the bus on time most days, I usually don't make it by much.
When I was younger, I thought all the change would come when I get older, but that hasn't happened.

It made even worse by the fact that my brother and sister basically have everything I don't. I don't mean to say that they're perfect, far from it. But they both get out bed on time consistently, and shower and brush their teeth as part of a morning routine. My brother gets much better grades than I do, even though he repeatedly admits to me that that I am FAR smarter than he is and he knows it.

Perhaps the worst part s knowing that all of this isn't really an aspie thing. Its my fault for being this lazy. I could make myself get out of bed in the morning, but I don't. I fairly certain that I have figured out an effective method of studying but I don't use it. I don't keep an agenda, though I know it would help. When I know I have work to do, I still end up staring it in the face at 8pm having wasted the day watching tv or reading. my only 2 passions

Thats my obsessions. reading and playing video games. When I read John Robison's book, "look me in the eye" I kind of found it more depressing than inspiring. I said "there's a guy who's had it a lot worse than I have, and he got himself out of it." Plus, he taught himself all that stuff about electronics. Whenever I read about aspies Who do stuff like that, It honestly makes me a little jealous. I wish I was that passionate about something that's actually interesting or useful. All I have is the ability to play video games for hours on end without getting bored or having headaches. My friends have taught themselves how to use things like photoshop, or basic programming.

After a while, even my parents started to fed up with it. I lie to cover up tests, and all sorts of other things, and I let them down consistently. Hell, I even have gotten used to disappointing myself. That's not a good sign.

and now, as I approach some of the biggest milestones of my life, (getting into college, succeeding in college, and living independantly from my parents) Both my parents and (secretly from them) myself fear that I am not ready.

There's so much more to say, but I've gone on long enough. I know this all sounds like something one would talk about at a therapist, but I've seen plenty of them, and they didn't help all that much.

The strange thing out of that is that I am actually like you in some ways, almost scarily.
So I do have a few questions on this.
Do you become angry when reminded?
Do you have no concept of time doing what you are doing at the time like daydreaming?
What I have been told is that all of this will come as I progress in life and that is something I intend to do as nobody else can unless you want to live with some nurses looking after you for the rest of your life.

Aspies take longer to mature, and that includes skills like these. Also, it *is* very much an aspie trait, and definitely not just laziness.

Can I just say I'm not an aspie but an autie so... either I am an undiagnosed aspie or it's not just in aspies?

WOW. I regretted posting that pretty soon after I did it, because I thought people would think it was a bit creepy to be putting so much of your life on the net, Thanks for your support.

When I look at it now (about an hour later ) I realize that what I wrote swept me up into a self pity storm. That usually happens when I start pondering that stuff. Put in perspective, most of the things I said in my original post are true, but after one of the most emotionally traumatic momements in my life (having a complete and total blue screen of death while taking the essay portion of the SATs) I actualy have started to try to change. and though I do feel like I'm making a lot of progress in social areas, and am a little better with personal hygene, I have made very little progress with my work ethic. I just turned 17, which means I only have a year left to reach eagle scout rank, and I have a lot of stuff left. stuf like that.

Also, that stuff about JR's book really does annoy me. I'm really interested in computers. I want to be able to understand how they work and how to best use them. I wanted to so much that it affected my choice of high school. But I can't teach myself anything, especially not in the way that JR talks about in the book.

It's probably worth noting, that some months ago, I attended an autism convention, and I was able to ask John robison about this issue ( in a condensed form) in person. He basicaly just said it was all up to me, which didn't really comfort me much.

I guess the practical aspect of this post mostly is the academic part. Study tips, time management tips, Keeping a planner, etc.
although, if anyone has had the same types of problems with hygene and getting up in the morning, that would help too.

1 yes I become very defensive when my parents bring stuff like this up, (specifically my mom, since she was a childhood workaholic, and Nearly as stubborn as I am)
2 yes and no, yes time does get away from me when I'm daydreaming/net surfing/ reading etc. no because by this point I know that it does, and I do it anyway

I went through a nearly identical process. I never studied for anything because I learned in class, and I graduated HS with something like 86% GPA. In college, though, I hit a wall. College classes move much faster than grade school, and I couldn't keep up.

I have always had trouble waking up. I am an only child. I am also a scout. I was interested in computers until I went to college and realized that computers annoy me in general, and I don't want to deal with them as a career.

Robison had much more incentive than I do to pick himself up and become useful. My uncle taught himself much of what he knows about electronics starting around age 8. I'm told his IQ has been tested at 204. Mine is generally ~140, so I'm clearly capable.

In my case, I lost faith and hope in anything several years ago. While I have mostly recovered, I have still lost valuable time that I could have used determining what I want to do for a living. I should be a researcher, but presently I am an egg farmer.

I think that when alternative colleges become more diverse, life will be easier for folks like us. Until then I suspect I will need to devise some kind of studying method for when I return to college.

Right, I think we were separated at birth. Possible that we are unidentical twins, ha. Seriously that does sound quite how I am like and I am just a bit older.

Just knowing that I'm not the only person who feels this way is a relief, but then, I'm pretty sure that the whole point of this website.

If you have any hints, I'm not really sure, post them here, send me a message, I imagine there are plenty of aspie studying methods threads in the school and college forum, but they probably dont have anything for waking up in the morning.

What I tried to express when you asked the question is that it takes two things for you to attain your potential:
1 - Grownups have to place opportunities to learn and grow in front of you, so you can see a goal to be attained.
2 - You have to want a goal enough to seize it and work hard to make it.

I talked about how luck I was, to grow up in a college town, where I could study dinosaurs, astronomy, or electronics and computers. A kid in a factory town might never be exposed to those things. But at the same time, it was my drive to learn that made me an expert from what the adults provided.

As someone pointed out earlier, I had a lot of incentive to learn things that were marketable. My parents had gone bad, and I was on the street, I sometimes wonder if living in relive comfort as a teen contributes to lack of drive. After all, why learn if you can sit around and play video games all day, with a steady supply of food, and a warm house? But I really don't know. I don't know why a few people are highly motivated self learners but most are not. And I don't know how an unmotivated person becomes motivated, but I have seen it happen.

Thats basically what my parents tell me

"If you wanted it enough you would make it happen"

That I think is what makes this issue so frustrating to me. Of course I care about my life, my future, etc. I REALLY DO want to succeed. I think I care, so why aren't I acting like it?

P.S. I'm sorry about my 2nd post. I didn't realize it sounded so harsh. I didn't mean to make you sound mean or anything, but I didn't really expect you to notice it.

GamerNerd, it really, really is up to you. If you're doing a lot of gaming, perhaps you're on track to do become a QA tester.

A lot of hard things really have to be done a day at a time, sometimes breaking it down to an hour or a half-hour at a time. For studying, the b***h of it for almost everyone I know is that once you stop for a while, you have to re-learn how to do it all over again.

It's interesting what John says. I also read a short book from one of my favorite film directors David Lynch called Catching the Big Fish. It talks about himself and creativity. Not just finding good ideas, but when you do you have to hold on to it or you lose it.

In a few quote he makes a big deal about his ability to work and his environment. For example if he gets an idea for a painting he wants to be able to sit down and start painting. If there are additional steps in the way like going to the store for supplies or setting up the canvas on a stretcher then time is lost and the idea is lost. He also says if you know you may be interrupted by an appointment, that contributes to cluttering the creative process in your head.

Just saying I think a key factor for some people is having the least possible amount of steps between an idea and being able to develop it. For example if you want to really develop writing you probably need a writing space dedicated for just that purpose and people can't be allowed to interrupt you while you are in there. You shouldn't even have a phone.

Also to cut some slack for the current generation I think we live in complex times and the technology is more challenging to work on. I mean consider if John Robison grew up today with computerized distributors in cars. Also electronics technology in many devices has become so compact it might take more then just determination and a soldering iron. It might in fact require buying older devices at garage sales just to find something a novice and get their hands into and work on.

Again though what I mentioned comes into play. You ponder learning electronics but you can also look several steps down the road you need to over come. Want to take apart a Modern HD TV compared to the old generation CRTs? It will be more challenging sure but you will need the right tools and probably repair manuals. In your mind you mind consider where to even begin and the more steps there is there more easily the whole idea can be dismissed.

I don't want to say discouraged exactly, only that it's easy to decide to move on and find another hobby project that is more feasible.

As for video games and other fun modern distractions, those are just entertainment not pursuing true goals. Also oddly enough playing games doesn't have many obstacles to deal with. Maybe that is part of the appeal. You want to game and you just sit down and start playing. The possible interruptions aren't as big an issue in a game as it would be pursuing a project requiring real serious Planning or Creativity. If you're deep into creating a Fiction Story plot and get interrupted it is a major deal. So that also makes it easier to just game if you anticipate interruptions.


Okay this ran a little long but I think it can come down to a mix of your Skill Sets and proper Environment. .