I feel guilty about the way I am

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Asperger's, PTSD, depression, anxiety. It all makes my life difficult. My sleep cycle is reversed, I can't focus on anything, I can't drive, I can't work, I feel sick all the time, I'm always seeing disturbing things in my head. I'm barely functioning. As hard as I try to help myself and change by doing what the doctor tells me to do, I feel guilty about being this way. I feel like I'm a burden to my parents, who take care of me. I keep being put on and taken off of medication, which is costing a lot of money. My psychiatrist visits aren't cheap, either. As much as they reassure me that they want me to get better, I just know that they're saying how sick of me they are behind my back.

It's not just my parents, either. I feel like my only friend and my fiancee are sick to death of me being this way. Even now, I feel like people are going to look at this post and tell me to "toughen up/get over it/stop whining". I've got nobody else to talk to about this soul-crushing emptiness I'm feeling, but nobody really seems interested in hearing about it. That, or they just don't understand and can't offer any advice.

Why am I feeling so guilty about this? Is it normal? Or is it because I've been feeling this way for so long? I want to feel useful again.

Sorry that things are difficult. You may be judging your own behaviour too harshly, and projecting this on to others.

tl;dr: Do not blame yourself. Blame society. I will now show why.

On its own this can be an advantage in certain circumstances (see scientists like Paul Dirac or Temple Grandin). The problem is your other issues and circumstances.


While I am no expert, we could try a thought experiment: can you imagine different circumstances where your PTSD is not a problem? E.g. you win a million dollars, move to a different country, find your soul mate, spend the rest of your life raising horses? Then you have two possible solutions: a new brain or new circumstances. If your brain cannot change then your real problem is your circumstances.


Perfectly rational given your circumstances. Your body is saying "THIS HAS TO CHANGE!! !!" Your body is right. That is the healthy way to function, given your circumstances. These extreme reactions are how your ancestors got out of their bad situations. The worst thing you could possibly do would be to just settle down and accept this intolerable situation.


Because you know deep down that he is talking nonsense. Will taking antideppresants really solve your aspergers and PTSD? Your body is smarter then your doctor. Your body knows that the only solution is for your circumstances to change.


And bankers and the government are a burden on us all. And most businesses make their money by releasing only partial information. Cheating starts at the top: I'd worry about the billionaire parasites before worrying about the people at the bottom who have no choices.

Put the blame where it belongs: the economy

Being a burden is due to the economy. It is possible to organize society so that everyone makes the world a better place, even the sick (see below). If the economy was not so messed up then you could easily choose a better life. Even if it was not, that is not your fault. Did you choose to have aspergers? Did you choose to have PTSD? Did you choose you circumstances?

Imagine an economy where everyone had a job, and there was plenty of money around. If you know anything about either economics or math, you will know that a small difference in economic growth each year soon leads to doubling of wealth, due to compound growth. So when I say "the economy is a mess and we could fix it" I seriously mean that there could be MUCH, MUCH more money around. We could easily afford to pay sick people whatever they need, and find most of them jobs they can do and enjoy. Economics would largely solve your problems.

So we have a situation where your problem can be solved in two ways: either you put in superhuman effort and change your brain (hardly realistic), or the average person puts in very modest effort and gets more involved in politics and charities, focusing on what is good for the nation rather than their personal gain.

Now let's talk morality. you have been handed some very bad luck, and need to be a superhuman to change it. Meanwhile, the vast majority of people in your country have been handed very good luck (mental health, a job, friends, etc.) and they only care about themselves. They could fix the country by spending more time on economics and politics and charities, but they choose not to. Which of you is morally at fault? The one who has nothing, and needs to perform a miracle, or the one who has everything and needs to do something simple? Society is at fault, not you.

this is really a much bigger philosophical point: a sin of omission (society could easily do better but chooses not to) is still a sin. If people care about making the world a better place then they need to look at how to do it, and forget about blame. Clearly you cannot change your circumstances very easily, so you are not the issue here. Society could easily change, so society is the issue.


This is entirely due to the messed up economy. Psychiatry SHOULD be cheap. It is a human skill, and in a free world the cost of every human's time would be almost the same (because information can be shared easily, and the difference in IQ between two people is not great, and all other costs are the same): most of the inequality we see is due to hidden injustice in the economy. Similarly, medication should be cheap for the same reason. A perfectly efficient economy would charge according to the wealth created for any action (such as creating a drug), so every action pays for itself. This is a big topic, but I tried to outline the basics on my site, http://answersanswers.com


Because they do not understand economics. most people do not, and so they look around for someone convenient to blame. In a rational economy the blame would go to the one who could most easily fix the problem: i.e. the rich and healthy, not the poor and sick.


I say the opposite. Make more noise. Evolution has rightly trained those in pain to make more noise, because that is the only way that other people will see that something is wrong. Rage. Scream. Show the nation that the system it supports is not working, and they cannot ignore you because one day the victim might be them.


Correct. That is the great insight: people care a lot less than they pretend. Once we realize that then we can start devising a solution that works because it is based on economics and not an appeal to morality. The luckier people around you are no more moral than you are, but they are the only ones who can fix this situation.

Of course, I do not know you. Perhaps there are some things you can do. But it will always be easier for the others to change, and so the ball is in their court. You are the victim of a national problem. The solution is national. Even if you disappeared tomorrow, other people would still get sick. The sick people need to make as much noise as possible until the people who can make changes realize that they must.


Because society trains you to feel that way. A battered wife always feels guilty. An abused child always feels guilty. A rape victim often feels guilty. It is easier to make the victim feel guilty than to fix the real problem.


Yes. Reading your post, it seems that in most ways your mind is perfectly healthy. You are reacting rationally. If society cannot make use of such a mind then society is wasting a great resource.


You already are. You act as a reminder to society that it needs to change.

As for what to do in the short term, only you can know where your strengths lie. Just do whatever you can. Do not blame yourself for costing society money: you only cost it money because it is so messed up. A healthy society would have plenty of spare money, and would find ways that most sick people could do useful work (as Steven Hawking does, or as a mentally challenged person can do physical work). In a healthy society even a bed-bound person can create wealth, by acting as a living guarantee, so that others can work hard knowing there is a safety net in case THEY get sick.

You are not the problem. You did not choose this. Sick people will always exist: if society cannot make good use of you then society only has itself to blame.

In short, do what you can, and be patient with society. it does not understand, but one day it will.

Thanks, Trapped. That made me feel somewhat better. I appreciate that you took the time to write all of that out for me.

I often fantasize about being extremely wealthy. While it would take away the stress of ever having to work and deal with people, no amount of money can take the horrible things out of my head.