Ulgh, just can´t accept the fact that I´m different.

Post Reply New Topic

I've been unhappy for the last couple of years.

I am afraid of my future career. I don't know if I can be a psychologist. Do I have the skills it takes? Can I do it? When I look at the long and competitive road ahead of me, it just drains the energy out me.
It's like my life has come to a halt, while at the same time time goes by so fast. I don't enjoy anything anymore. I don't know what I like anymore.
At the same time I am afraid to explore. I always see the possible negative scenarios.
I want more friends, but I am afraid of meeting people. Afraid that they will think I am weird, and won't accept me.
I am afraid to be spontaneous to guys, because I fear they will see something is wrong with me.

Everyone always tells me how I am different, how I stand out from a crowd, how special I am. I absolutely hate it. Why can´t I be like everyone else. WHY ME?
Yesterday I was on my way home driving with a (very friendly) colleague and he said: 'This is a weird question but do you have some kind of condition? I think this because of the way you structure the thoughts in your mind'.
I just couldn't believe it. All of my inferiority issues about being different were then confirmed. I spent an hour crying that evening, because I felt so afwul. I guess people can tell that I am different, and even that I might have 'something'.
The only thing I thought was: I am never going to meet someone, everyone will reject me, I will became an old cat lady. I am going to fail in life. I have a condition.

And so my days pass... I study. I work, on the weekends. And then I worry and worry and worry in my room. I feel awful about myself, I don't like my life, and I worry about the future. I feel incredibly alone.

I never knew what the statement 'life is passing me by' means. Now I know.
I have SO MUCH to do, and still I feel bored. Nothing inspires me. I am constantly afraid. I feel burnt up and tired. And still, I don't know what my 'problem' is. Ulgh.

well, on the bright side, at least you are not different here (on WP), you sound like pretty much majority of us here.

the other stuff...dunno..you can't be normal, so can you at least accept yourself the way you are and try and be happy with that..at least you'll have one less thing making you unhappy that way?

I'm sorry you're in such pain, Cafe.

This is where I am, and I don't understand it either. So if you stumble across the secret, please PM and let me know (and if I find it, I'll reciprocate and send you the secret.)

I see from your profile that you're undiagnosed. I recommend this as Step 1. Knowing will help -you- understand yourself. At least, I am finding this to be the case.

There are a lot of people like us out there. A LOT! I've always accepted the unusual people in life, well before I knew specifically what was up with this seemingly alien mind of mine. The ones I regarded as "quirky and smart, like me!" I now know are fellow Aspies. I've gravitated towards the fringe members of society for companionship--gay people, goths, tattoed folks--even though my external appearance is Mr. Suburbia with his $80 haircut and button-down shirts.

I've just never enjoy the company of the "normal people" that I disguise myself to look like. I just look like them so I can make some money in their world. But the problem with people like us is that we tend to not need a lot of socializing. For instance, I never call my friends to see if they want to go do something, because they might actually want to go do something, and I was really set on running another artificial life experiment today. Well, you get the idea.

People like ourselves are double-edged swords: we're generally more accepting of oddities in others because we are odd. On the flip-side, we're also more stand-off-ish when it comes to socializing.

What I'm trying to get at, though, is that if you need company, you have make those efforts. I know I've seen some links 'round here for meet-up resources, or perhaps I found it while googling for another tidbit of information. Perhaps start there?

No matter how you slice it up, though, nothing will change until you snap out of your pattern. Know that your mind will find comfort in stable patterns regardless of how miserable they are (crying every night is a pattern ). The only way to break out of undesirable patterns is to first recognize them, then to take action.

Create a plan, step-by-step if you need that.

Find Some Friends
1) Make a list of things you enjoy doing with other people
2) Identify where do people with these interests go?
3) Search google for: https://www.google.com/#q=<city name>+<interest>+group+OR+meetup
4) Make that initial contact
5) No matter how unfathomably terrible the social situation may seem, summon that courage to put yourself together and GO. Just take that first step out the door, and your auto-pilot will take over from there.
6) Know for a fact that you do not want to be friends with anyone who finds your quirks off-putting. No matter how much you like them, they'll be a terrible companion.

You can season the above recipe to taste, but whatever you're after, it will look roughly similar to the above. Just break it down into a bunch of little steps and it won't seem quite as daunting.

I'm finding in my current process, and thinking back on my 46 years of life, that action is they key to my happiness. So this is on you, you must start moving towards what it is you want.

So what do you like doing, Cafe? List it out. Just start typing...

Cats meow. Dogs bark. Snakes hiss.

I think most people on this forum wish they were different in some way, or even every way. You think it's easy typing this with heavy paws? And having a tongue that can strip wallpaper?

Your title of the thread says that you 'just can't accept the fact that I'm different'. Do you know why this is? Me, I thought I'd be letting someone down. When I finally realised that it didn't matter what I did, or who I was, and that person who 'should' care never would care, then I finally allowed myself to see.

Why you? Well, why not?

'With great power comes great responsibility', and all that jazz. I wish you well.

I'm sorry. I care about you. I don't know what to say to make you feel better.

I know what it's like to be very busy but still feel stagnant.

I think everyone is alone, really, it's just that this reality is more obvious for us.

No, you definitely wont. You just need to learn to not care what people think, good or bad. This is what I'm working on with my therapist right now. I also get all mixed up inside my head when people say nice things. Good things, bad things, doesn't matter, it puts us back into a pattern where it's all about what others think. And if you're like me, an overthinker, you get caught in an obsessional loop. But, when we build confidence, and know what we think about ourselves, and are fair to ourselves, what others think doesn't matter as much.

People have been saying a lot of nice things about me, "you're gonna make a really awesome teacher" which is cool, I love it. As much as I obsess about what people think of me, I'm getting the sense that people like me. Sometimes it's too much, being in a social enviroment can be intense, and sometimes it throws my brain into self doubt mode and I beat up on myself. then I start thinking I'm weird and all that stuff....

But at the end of the day, it shouldn't matter what they think, because I can't rely on what others think, and I owe it to myself to be a fair judge of my actions and personality. I need to be the boss.....



I would say stay focused on your goals, your work and your study, and measure yourself according to how hard you work. You should feel good when you put in a full day. Things will change, you are moving forward. I basically try to do this, and little by little, try to socialize, make new friends. It's easier for me because I'm in school, but the same things remains, it's all about us, we are the bosses of us lol People can say mean things, nice things, things that make us think, but we don't give other people too much power. We decide if something is good or bad.

It's hard to do, I work on this, but I do find shrugging off compliments is empowering. People say something nice, I say "thank you, I appreciate that" and that's it, I try not to think beyond that.

I hope this helps.....you'll be awesome don't worry, you'll probably make an excellent psychologist given that you're on WP

Might also help to think of the future in smaller steps, get your BA, get your Masters etc....

In terms of worrying and worrying, you know best in terms of whether that's is something that needs medication, or some kind of intervention like any number of things.....working out, running, drawing, etc etc..... but just being your own super good friend, feeling focused, and being confident can help.

Skills are something that develop over time, as you do something over and over - you don't get skills from a book or a classroom, you get them from experience. You're not expected to have skills yet. If you have the desire to do it, I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to accomplish it. People with no legs run marathons.



If you're referring to having autism as "something wrong with you" that's kind of insulting to everyone here who lives with the same handicaps. I'm definitely different, but I do not believe that there is anything "wrong" about it. I'm sorry you're in a low place, but I've walked this planet more than twice as long as you have been alive and I'm telling you getting through life with High Functioning Autism can be a pain in the butt sometimes (okay, a lot of the time), but I'd rather deal with these hurdles than say, be blind, or born with a Siamese twin stuck to my head, or whatever that was that the Elephant Man had.

I've dated, I've been married, made friends, I've managed to have a life - and I'm about as spontaneous as a glacier. Socially awkward, sometimes to the point of temporary mutism, the master of inappropriate remarks - if making other people feel uncomfortable were a superpower, I'd have my own comic book. Dear, if I can muddle through this life with these quirks, anybody can do it. Well, NTs can't do it, they don't ever develop the necessary skills. But anybody else.



For gods' sakes, why would you ever want to be like all the thick, stupid, pedestrian clones out there? There's nothing wrong with being unique, you know a lot of people (myself included) have built entire careers on it. Experts say Albert Einstein was an Aspergian and you know what made him able to come up with physics concepts that all the best minds in the world up to that point had been unable to grasp? He asked the questions he imagined a child would ask. That's what he said - he just broke it down to the simplest possible ideas and approached it all from the point of view of someone who knew absolutely nothing - and revolutionized science on every level, because he didn't think like everyone else.



Again, he didn't ask "What the f___k is WRONG with you?" (although it's been phrased that way to me many times), he just noticed that your mind does not approach questions by the same processes that most others do. That doesn't make you a circus freak, it just makes you a singular individual, instead of an average, mundane lemming.



Again, we all have a 'condition' here and while it's not unusual for young people with AS to struggle with those feelings that they're never going to meet someone or that life is too daunting a task to ever successfully meet (I had the same doubts and fears at that age), there are plenty of adults here on WP who put the lie to that defeatist nonsense. I can't guarantee you'll be a millionaire movie star (like Aspie Dan Ackroyd), but I can tell you people with AS can and do have successful careers and do form romantic relationships and find happiness. It may take longer than it does for NT types to get off the ground, but we do have wings.



Oh, one other thing about that - and this is crucial - you can never have anything resembling a stable, happy relationship with another person until you learn to like yourself. No other person can make you happy and if you get it in your head that love will fix all your sadness, you're in for a huge heart-rending disappointment - because it might, for a very short while - but if you are not content with who you are, you will be continually restless, clingy and suspicious, you will never feel truly satisfied and fulfilled and that needy discontent will eventually suck the joy from the romance and drive the other person away, leaving you feeling more lonely and unhappy than ever. I'll say it again, please for your own sanity, tattoo this on your forehead if that's the only way you can remember it: YOU CANNOT BE HAPPY WITH SOMEONE ELSE UNTIL YOU LEARN TO LIKE YOURSELF.




You are suffering from a clinical depression. I don't like to push the idea of meds on anybody, but it couldn't hurt to talk to a Therapist. Get outside more, find a hobby, but please stop sitting around beating yourself up. "Life" is not your problem, your problem is getting past this negative attitude and finding a sense of hope again. You've got a lot of future ahead to play with and it's going to be a grand adventure. Strap in, this is just the ramp up. The real rollercoaster hasn't started yet.

Its just a ride. Rock on.

This may not be the perfect solution - I've taken to not trying to figure emotional/social stuff out. I'm trying to use limited filters to just bypass that stuff and say sort of the right thing but generally avoid any future interactions with highly emotional people. I know it's setting me up for Avoidant PD since I already have GAD, I just can't see any other options.

Realizing that our neurology makes it IMPOSSIBLE to figure out other people's emotions, intentions, social 'vibes' and whatnot, makes it also possible to stop dwelling (worrying) about it all. The damn hard part is that people keep digging and pushing us to do what is impossible, to act against our nature. People on the spectrum are not bad people who can't get along in the world (those are sociopaths). Stop playing those same old tired recordings in your thoughts. If a thought comes up and you've already thought it before, just note: there is the "blankety blank" thought again without any emotion, just note like oh there is a butterfly over there. I did this, still do it because it takes a lot of maintenance. Studying psychology you might know our mental health rests in how we talk to ourselves.

I'm praying for you and keeping you in my thoughts that you find the peace in not continuing in darkness. If you have clinical depression please read up on SSRI withdrawal? if you haven't. I find meds the last solution but others believe in using them first. I don't know how you feel about that though. I'm also not going to sit here and tell people that fresh air and exercise cure depression (well, it does, but depressed people don't feel up to going out and exercising, usually). <--- this posted before reading Willard's post so it's not a rebuttal or anything!

Hope this helps you.

You say you don't know what your problem is. You say you don't know if you have autism or not. Since it looks like whatever it is, is having a negative effect on things, maybe you should find out. You do not necesarily have to get an official diagnosis, but you may be able to determine if you are on the spectrum yourself via self-tests and reviewing the symtoms, etc.

I sympathize with your stress, Cafe. Change "guys" to "women", and your description was very close to my own emotions on a daily basis.

I've known I was "different" since childhood, but i could never express it properly to anyone; they all thought I was making stuff up. My mother's starting to come around, and I have a few friends from church, but I still feel trapped in so many areas. I'm an unemployed 33-year-old man, living with his mother and sister, taking SSI from the government because of epilepsy, and not knowing how to let go of so many issues regarding love and fear. I pray a lot, but having so few to communicate with is a very difficult life.

All I can say to you is I hope you don't give up. I was going to almost 12 years ago, until God saved me Himself from suicide. I know He's real, but I still have such trouble trusting Him every day. Its so easy to let our circumstances guide our decisions, instead of the other way around.

Yeah, I will really have to take action myself to change something.
For some reason I cannot believe that anyone could actually love me. How would someone manage to stay around me for hours, or even days.

Being different isn't a show stopper, its just a game changer.

I feel this way about myself too, but I know it isn't true. you don't have to worry about their feelings and how they manage - that's their job. Are you sure you can be bothered to love someone though?

How do I know if I can?
I think I have a lot of love to give but your question makes me think.

I don't know if this will help. There is a kind of sad period you can have upon realizing you are different. It is a lot to come to grips with and affects much of your interpersonnal relationships. Its ok to mourn a bit.

But then its time to take a good look at yourself and assess what your strengths are and what your weaknesses are. With that knowledge you can frame goals and plans and start moving forward again.

Being different is not the same as being less or not as good a person. In fact in often goes the other way. People who experience no setbacks, know no sorrow, can be arrogant buttholes.

The true valuable qualitys in a person are equally accessable to both NT and people on the spectrum.

Become satisfied with yourself and you can rise above the juvenile aspects of social interaction with confidence. I am not saying you will not have frictions, but you can brush them off, whether won or lost.

Maybe you chose, somehow, to be the way you were, before you were born. Odd thought, but who knows.