Not Enjoying Living (Trigger Warning: Suicide)

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It grieves me to see you hurting so much. I wish I could give you many warm hugs.

(((TGI)))

I wish I could give you some hope. I have not been in the same place as you are now, but I certainly can hear the level of pain and distress.

I hope you keep posting and talking to us all.

Thanks for the kind words, blazingstar.

I'll keep posting as long as there's something to say/respond to, at least as long as I live.

I had an AS friend who was 35 who kept trying to date because he said the alternative of being 40 and alone was too hard to imagine. He started working using his own plan and home gym. Pretty much every AS friend I had was interested in dating.

I am actually worse functioning in some social ways than other AS guys.. I was very good looking and girls would cat-call me in middle school and giggle around me and in my 20s girls would be first interested in me due to my looks, but get scared away when interacting with me after I started to talk and show how awkward and weird I am, and there is something wrong with me socially.. but at the same time, I did achieve a goal of having a first kiss, learning to go on a date, a few sexual and flirtation experiences, and some social things. Ultimately, I think some AS guys are cut out for dating and marriage and others like me have some bad qualities and deficits that prevent that. But you are right, I am not a success story, so it is like a poor person advising others how to become rich. Some things I did achieve:

-first kiss and making out
-some sexual things with one or two girls
-learned to dance by myself and with a girl (but not as good as NT guys dance with girls)
-I would go on the dance floor in a night club and dance by myself and then girls would take their female friends and start dancing near me because the way I move to music looked good to them and excited them. They would come and start talking to me or take my hand and try to get me to lead them through a dance.. sometimes they had a lot fun dancing with me and said thank you for the fun experience and ask to me to dance with them, but many times they did not enjoy it and left too.. I have some natural dance talents I was born with, but when dancing with a partner I confuse and ignore them so dancing is something I can do partially, but not fully like NTs.
-learned to steps that go before a date - meeting, conversation, hints, exchanging numbers, flirtation and hints on a date, hints that lead to going to your or her house or somewhere where sex or making out may happen and situation when it may happen
-that dressing up really gets you noticed and makes women like you - getting nice jeans tailored to the length of my legs and getting nice shoes really lead to better social experiences with girls

Ultimately, my obtuseness, rudeness, developmental delay immaturity, negativity, etc. lead to not being successful in dating. But I entered my 20s having resigned to never dating, then saw AS friends get dates through dating sites, thought I could do the same by trying and ultimately improve, which sort of happened. If I lived through my 20s without getting a first kiss, I would be very upset. I did know a guy who was 30 and never had a first kiss and that sucks. On the other hand, the sex stuff is tiring and not always so exciting as you imagine - it depends on the skill of the girl a lot.

I did see two AS guys get married and have kids and they are very happy. It depends on your personality and where your deficits are.

My advice is to stick by your family and support your parents if you can. I got mean and nasty to my family partly because of an evil therapist who was teaching me that and now I regret it.

AS guys cannot handle advise very well because we get annoyed by being told to achieve big goals but we don't know see ourselves changing our routines and doing all the small things to get there.

There are some YouTube lectures on how NT women suffer when being married or dating an AS guy - they suffer from loneliness and missing out on the social stuff that AS guys do not do to them, but that are expected from an AS guy. There are women with ADHD or just nerdy who may relate to an AS guy better than a regular fully NT woman.

The loneliness of having your parents get older and tired and having your grand parents, sibling, aunts/uncles age and get alienated is horrible for me in my 30s.

In high school I gave up on talking and would always be alone for four years.. before that I groped girls during a middle school graduation dance and then felt very embarrassed for years afterward.. So I definitely have problems many I don't admit to myself or notice.. people tried to be friend with me, but then said that I am mean, a jerk, rude, boring, etc. and stopped being friends with me. Also, I made it through college by being mute and avoiding talking and everything social so that my professors and fellow students and then employers did not know how many social deficits I actually had. I just faked that as an immigrant, I was still learning English.. but really I just could not talk and was very awkward due to developmental delay and anxiety. I did get a job, make a pay check, figured out how to buy a small cheap house.. I did waste a big part of my salary on eating out and stupid purchases and overpaying for things.. so I would have a lot more money if I wasn't wasteful with spending..

Ok. So use that intense desire as motivation to do the work required to make yourself more attractive to others.

None of this is rocket surgery stuff. It’s all really rather simple. People just don’t have the focus & discipline to do the work. Assuming you don’t; develop it. Make self improvement & self care a routine priority in your daily life. Healthy diet and exercise for your physical body, and whatever it takes for your mental and spiritual well being - be it exercise, counselling, self help books, religion etc. Focus your energy on transforming yourself into a healthier happier more attractive you and in time others will notice. Sure, it may take a few years, but so what? The time is going to pass anyways so you may as well be working towards your goal vs just watching time slip by and having the same or worse complaints a few years into the future.

And FTR, what I do to treat ASD & comorbids via diet/natural medicines/minerals etc literally changes my perceptions & entire outlook on life. 8-9 years ago I could read the words of self help books but couldn’t practice what they preach while I was horrifically depressed with intrusive suicidal thoughts spinning through my head. But once I figured out the biochemical cause of my depression and how to counteract it, I haven’t had thoughts like those.

It’s been my experience that we have to deal with all of the things that ail us in a well rounded wholistic way, not just pick one treatment and hope for the best. Reading one book won’t make you think and feel better magically. Going for a jog and doing some push-ups isn’t a panacea. Eating healthily for a week isn’t enough. Tackling gut health alone isn’t going to do it. Getting a job/interest/skill/money etc isn’t going to be a silver bullet, either. But a well rounded approach to health and well being in every way Will all compound together in a synergistic fashion that will result in a happier, healthier, more attractive you.

I cannot think of one single example of anyone in my life who’s put in the work to improve themselves and hasn’t benefited from it by becoming happier, healthier, and more attractive. Can you?

I am struggling with same issues as OP except I am ten years older.. I confirm it’s hard to be positive when you haven’t experienced success.. by all means though, do the written exercises in ‘Feeling Good’ by Dr Burns and initiate some sort of healthy food and exercise life plan.. also join a support group of some sort that meets regularly even if online.. try different approaches as an experiment and see what sticks.. you can’t keep doing the same and expect a different result.. AS men do have gfs and wives.. it’s usually somewhat quirky women that go for them though.. the positive things does not have to be natural, but a fake it until you make it approach to activate certain brain regions with the thoughts.. good luck.. my advice is to never visit prostitutes or strip clubs even if it means you remain a virgin forever because it will leave you feeling like a lonely loser.

Your posts are the best worded advice I have read on here..

I do what I can.

The op has some grand inquisitions, indeed. Good enough that I remembered to come back here to this thread and reply to him. I’ve been Very Busy lately and haven’t been on these forums much, but such grand inquisitions deserve a response.

On other hand, holistic as in eating, exercising and everything else for more than a week is a hefty goal for many of us who cannot do it more than a day!

I probably asked you the following questions a long time ago, but I don't remember your answers if indeed I did ask you: What are your hobbies/interests? And what are your skills (both job/career-related AND otherwise)? Also, what kind of job do you have, if any, and what are your career goals, if any? Perhaps we might be able to brainstorm something productive based on your answers to these questions?

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 15 Oct 2020, 7:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

To avoid hijacking this thread, I've replied in this new thread here.

Last edited by Mona Pereth on 15 Oct 2020, 7:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

There's lots to enjoy about life. The world is made up of more than just people.

Finding Aspergers friends in your area made things more bearable for me, when I had the AS friends.. many report getting on antidepressant meds as very helpful, although for me it didn't work very well.. I think OP sounds intelligent and a gf is possible, perhaps later in life.

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond. I meant to do it sooner but I never got around to it.

Anyway, I've been prescribed valdoxan and have been taking it for 5 weeks now. Nothing's improved at all up until now, so I'll be finishing up what I have and not buying any more unless I see any improvements, and I probably won't be open try any other anti-depressant meds as I don't think it's an effective strategy to use against what I'm struggling with.

I'm supposedly meant to be seeing a career counsellor. They're fully booked until at least early December, but they said they'd try and squeeze me in. I'm not holding my breath though.

In terms of the depression itself, nothing's better. I still feel just as hopeless as I had before, and if anything, I'm more convinced that I'm practically doomed to live out a life I don't want to live unless I end it early.

The two challenges I have with this is

1) It feels like no matter what I do, it'll never be enough. People will always tell me that I need to be doing more.

You can always improve in some way, so at what point will I earn the right to say I've done the work required and deserve to reap the benefits? If no such point exists, am I really expected to tread the self-improvement hamster wheel endlessly?

2) It strikes me as extremely unfair that people will suggest that in order to be romantically successful, I must do x or y, when plenty of people who aren't doing x or y are romantically successful. Do most people in relationships have perfect diets or exercise regimes? If not, why is this a standard I must live up to to be successful?



I've tried to get into an exercise routine, but it never holds. I'm too exhausted straight after work to get exercise done, and it's difficult for me to stop a leisure activity to go exercise. The most success I've had establishing an exercise routine has been when I've paired it close to other routine activities, like my morning routine. The challenge with that is that I already have to wake up at 5am for work, and I'm not somebody who enjoys going to bed early and getting up early, so getting up at 4am to exercise doesn't hold. I'm hoping that once I get my job situation sorted out and I'm waking up at different hours that I'll then be able to make it work.

As for diet, mine's far from perfect, but I've made monumental improvements with it. I've lost 40kg (90lbs) over the last 16 months just from diet alone, after cutting out all of the things that were keeping me fat until I got to a weight range I found acceptable, where I now allow myself to have them on occasions I deem appropriate while being very vigilant about not allowing habits to form.



I honestly can't see myself lasting another 3 years without any positive romantic experiences.

Well I'm glad you managed to find a way to treat your depression, but mine is exogenous rather than endogenous.



Well I lost all that weight and in spite of that, I certainly wouldn't say I'm a happy person, but I get what you're saying. I'm glad I made the change, but it was a change I wanted to make.

The hobbies and interests question is one that I have a difficult time answering, because honestly I don't really do that much. Most of my free time is spent playing games on my phone, browsing forums and watching YouTube videos and TV shows.

But to answer your question as best I can, I play chess, I play card games with family, I like watching political debates online and I like playing 8 ball pool but I'm not great at it.

In terms of job, I'm currently working as a factoryhand in a warehouse. I don't intend to stay in this industry as I know I'm underutilising my potential, but I don't know what else to do, so I've been stuck. I'm meant to be seeing a career counsellor, but I don't know when that's going to happen.

As for skills, I'm good with attention to detail and problem-solving.