I feel like a failure of an adult

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All I'm trying to draw attention to is that won't and can't both have a fuzzy grey area between them, as well as that one can't evaluate can't vs. won't based on a quick glance.

It's easy to dismiss invisible disabilities because they're invisible but that doesn't make it right.

I managed to spend 37 years of my life not driving......I did okay.

^ Can't stress this enough.

Yep....I'm a failure in not attaining professional status. And I've screwed up in some ways.

But, when I look at myself objectively, I realize that while I'm not a "success," I'm not a true "failure," either

We all have developmental disabilities. That means we don't develop on the same trajectory as others.
That doesn't make us failures.

It's normal to feel like a failure sometimes, but when it happens I think of Desiderata:


"If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself."

There will always be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
This helps me put my own insecurity in perspective.

I'm a failure as a Wolfman. As an aardvark, though, I would have a better chance to succeed.

I know lots of people who smoke weed all the time. It's legal here and you can buy it from the government. My daughter has a prescription for it because of chronic pain. It works better than any pharmaceutical treatment and also helps to manage her anxiety disorder from PTSD, and her vomiting from Epilepsy.

Other people in the world smoke cigarettes all day. Does that make them failures?
Cigarettes cause cancer or other illnesses.
They don't correct any medical problems, including anxiety.

Sitting on a bench all the time -- Hmmm.. I don't get that one. I lie down on my sofa most of the time but no one sees it since I'm indoors. They tell me to get outside more often, so I guess sitting on a bench might make people happy in comparison, even though I can't sit on chairs or benches without extreme discomfort.

I have graduate degrees and I worked full-time for 25 years while raising children by myself, and paying ample taxes.
I went on disability because of a stroke (now I've had two). I got "handouts from the government".
Now I'm retired, getting pay from my work and also from the government.

I know Joe isn't calling me a failure.
I'm just reiterating the fact we can't judge a person by what we see.

Berating people - of course that's not good whether it's verbal or online harassment of other people.
In defence of invisible disabilities, I'd point out that these people could have brain injuries like mine.
They could have trauma or mental illness.

I guess there's something about the word "failure" that rubs me the wrong way.
It suggests a person has been at fault their whole life -- like they had chances they squandered.
Some people in this world never had a fighting chance to begin with.

Of course if someone is a total asshat no one has to like them.
It's OK to be leery of people on a park bench who yell at you all day.
I just don't like the use of the word "failure", when we don't know their life story.

(This was not directed at Kortie, but a response to the weed topic in general.)

I'm in my early 30s. I have my license (and had a car at one point). Let's just say I realized driving isn't for me.

I know it's typical to struggle when you first start driving. But even with practicing and practicing, I still never quite got the hang of it.

As for how I got my license, it's way too easy to get a license in this country. I admit I never should gave been given a license.

I'm aware incomes are higher in Oz. I was under the impression it's due to a higher cost of living. In any case, I'm glad to hear you can live on full time wages, even from a low-level job.

For us Yanks, the wages certainly haven't kept up with the cost of living.

And yeah, with the whole kids/wife thing, I want it to be my own decision that I don't have a wife or kids; I don't want society to make that decision for me (because I'm seen as a loser)

I think I could be objectively described, at age 53, as a failure, measured by any sort of conventional metrics.

I started off with essentially every innate advantage that one can have in life:

-Excellent physical health
-Very tall (99.9th percentile) and very physically attractive (I have no objective measure for this, but am stating this based on what seems like the consensus opinion of others).
-Very high native intelligence (About 99.99th percentile, when young, and still in the recently-measured vicinity of 99th percentile, despite what feels like a catastrophic loss of mental capacity)
-No learning disabilities.
-Being a Heterosexual Caucasian male in an environment where those are all natural advantages.
-Born into a time and place that did not present any significant challenges (living in an economically functional country and not at war (at home)).
-Have not developed any serious substance addictions, though I do use too much Kratom, now, to cope with my declining state of mind.
-Born into a reasonably stable, supportive family, with enough resources to never be in "need", and rarely even in "want".
-Having access to the totality of human knowledge and experience, in the form of the communication medium upon which we are all conversing at the moment.

As a measure of my “failure”, here are a few samples:

-Although I tested extremely well in school, I could never quite cope with the whole situation, and dropped out in 9th grade, after years of declining performance and attendance.
-Minimal post-high-school conventional education (trade school diploma, and a few IT college courses).
-I never made the slightest attempt at dating until age 30, with minimal “success” since then, currently in my 4th, and very likely last relationship (It has been failing gradually for many years).
-Minimal employment, with multiple failures early on to persist more than a few week or months. I eventually had minor success for a few years, in a job that was only tolerable because it involved a special interest. My only current non-Dole source of income is “flipping” things on eBay and other online sales sites.
-After being misdiagnosed “bipolar” at age 30, and going through a decade of having no success with psych meds to treat it, I ended up locked in a Mental Ward for three weeks, due to suicidal ideation as a result of a bad reaction to my then-current psych meds, combined with being in a relationship that was far too complicated for an undiagnosed 40-year-old autistic dude to deal with.
-“temporarily” living in a $900 motorhome, in a tiny town in the High Desert of Northern Nevada, with no clear idea of my near or long-term future.
-Considering that I have not been able to grasp onto a realistic-seeming future that seems worth working toward, I am gradually oozing toward what seems like an inevitable self-imposed termination of this meager experiment in consciousness.

Darron

In my rotating series of "special interests", all things automobile have been what's been keeping me distracted from my life circumstances in recent months.
Cars/Trucks/Motorcycles/etc. can be a vast and fascinating topic of study, fantasy and practical application.

Darron

I never said that "smoking weed" alone makes someone a failure.

I said that earlier in the thread.

I said, in essence, that a combination of smoking weed, not having a job, and berating people, makes someone a failure AT THE MOMENT.

Of course, if someone doesn't smoke weed, has a job, but still goes around berating people for no reason, then that person is a failure.

At one point, I looked into joining a dating service (an acquaintance worked for the dating service and encouraged me to join).

When I went to meet with the director of the dating service, everything went downhill. Once the director found out I don't own a car, her attitude was "How dare a car-less man try to pollute our dating service"

The director also treated me like I was ignorant of how dating works. She said "When you go on a date, you pick the woman up in your car"

How stupid. What type of woman gets into a car with a stranger on a first date anyway?

We know Wolfie. Chill out man.

Do remember: My fangs are retractable

Sweet Pea hugs