Stir of Confusion

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This has got to be the 5th time I've "almost" written this, and even now I don't expect it to make any sense to anybody. I'm just gonna let it flow in whatever form it comes out as.

I'm a member of what apparently is actually a minority here at this site; I've got AS (Undiagnosed but it fits me like a glove... not OJ's glove) but actually hate it, and would gladly take a cure for it if one were available. Although maybe I'd feel different in some other situation. Apparently Asperger's has given me an array of talents to make up for the social debilitations, but I'm not in a position where I can freely use them. This has made me pretty dxmn miserable, since I need to decide what to do with my life ASAP.

My parents, particularly my mother, is pushing for me to transfer to a 4-year university. I'm currently at my 4th year at a 2-year community college, majoring in Biology (my prior majors that went nowhere were Political Science, Journalism, and Physics) and I'll have enough credits for my associates degree this May. But, I've almost completely lost interest in the subject, and don't actually have any plans of pursuing a degree in it; I'd have dropped out of college already if I weren't so few credits away from having a degree. Figured might as well get it while I'm this close, so those years of college wouldn't be a total waste. But my mother wants me to transfer immediately, and I just haven't had the courage to tell her or my father that I don't want to do it anymore.

Nuclear physics is one of my obsessions, hence why I was a physics major for a short time... but my entire life I've been TERRIBLE at math. I suspect dyscalclia is the culprit, since many of the symptoms of that I also exhibit. Didn't know it existed until a few months ago. So I only chose biology because its the only science that doesn't involve much math. Actually, I'm not any good in any of my special interest areas; I enjoy learning about my obsessions a lot, but for one reason or another, an AS or related roadblock exists. For some reason, I can't even remember what those other interests are at this time.

Maybe all the stress from worrying about all this has led to my recent state of constant confusion. My short-term memory is worse than ever; my ability to comprehend the meaning of people's speech has also deteriorated. I don't sleep much anymore, and when I do sleep I've stopped having dreams. Pretty much a total internet addict; on until 2 AM every night. Attempts to limit myself always fail.

And now I've got to deal with my peers in college thinking that I must pee rainbows from the number of illegal drugs I must be taking! I kinda physically resemble "Shaggy" of the Scooby Doo fame, I'm generally pretty "mellow", I always come to class pretty tired and drained, and then what really started it was in my Organic Chemistry II lecture, the professor was showing us the molecular structures of various illicit drugs, and I was the only one there which guessed correctly basically every question he asked the class... so I've done a little extra reading in my life! Now I'm a suspected pothead at the very least; not good publicity for someone who already can't hardly make friends at all. My for-real drug experiences in total include only 2 substances; caffeine because it's in cola and chocolate which I like a lot, and LSA (which is LSD's weaker and lesser known cousin) that I isolated at home a few years ago, tried 3 times, it tasted awful and only one experience was positive so I've got no intention of ever doing that again. I don't smoke or even drink alcohol, which causes a good deal of teasing among the few friends I do have. That I'm now reading the book "A Scanner Darkly" hasn't helped my reputation at class much either.

Lately what has been dwelling in my mind has been my extreme cowardice. It has led me to hate myself. I never stand up to my parents, for my beliefs, or almost never for my friends. All of my opposition remains hidden; I am passive and yield to everyone else. I think it had something to do with my treatment as a child, but I don't know if I can trust those memories.

When I was between the ages of 6 and 10 roughly, my father got addicted to some "nerve medication" of some kind he had been prescribed. For most of my life, I somehow mistakenly believed it was alcoholism (which is why I swore never to drink, which I uphold anyway) and just recently found out it was really pills. But anyway, it made my father very aggressive. Not sure if I can call it abuse, but he'd strike me and my older brother over very minor infractions. But my brother at that age was a selfish prick... one of his favorite things to do was to do something bad like break an item, and then immediately run off and go to a friend's house, leaving me and my dad alone. My dad discovers something broken, and he is immediately driven by the need to punish, severely... skipping the step of finding out which child actually did it, which left me taking the beatings. If I denied doing it, or knowing it had happened at all, he'd punish me harder for being a liar.

Of course I was telling the truth, but he didn't care... and soon my entire thought process had changed. I accepted the accusations and punishments after a while, thinking "Well maybe I DID do it, and just forgot!" Even though once he got a new doctor who refused to refill his medication he stopped behaving this way, I do truly think that is the origin of the most self-destructive thought process I've developed.

I always yield to all traffic, assuming they probably have more important places to be at. I always back down in arguments or debates, assuming that if my opponent is confident in their position, than it must mean they know something I don't know and are correct, even if I can't possibly understand how. I simply always believe everyone else knows better than me, is smarter, is more knowledgeable, is more important. I've grown up accepting that my view of the world, my vivid memories, all of it, are very likely false if someone else tells me different.

My brain is the last thing I trust, basically. So I am gullible and naive. I don't stand up for myself because if I'm wrong, then I'm only doing more harm for myself and everyone else by resisting. That's how it works... and somehow, knowing how it works doesn't make it any easier for me.

I just can't change it. And I'm horrified at the thought of living the rest of my life in such a mental state.

But as May approaches fast, I'm driving into a brick wall. I'll finally, somehow, have to confront mom about me not wanting anymore college, and get the whole "then what are you going to do with your life?" lecture... or if father chimes in, "Well you only want to quit because Satan is tempting you because he wants you to fail" crap. Makes it no easier that I'm a closet atheist, in a household that believes in a 6000 year-old Earth, and also in a family that DISOWNS relatives... feel like telling the truth to them about my beliefs would make me family less in an instant, or at least subject me to enough harassment to make me wish it were so. My father is constantly getting on my ass about getting baptized, and I've run out of excuses as to why I won't go through with it. There's no way they'd tolerate me leaving home without having me proclaim in front of the congregation I must be a part of every Sunday that I'm one of them. The truth would break their hearts.

But anyway, one of my secret plans that I hope will still happen is that I'll be moving in with my best friend, sharing an apartment. However she's a girl, so the parents would object because of that alone. But my biggest problem is money. Have a part-time job at a lighting showroom right now (building the fixtures, and interacting with the customers as little as I possibly can), but that wouldn't be nearly enough. I'd have to work full-time someplace... an office job crossed my mind (like data entry type stuff), but besides dreading the dress code restrictions, I somehow have in my mind that they are pretty hostile environments for most aspies to work in. I'd like to do something like stock shelves, but that usually happens in wee-morning hours from what I've seen so far, I'd hate to be working at night and sleeping all day. But I guess I'd still prefer to find one of those two types of jobs, if it meant getting out of this house.

I don't feel like whining anymore... but guess this is the only place to let it out? Can't trust my family with it, I don't want to bring down my friends with it and risk losing them. I've mostly withdrawn from everyone I know anyway, never answering my phone or txt messages and staying silent if I go into chat rooms. I want to socialize, but then I don't want to lie to people when they ask me "How are you?" so I just prefer to not talk to anybody at all, rather than mention that I hate my life and hate myself. Everyone whose grown up with me have always had such high expectations of me; me choosing what I actually want to do with my life would disappoint them all. I've been told I shouldn't care what other people think about me... but then since I can't trust my own mind's analysis of me, I have to depend on others for what I feel are more accurate [some word here]. And now my mind is blank.

Just want to run away and vanish, let everyone think I'm dead and get over me while I'm off surviving on weeds and walking across the country. Got a neat handbook all about edible plants and stuff, so with that I probably could pull it off. This isn't a serious idea though, has a less than 0.01% chance of ever happening I think.

But then, something I really put a lot of thought into doing would be seeing what would happen to my mind if I were to take Psyilocybin Mushrooms (the illegal kind), I'll give that a 20% chance of happening. Done a LOT of reading about it, the experiences a user gets are highly dependent upon their mindset; most people report having profound realizations and stuff. Many say the experience permanently changes their whole approach to life, and that it [something else].Maybe I could force my brain to re-wire itself to correct for my childhood warping in this altered state. But then there's the very likely possibility that it'd drive me totally insane, since my mindset isn't exactly happy. Perhaps this could be what it would take to confront my cowardice? I could either free myself from it, or be destroyed by it. Don't really feel like I've got anything to lose.

Of course, I predict the overwhelming response to that idea would be to call me stupid... so I'll ease your minds by pointing out that I've got no definite source of the mushrooms, much less one I could trust to not spike it with anything nasty. Then I'd need someone to sit with me during the duration of the experience, a lifeline in case I go totally bonkers, and none of my friends would likely tolerate that since they too would think I'd be stupid to even try it. Then I'd need to be preferably outside, in an open field or so near a tree line... just my personal preference. But my area is densely populated; any open space is either private property or is regularly patrolled by the police. So maybe it's around a 0.5% chance of this happening after all.

The benefit of such an experience for me is probably less than I would think. What exactly do I need to realize that I haven't already? I already know I'll never be happy until I stand up for myself and take control of my own life! I'm fully aware of that. My problem is turning it into action. I have no willpower... how does one get it anyway? Why refuse to throw the dice when the chances are probably good that I could escape from the misery I've planted myself into?

I cannot answer that, and I don't know why. >_<

I'm sorry for wasting everyone's time on my whining.

It's 4 AM, I'm a ridiculous wreck right now, so I had nothing better to do than read your posting. The start of it sounded interesting, so I kept going and I think you're like me in a lot of ways. I'm self-diagnosed too, and I've been down the mushroom path many times. I don't know how old you are but I suspect you're younger than me. I hesitate to actually say "A younger version of myself" but yeah... but you're making a lot of sense to me and I've also got a lot of questions and I think I might also be able to help you. I hope so. Anyway, I don't quite know how WP.net works yet (I'm new) so If there's any way you can get in touch with me personally, I say you do it! I really should sleep right now though so I'll just say "don't fret" and I've read your post start-to-finish and I'd like to comment on almost everything I've read but I'm a little pressed for time...keep me in mind. I don't know why, but I suspect it could be mutually beneficial.

I read what all you wrote and although I do not have AS myself, I have had home issues that have effected how I act today.

I have a few things that might help. First is a book called "Toxic Parents".. It kind of takes you through the process of discovering what type of parent your parent is.. and how to deal with that type of parent.

The second thing is something that helps you change your way of thinking. I grew up in a house where everything was my fault. It didn't matter if it was a natural disaster... somehow it became my fault. I constantly was saying "I should have....(fill in the blank)", "I shouldn't have ____", "this always happens to me" and "Things will NEVER change".... These are things that were first told to me.. and slowly by slowly I began saying them myself. I took this class called Mind over Mood which helped me out a lot. Taught me how to stop using Cognitive Distortions and begin keeping myself in the wise mind. May sound cheesy... but maybe some of the info will be helpful.

Since I don't know if the class is offered anywhere else I will just give you some web links that bring up stuff about the things I learned in my class. Hope it helps.

First off... go to wikipedia and search cognitive distortions. Then you can see which ones you use so you know what you need to work on.

Then there is a site that has some of the same info as the class h t t p : / / w w w . d b t s e l f h e l p . c o m some things wont apply to you but others could be useful.

Best of luck to you!

Oh and if your parents would drop you for just having a different believe than you... then they aren't someone you want to be around anyway.

NOTE: sorry about the spacing... I am new so I wasn't aloud to type it in

Thats a very hard situation.
I don't know about drugs as a potential help--not the person to ask about that. I tend to be exceedingly careful with the reality-altering substances myself, and I applaud your choice as far as the alcohol; sure, it's often fine, but just in case, it seems like your life has enough complications. Otherwise. ..

It's clear that you have a lot going for you in at least two respects.

First, you are articulate enough to have written that post. It is both long and coherent. You may or may not be amazed by the percentage of the population who can't generate two pages of readable and evocative text, but I'd almost bet that you don't realize what a precious, versatile, and life-saving ability that can be.

Second, you are at a point where you are honest enough to recognize and admit what your situation is. It may not seem like much, but it's a huge first step in being able to fix things-- which it sounds like you're really ready to do.


If I were you, I'd give some serious thought to the following:

What things are you passionate about? Are there any things that you'd be willing to give up a lot of other things to do, if you thought that were possible? Any creative things, that produce something-- even if "something" is a greater understanding of the world in yourself-- that you really love to do, that you find yourself just doing for hours, when you have the chance to do them?
These are where to find the direction of your life. It may not be easy or obvious, but keep chasing it hard enough and long enough, and it will come together.

One thing you might consider, by way of finding your direction and improving your emotional health, is volunteering. Volunteering can enable people who ordinarily have huge difficulty getting by socially to find communities where they are appreciated for whatever they are able to give and accepted for who they already are. There are more opportunities to do interesting and higher-level work when you do it for free, making it a fantastic way to get experience and learn new things. It can also be an easier way to get experience dealing with people; because they are so needed and appreciated, volunteers in many places are treated extremely well. I recommend checking out a variety of options--ideally in person-- to find something that feels comfortable to you. It can be really hard to get started, but there's an enormous potential payoff in the long run.

I'd also be really careful about moving out and trying to make ends meet with an opposite gender best friend. To be fair I'm coming from a biased position, since I've been repeatedly burned in this respect. However, in my experience, it's very important to treat those relationships carefully. Unless there is genuinely absolutely no romantic attraction between you, on either side, it's really important not to create patterns and structures that act like those of a romantic relationship (which in turn would be based on those of a close friendship anyway); if you act like romantic partners rather than friends and someone has those feelings, even buried deep, it will probably end up hurting both of you.

It is, as painful as it may be, important to note that the "rat race" of minimum (or low) wage existence is very much a treadmill. It's easy to get stuck and hard to make progress--not even economic progress, but progress towards your life goals. If the things that are important to you are not the things that will earn you money, it's even more essential to develop the skills--sociality being one of them-- that make it possible/easier to survive on little to none.

Lastly, remember that however hard it is for you, having AS, it leaves you with untapped potential to make unique and precious contributions to the world-- and that there's probably a lot of us, here on wrongplanet, who are rooting for you there.

Let us know how things shape up.

Hey Leon,

I read your post, and I have to say you have my empathy. Your life really sounds sucky right now and then to top it off, having the added pressure of overly religious parrents and being a closet atheist.

I'm not sure what advice I can give you but the first thing that pops into my mind is about the 'shrooms. Comming from a place of experience I would suggest that you don't do them. I have no moral objection to using them, nor do I have a moral objection to breaking the law to use them. My objections are strictly directed towards your current situation and weather you want it to get worse or better. I've experimented with nearly every non-chemicaly addictive drug that you can think of. Some have helped me reach a point of higher rationalization, others have not, but the one thing that they all had in common, they added extra complications to my life where complications were not needed. Sometimes that was easy to deal with, but in your case this seems to be totaly out of the question.

You actualy remind me allot of how I was when I was in college. Fortunatly for me, I didn't have parrents quite as bad as yours, so I was able to simply drift for a few years, until I had the capital to move out. As far as not trusting your own mind over what others tell you, I can't really help you there, but I do think some of the other posters here have some good advice on that. The only thing that I can say is this, your mind is trustable. And you can trust that because it didn't come from your mind, it came from mine. Listen to your mind because it has the most accurate perspective on your life and how you should live it. Like you, I'm an atheist, so I don't believe in a soul in the literal sense that the religious think. However I've always found that there's somthing in us, call it soul, call it heart, whatever you want to call it, somthing that drives us. And the best outcomes, I've found, always come from the advise that you take from that force within.

Best of luck and I wish you well.

Firstly, thank you VERY much for your support, everyone! I'd feared even coming back to check on the post because people from my Xanga and Myspace blogs, once they discovered them, became pretty judgmental and aggressive with my feelings and opinions, so I haven't used them to post my feelings for many months.

Just happy I could finally let things out someplace and not get torn apart for it!

I'll have to get back on here later tomorrow to answer your questions and stuff.

Forget it, I'll do it right now. Still not tired enough for bed; my attempts at taking a nap this afternoon to catch up on sleep was thwarted by my mother; "If you sleep now, you won't be able to sleep tonight!" Grrr... anyway, for knowmadic, welcome to WP! I'm 21 years old, will be 22 in six days though. And I'll get in touch with you soon.

Thanks for the info/links SstephasaurusRex, I thought I'd done plenty of homework in the psychology area trying to understand myself, but I'd never actually come across those terms like Cognitive Distortions. I'll definitely look into that and that goes to show there's always more to learn! The one of few things I do pride myself with thanks to my upbringing is that I never assume I know everything about anything, which is the perfect mindset for learning.

I'm not treating the drug idea lightly. Obviously, the mindset I was in last night was in no way safe to have tried it, but I'm much calmer tonight and feel I could handle it. Of course I lack the means to do so and haven't yet decided to even pursue securing those means yet. Its not so much the mind-altering nature of drugs that bothers me as much as the physical addiction that comes with things like alcohol; I'll NEVER willfully touch that stuff. When my friends give me a hard time about it, I do give the reason often "I'm truly afraid that I might like it." I tend get addicted to things easily, from video games to the internet to menthol-containing cough drops (only still a regular user of the internet). If I found drinking to be enjoyable, I cannot see myself not ending up doing it in excess. Self control is simply much easier for me through prevention. At least with hallucinogens, the risk of addiction is minimal to non-existent. Personally, I don't think they belong in the same category as any of the other crap out there that actually kills people. >_< I think it'd take a huge deal of irresponsibility for what I'm thinking of doing to be harmful... but still, I won't ignore the risk to my mind.

I'm somewhat passionate about writing I suppose, although its difficult to enjoy it currently. As I mentioned in my main post, my Aspie "superpowers" I think they're called, I can't really use in my current situation. I wanted to write a book for the longest time, and just recently wrote a couple chapters of a second book idea I had, but it's been halted. I can't write a chapter unless I do it all at once, straight and without interruption, but my father likes to yell up to my bedroom for me and have me come down to help him with this or that at unpredictable times. My third chapter has been half-complete for about 3 weeks now since he yelled for me to do something, and I simply cannot fall back into the flow of the story I had going. If I do not finish what I started in the same sitting, it usually never gets done. I've since written 2 more paragraphs to the chapter but can't get it to budge any further. Until I'm in a less disruptive environment, I can't write.

My other passionate interest isn't something I should probably discuss right now since some may find it completely laughable. It's not a career in the traditional sense since I'd wind up costing me a lot of money to it, giving me only a "greater understanding of the world" in a particular area. Nothing illegal or 'wrong' about it, just my parents would definitely be opposed to it and that many people think its stupid. I'll still pursue it when I get out of here, but I'll need a good job to fund it! lol

You're probably right about the moving in with my best friend thing, especially since my feelings for her aren't quite gone yet, so I've feared for a while it'd be a bad idea. When we first met, I was instantly convinced she was "the one", and for the first time in my life 100% sure that she actually liked me back! I'd never had that kind of confidence before... and we arranged a kind of date type trip to a museum-prison a week after we met, for 2 weeks later. Then the day before the trip, she called to ask if the boyfriend whose existence she'd never mentioned before could also come with us! Not just any boyfriend, they'd been together for 2 and a half years (now it's 4 years) so even though they have no common interests, share no affection in public besides a quick greeting and parting kiss that has all appearances of only being done out of routine, total personality conflicts, ect... basically a long list of reasons why EVERYONE is amazing they lasted a month together, let alone 4 years. The only thing they seem to have in common is that they're both very faithful to one-another... but probably to the point where she'd sooner marry the wrong guy than ever confess to having had feelings for the right guy.

Okay so maybe I'm a lot not over her... mostly my friends and co-workers who've met her, who keep telling me "She totally digs you! She can't seriously stand that guy! It'll be over between them soon, you'll see!" and all that crap that I somehow doubt would happen. They all think the us moving in together thing is an excellent idea; I'm the only one whose expressed any doubts about it probably turning out with one of us getting hurt! They keep insisting once she spends more time with me, she'll get rid of her bf and you two will live happily ever after blah blah blah... I know my life, especially romantically, never comes out that way. We might seem perfect together in every way, BUT only in fairy tales does that mean anything.

Her boyfriend isn't moving in with her because he said he's got to put his money into his business right now (something to do with a music studio), so that she'd have to wait till she could move out of her parent's house. Since he put his music before her (she always does warn me "never date a musician", she asked me instead, and since I want to get out of my parent's place too, I agreed. BUT recently while talking to her boyfriend who unwillingly went along with us on one of our 'adventures', she spoke saying "When we get our place..." to him, as if he'd changed his mind and they'll be moving in together instead now after all. I've been meaning to ask her about this all week but she hasn't answered her phone.

If that falls through, which would probably be for the better anyway, I'll go live with my brother and his best friend/"brother" who will be getting a house together and invited me along too. I won't be as isolated from the family as I'd like to be since I'll still be expected to go to church and all, but I can resist more easily there since my parents won't have the argument that I'm living under their roof anymore.

Okay now I'm tired enough to sleep, thanks again!