AS is making my life 100x harder then it should be

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Not having a glass half empty attitude is not why anyone's life is easy. I'm certain that how fortunate one is, is what determines ease of life, not attitudes. My idea of the glass half empty/full thing, is that I see the glass as half empty, while wondering who has the other half, and why others have full or overflowing glasses.

I see where you're coming from, I used to think this way as well. Until I realized that while you can achieve some of your goals with optimism, dedication, focus and hard work - some will still be out of reach (and those are often the ones you'd like to accomplish the most). I think your attitude is great however .Believing you can overcome some of the obstacles that lies ahead of you if you only put your mind to it, does increase your chance of succeeding. Evens mallest the peaks are worth to climb - but from a realistic point of view - I don't think I'll reach the top myself ( nor do I expect others to). It's still sad that some people are born with great gifts (you find alot of unique and talented people, not only on the autistic spectrum but amongst people who have other disabilities), yet 'unable' to put them to use. I'd argue that you find alot of 'wasted' talent on the spectrum.



This put a smile on my otherwise sad face

But I would argue that if you have 'self awareness' of your Aspergers then you're not that severe. When I was much younger my ASD was so bad that not only was I disconnected from reality I didn't even realize how disconnected I was. When you're this bad, you're ****** basically. If you know you've got Aspergers, and you're aware of how it's holding you back then you've got a fighting chance!

I'm more aspieish than you, and it shows up in my posting habits. I also see my AS, as a gift. I'm a very happy person, and my life is going the way that I've planned, because I'm a fighter, as well as a lover.

My take on this whole glass charades is THAT THERE IS NO GLASS

As Tony Atwood puts it; I don't suffer from AS, I suffer from other people.

Yeah but they're SOCIAL difficulties, so it affects every aspect of your life.

HeLL Yea Ace of Spades GET HIM!

Never?

Are you really, 100% sure?

Social difficulties don't affect every aspect of your life; they only affect the parts where you're dealing with other people.

Corp, can you give us some specific examples of what's wrong? What exactly is preventing you from getting a job? What are the specific things you can't do that you want to? Maybe we can help, but we can't suggest anything if you don't give us specifics.

This could be a case of comparing one's "insides" to another person's "outsides".

Your "insides", your feelings and struggles and frustration and how you see your glass as half full, is something that you can see easily.

You (and I, and probably 99% of the population too) look around at other people, and they seem to have it so easy. They might be beautiful, have a great job, or whatever. We compare ourselves to them. And gawd, it just isn't fair. (I do this. Constantly. And really need to kick myself upside the head when I do this, which is not easy for many reasons.)

The problem with this is that we can't see their "insides" -- we are only looking at their "outsides" -- what we can see from our perspective. We probably have no idea what their struggles and frustrations and agonies are. But just because we can't see it doesn't mean that it isn't there, and we can't compare our struggles and pain to someone else's, whose struggles and pain are a complete unknown. So therefore we need to take our glass empty or full comparisons with a big grain of salt.

[I hope that makes sense. If I've gone on and on, I'm not trying to be annoying, I'm just not sure if I am talking clearly or not. Take my rambling with a grain of salt?]

I'm familiar with that idea mollisol. It's not impossible to get an idea of what their "insides" are like, when one listens to them talk about themselves. I think the struggles and frustrations of those who are fortunate are frivolous and trivial, considering what the unfortunate have to struggle with. If the ones who are so well off on the "outside" could be miserable on the "inside", then I wonder why they fight so vigorously to keep their advantages.

for some of us who are newly diagnosed (especially later in life), it's not as easy. i've had the problem of trying to fight through challenges i didn't even know were there, or failing so miserably at social relationships that there wasn't anyone there to even work on them with (or in the case of jobs, no one willing to hire me so i could develop a career).

i'm just months into an official DX, and am trying not to completely unravel, but i'm at a loss for what to do right now.

OK, I basically am not entusiastic and have no pitch and that special life in my voice that NTs have, I dont have alot of energy, I cant think of things to say, and I have bizarre strange perceptions. Im also paranoid about making a social fool of myself like I have one million times in my life so far, shyness it painful, its like a knife running across your heart, its a different kind of pain, one of the worst.

Alright. Let me try to offer what advice I can.

Are you depressed? This might be something to look into, because it sounds like you might be; your symptoms are typical of depression at least as much so as they're typical of autism.

Bizarre strange perceptions-- this is a broad term. Do you mean that you have hallucinations, or that you process sensory input oddly, or something else? I will assume you mean that you process sensory input oddly. In that case, I have some general advice. Avoid sensations you don't like and seek out those you do; refuse to be bound by what people say you "should" like or dislike. You don't, so don't try to act like you do. If going to the movies hurts your ears, you could either wear earplugs or just not go. Don't be ashamed to stim. It can be hard to break yourself of the conditioning that says you should be. Stim, though, even if only in private; seek ways to stim whenever necessary.

With regard to feeling shy, do you also feel lonely? If not, avoid people. If you do feel both shy and lonely, you have a stickier situation; you could try making friends online. (I know this is awkward, but if you want, I'll be your friend. ) You could try meeting people in smaller groups (say, one-on-one, or maybe with two people), or you could join a social skills group if such is available to you. One thing to try is to seek out misfits-- people who do not conform to society's norms, and most importantly who do not have many friends. Some will be Aspies; some will not. Find someone who talks funny or someone who has only one eye or something. Find some geeks. Find people who are as unpopular as you, or more so, and befriend them. Don't make it a pity thing; don't tell them you're befriending them because no one else would bother with either of you. Find a shared interest or try small-talk (GASP, yes, I suggested it; don't push yourself to do it, though, if it's too hard); find some complementary areas of strength (totally random example: if you were a writer, you might befriend an artist and suggest working together on a project... I've actually befriended someone because she had poor English and good social skills and I had good English and poor social skills).

The internet may be better for not making a fool of yourself-- though it still takes time to learn, it's as hard for NTs as it is for you. Plus, internet relationships are "disposable" in that you can go to some other website and might even talk to the same people but if you use another username they never need to know that. Definitely, I suggest the internet if you speak in a monotone. Maybe sign language and befriending deaf people, but I suspect that if you have a monotone you also have a blank face, so the internet's probably your best bet.

You mentioned that you obsess, earlier. What do you obsess about?

Who on earth says how hard life "should be"? For most people in the world, life is an incredibly hard thing. The idea that life "should be" easy is a fiction created by highly privileged people, the only people who have a chance of an easy life (i.e. a minority of the planet). Although even privilege is no protection against many hard aspects of life, and may actually make life harder in some areas. We get the life we got, it's what we do with what we've got that counts.