I need to open my heart. Living hurts

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If you really are 21 then I say just enjoy it. Don't stress too much. 24 is when you really start figuring out who you are.

FWIW, I know some people who married early (straight out of high school) and they are STUCK. They are talking about divorce and in all sorts of drama.

If you have your health, don't underestimate that....

My late teens to mid 20s was a rough time for me and I think it is likewise for a lot of males on the spectrum. My peers all seemed to be having relationships, getting married and beginning careers while I was mostly friendless and struggling. I was deeply depressed during that period.

But when I was 28 and finally starting to succeed in my career, I found a girlfriend and had the first romantic relationship of my life. I think a lot of us males with ASD are delayed in our emotional development and late bloomers. The key is to hang in there and survive.

I was bullied in school and had absent parents, so figure it out by yourself.
I mentioned I have an irrational and almost subconscious inferiority complex, and that was caused in my first years of life.

Not only that but I also have some big problems with closeness and intimacy. I had some girls trying to approach me in high school but I always did something that pushed them away. Not in a rational way, but moved by a subconscious fear of them getting too close to me and finding how screwed up I am.

There was a girl who even said she has fallen in love for me, but in my head a voice always said "she doesn't love you, she loves a false image she made of you. If you two get too close she will get disappointed and will leave you".

Yeah... pretty weird.

This certainly applies to me as well.
I only recently started to understand some aspects of emotions and interactions. Mostly in a theoretical way though.

Not that weird. I pushed people away all my life for the same reason. I guess I figured I couldn't handle a close relationship.

I understand that things don't always get "better."

But I believe it is harmful to tell somebody that there's no possibility that things will get "better."

Things do get "better" for some people.

Very strongly agree.

Sure thing can get better for some people, just as for some they do not. It is very irritating to be expected to pretend that things are good when they are not. Often I feel people want me to appear happy (even if I am not) to keep alive their illusions of life being universally a good thing. For some people life is a burden, not a gift.

I wish you felt more pleasure from life.

You have a good mind.

Thank you.

Sometimes in my dreams I feel what it is like to be neurotypical, I think. I interact with others smoothly, with no concern and they interact with me the same and I know what it must feel like to be neurotypical. It seems so real, but I cannot recreate the feeling in the waking world.

The original post describes exactly the same experience as mine, I was going to make the same post but the OP beat me to it. If I could give advice on this I wouldn't be in this situation, I just needed to get this out.

Same.
I have lots of dreams in which I am neutypical and all that stuff. Have friends, girls, I speak loud and clear, I'm assertive, etc.

This makes me even more sure that our problems are about the physical brain, and not on our thoughts / mind processes. I mean, I'm not into much but I've heard about that cortisol, dopamin etc thing. You know, brain chemistry.
I think in dreams we control a self that is not influenced by these chemical brain reactions.

Interesting to think about.

It may sounds weird but it's good to know I'm not alone on these feelings. Good luck for us. Who know we may help each other in some future.



Indeed. Though the idea of being controlled by screwed up brain chemistry doesn't give me any kind of optimism.

It is this, I think, that has brought me to thoughts of suicide over the years. My body and mind are like a defective albatross that I can't escape. I am able to maintain hope at present because I have recently found medications that are quite effective. But that I need them to function scares me, I think because I am dependent on them to be who I am.

I agree, it helps me to know I'm not alone, and thank you.