Are you just going to let your symptoms beat you?

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i find life hard. i had to go to a career related lunch today with two people in a quiet home in the bush and talk about some plans for some work stuff.
i worried beforehand and i have been home a couple of hours and am sick to my stomach because i cannot feel connection to others and i cannot fit in.
i cannot keep up with others' conversations and if it veers away from my career/special interest topic i am lost and floundering and do not know what to say.

i'm at a point where i feel like checking out sometimes. i won't do that. but that is how i feel some days. today has been one of those days.

I've overcome or made adjustments for much of my Aspieness, except for the inability to socialize in a natural, relaxed fashion. I'm still prone to archaic terminology or polysyllabic words of esoteric meaning and many times completely miss the unspoken references ("inside jokes") of a conversation.

I was once a part of a group of equally nerdy friends, who met once weekly for seven years to play Dungeons & Dragons. Those were the best of times. Now I'm lucky to find anyone who knows what "Thac0" means or what a "Saving Throw" is for.

While I'm fully capable of living on my own, I always have that awful Aspie feeling of "Standing on the outside looking in."

Some things are a practice in futility. I've found through out my life that there needs to be an equilibrium between futility and ease. Achieving what you can and leaving what you need to. Of course applying this to individual needs is difficult. And finding this balance can be trying task indeed.

I tried. I failed. I'll try again. But first I have to get my life back on track in practical matters.

If I had let my symptoms get the best of me, I would not be here right now.

Yes, you read that right. You are smart people, you can figure out what I mean.

Here are some of the reasons I'm still around. Hopefully this will help some, if not all of you.

1) I had goals. When I first started back to school, one of the first things we had to do was write down three professional, three personal, and three educational goals. For each goal we had to think of obstacles, and also come up with ways to overcome those obstacles.

Do this, and pick off one at a time if you have to. They don't even need to be especially "world-shattering" to be meaningful and confidence-building to you - just attainable.

The attainment of those goals may involve reaching out to others. I know mine, which is to eventually to run my own video game studio under my own label, will require this. Consider it an "exercise in overcoming the social deficit". The younger WrongPlanet folks will likely have an easier time of this, as there is far more support geared for AS youth than adults.

2) I had faith. Most of you will have different beliefs from mine. Some of you may be atheist, and if that works for you, that's fine. I'm not writing this to preach.

3) I find the silver linings. In this world, that's a b***h sometimes, I know. Focus on your strengths - or even just something that puts a smile on your face - and use those to find ways around your weaknesses. Do the best with what you have, as Tahitii said.

Many here write about their bad experiences in therapy. I am sorry you had to deal with that. I might find a WrongPlanet lynch mob beating down my door for this, but also keep in mind the idea of "degrees of autism" is still fairly new to some. For example, AS was not a diagnosible condition in and of itself until the 90's, so in many ways therapists are still learning about it, too. For many of us, they were treating the symptoms without knowledge of what the root cause was.

Just my $.02

I accomplish the "impossible" nearly every day.

This is just weird because these supposed "symtoms" are my personality.

So by definition my personality traits can never "beat" me because I am who I am.

Unfortunately, some people don't like who I am.

Given the right environment, I can thrive on my personality traits.


I find this whole idea of "suffering" from personality traits bizarre and a little offensive.
I only seem to "suffer" if the environment is not right or people believe that I should be "suffering".

It actually hasn't been proven that Asperger's is a personality type, just FYI and all.

Wing from her first paper (she's replying to Hans and his theory that Autistic Psychopathy was an extreme form of the male personality):