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sohmasheep
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28 Jul 2011, 12:01 pm

Well, here's the thing. It's almost been a year since I dropped out of college and my parents (especially my mom) keep pestering me by asking me when do I plan to choose another career and get back to college, to which I always give my infamous answer of: I don't know. She thinks this answer is a load of crap and keeps insisting. The thing that she, or my father for that matter, don't know is that this reminds me of the emotional trauma I suffered there, hence the reason why I left college in the first place, but since I don't want to worry them more I just bottle it all up, wait till everyone's asleep and silently cry on my bed till I lose consciousness. That usually works and helps me to feel better the next morning.

I think it's my fault for having always been a top-notch student since middle school all the way to high school but still =/

Anyways, thank god I have this lady who owns a special kids institution with whom I go twice a week. She at least is willing to listen to me and what's more, she even understands and respects my reasons for not wanting to go to college. I think I shall discuss this issue a bit more with her and see if there's some way in which she can make my parents understand a bit more my situation.

Please feel free to comment or share a similar experience if that's the case.



FlyingSolo
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28 Jul 2011, 1:22 pm

My advice would be to look at going to a Community/Junior college. They accept anyone who applies and there is usually is no campus so you can go to class while still living at home. You don't even have to be social at all, you can just sit away from other people, pay attention to class and leave. Once your parents see that your taking classes again hopefully they will start treating you better.



Last edited by FlyingSolo on 28 Jul 2011, 1:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

purchase
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28 Jul 2011, 1:34 pm

My parents were alternately angry and in denial for four years about me not going back to college after I did badly there and left after two years.

Do they know about you Asperger's? That could help explain the stress to them.

What do you want to do in life, career/lifestyle-wise?



League_Girl
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28 Jul 2011, 2:41 pm

When people nag me, I think they actually want me to do it. Like when my aunt kept asking me when do I plan on moving out or when do I get an apartment. I then knew she wanted me out of there and she said she didn't but she kept asking so I knew she did. This was now almost four years ago.

You nag someone when you want it done right? So telling me it's not that isn't going to work. I am not that dense to not read between the lines there. I know nagging means "I want it done and I don't care what your reason is, I want it done now."

I do not see why someone would want to keep constantly asking me when I am going to do it or when and then say they don't want me to now. Of course I don't mean literally now.

I get irritated when I get nagged because the person doesn't understand I can't rush it nor have control over it. It just adds stress and friction and I get stressed out and have more meltdowns and shut downs and yell. I get mad at my husband when he does this. Unless it's something very important and urgent and something I can help. But sometime I need to be "nagged" because I tend to forget.



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28 Jul 2011, 2:45 pm

Why don't you just tell your parents exactly what is going on? They're just worried that you're going to end up not doing anything with your life and I think you need to reassure them that you will but you just need to figure some things out first.



sohmasheep
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28 Jul 2011, 2:47 pm

To the first poster, thanks for your suggestion but sadly I live in a stinky 3rd world hole known as Mexico, where there aren't any community colleges.

To the second poster, my parents already know about autism and Aspergers (we live next to a family with a low-functioning autistic son) yet they insist in treating me like a NT even though they're well aware of my hyper sensibility to sounds (which has caused me to endure a life-long phobia to balloons and more recently to fireworks and yelling crowds at sports gatherings XP) and my refusal to be social or follow the normal trends of girls my age.

If it were for me, I would gladly spend the rest of my life working for someone who bathes dogs (I love them and they love me in return :) ) I also just started taking piano lessons.



Barsine
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28 Jul 2011, 5:43 pm

Did you try to move out on your own when you attended college? That triggered a lot of problems for me when I first tried college, because once I was far from the environment where I had been abused I started processing childhood traumas that had been repressed. Plus school was very stressful. You mentioned dropping out had something to do with trauma and your family so I thought it might be similar to my experience, but maybe not. Not being able to stand college now doesn't imply you'll never be able to get a degree and pursue a career. You may need to give yourself time to heal for now, but don't rule out trying again yet. College might not be unbearable if you prepare for the experience with smaller steps. If not community college, maybe a job you like would help you build your confidence and afford part time course work in the future, so you can keep your commitments low-key.



KinetiK
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28 Jul 2011, 9:42 pm

sohmasheep wrote:
Well, here's the thing. It's almost been a year since I dropped out of college and my parents (especially my mom) keep pestering me by asking me when do I plan to choose another career and get back to college, to which I always give my infamous answer of: I don't know. She thinks this answer is a load of crap and keeps insisting. The thing that she, or my father for that matter, don't know is that this reminds me of the emotional trauma I suffered there, hence the reason why I left college in the first place, but since I don't want to worry them more I just bottle it all up, wait till everyone's asleep and silently cry on my bed till I lose consciousness. That usually works and helps me to feel better the next morning.

I think it's my fault for having always been a top-notch student since middle school all the way to high school but still =/

Anyways, thank god I have this lady who owns a special kids institution with whom I go twice a week. She at least is willing to listen to me and what's more, she even understands and respects my reasons for not wanting to go to college. I think I shall discuss this issue a bit more with her and see if there's some way in which she can make my parents understand a bit more my situation.

Please feel free to comment or share a similar experience if that's the case.


I can relate to a lot of what you are feeling. I, too, was a star student in middle and high school, even receiving a full scholarship to college, but then I became depressed and flunked out. I've had to deal with issues of self-worth, as I felt that I had let my parents down because they knew I had the ability to get very good grades. One thing that has helped me is this AS diagnosis (it describes me so well I was upset that no one had "connected the dots" sooner) and talking to other AS people IRL. Is there an AS or HFA meetup near where you live?

Also remember that just because society has drilled into your head that you need to finish college to be successful doesn't mean it's true. Some of the happiest people I know are high school grads or went to a tech college. Best of luck.



FlyingSolo
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28 Jul 2011, 10:26 pm

sohmasheep wrote:
To the first poster, thanks for your suggestion but sadly I live in a stinky 3rd world hole known as Mexico, where there aren't any community colleges.

To the second poster, my parents already know about autism and Aspergers (we live next to a family with a low-functioning autistic son) yet they insist in treating me like a NT even though they're well aware of my hyper sensibility to sounds (which has caused me to endure a life-long phobia to balloons and more recently to fireworks and yelling crowds at sports gatherings XP) and my refusal to be social or follow the normal trends of girls my age.

If it were for me, I would gladly spend the rest of my life working for someone who bathes dogs (I love them and they love me in return :) ) I also just started taking piano lessons.


Well living in Mexico isn't the best place to be but you still have some options.

If you want to bathe puppies as a job that's great, I bet if you look through local ads you can find someone who bathes or grooms dogs. You can give them a call and ask if they need any help, you don't even have to do it for money at first, what matters is that you are doing what you love and hopefully your parents will see you going for a career.

That's just an idea though, hope it helps :D