Is this typical of aspiness.....arrgh !

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Peoples, I am wondering, really wondering about the things that I do, and it recently since a family member brought it up as a means of annoying me into pulling my finger out and realising my potential instead of slobbing it out on welfare making excuses for not living.

Ok, is this aspergers typical or do I have to look elsewhere ;

Whatever I take interest in and I really do take an interest in, an obsessional interest and obtain, I always take it apart and rebuild it to better standards than it was made, but just at the final part, the last job before completion, I seem to reverse the completion process and start taking things apart again and then lose interest and then forget about my project and go back under my rock. I have always done this, restored cars, motorcycles, pedal cycles, boats etc, none of them having ever been totally completed and then left to decay or get sold on as unfinished projects, I do it every time, it is my history.

I thought perhaps my enjoyment of an object is the building and restoring process and the skills I teach myself as I go along as I always complete my own work, never farm it out to others, but I never realise or experience the finished article, others have that pleasure.

I have realised this activity of mine extends into other areas of my life, and as I wish to perhaps not cure, but understand and make amends, I need to understand myself, as I do the machines I play with.

Is what I have written typical of others with this way of thinking and for those that have recognised it and got out of it, how did you change the thought pattern ?

Taking things apart and rebuilding it is a typical Asperger's thing to do.

I probably went through that phase with my brothers Lego's as a kid, I always build gigantic towers and cities nearly finishing them then I tear them down and start building something else.

It eventually trumped my rituals and other areas of obsessions and got to the point I didn't even want to go to school, naturally I never had a friend

I don't know if it is part of Aspieness, but I do know that I have a slight (ok all pervasive big) problem with that final step.

I think that there are several aspects to it:

- first is definitely the aspie bit - I love getting into the groove - so whether it's taking things apart, putting them together, whatever it is, doing it over and over so that I'm now in a repetitive comfort zone, is great. I'm at home, finally I am doing something that doesn't hurt. So there is a disincentive to stop doing the putting together/pulling apart behaviour.


- another part is the actual finish bit - it doesn't seem real to me. It's like when I do it/finish it, I am standing there, thinking, "So are we there? What's next? Is this it? Where's the solid marker to tell me that this is right?" And it seems as though there isn't this nice "Finish" box that I can safely jump into, so I'm left exposed, with a dizzy vertigo feeling.


- and then there's the "reward". I'm left looking at the finished thing, feeling no reward, which is bad enough, but now there's the ADDITIONAL thing, of what to do next. And what my mind is crying out for is a nice repetitive groove thing to burrow into.
Hmmmm... so much easier to just carry on, doing what I was doing before. There's no reward in finishing (well, intellectually I recognise that there is, but the reality is that when I get there, it just hurts my mind).


Is any aspect of this something you can relate to a bit?

yeah, I can, very much, thanks.

All right, I am getting that although I work to a very high standard via others observations, but something which translates as acceptable to me, not good, not bad, just acceptable in form and function, I am and have always self sabotaged, and as I suffer problems with anxiety, this makes sense to me.

I think I am going to have to ignore the family and friends and all those others that say it is a waste that I am so highly skilled and intelligent that I should be making a good business for myself instead of slobbing around doing nothing but make excuses.

As to be fair, those others do not know what is going on in my head, ( neither do I sometimes), and the difficulties I see and experience being like this. But then isn't that just another excuse.

I think much of the problem is as I have always known I was different in some ways I have always felt the need to explain where I am coming from, and this because of experience of others not understanding how I came to what I say, my logical process being different from theirs. This nasty habit of self sabotage started with school thirty odd years ago, where I always remember being accused of day dreaming and not paying attention, yet in exams receiving high marks which lead to accusations of cheating.

With the apparent need to inform others where I am coming from, is also the fact that I constantly seek approval from others because I was always aware I was different in some way.

So, my conclusion is, I self sabotage and that because I fear what I don't know although I think I know and so the phase locked loop starts again and that is my mood instability the cycling between obsessive and totally disinterested, only interesting input maintains interest, but the negatives of life smash it all down.

I am further of the conclusion that not only is it us that deny ourselves the light that we have, but society in general likes to keep people down, we live in a trampled society.

I think you're on clue here.

Having many unfinished projects may be a symptom of AS, according to some quiz questions. I certainly have too many. Not so proud of it, though. It can be pretty funny in hindsight when I finally get to finish a project that started virtually ages ago... (self irony)

It can have many causes, ranging from losing interest, fear of possible failure, imagining more of yourself than you are actually capable of (as mentioned), to the scientific term "executive dysfunction". And yes, maybe the process of doing something is more important than actually finishing it. Why finish if you can have the finished product in your head whenever you tune out or daydream?

The best term that I have heard for this is "Analysis Paralysis," and yes, I have no control over myself with this. I struggle with it every single day.

Hmm yeah that is basically what I do in general.

I find the most fun part of any project is when first figuring it out, and then implementing the 'figured out'ness is fun, and then after that it's mostly grunt work which isn't much fun for me. On the few occasions when I have taken something to what I consider a 'done' state no one else has shared my enthusiasm, or if people do, it somehow never seems to match what I think it should and I give up on the project in general.

The main thing though is yeah, the main fun part of any project for me is figuring out how to do it, and some of actually doing it to verify I'm right. I never thought about this in a more general overall sense..

Sorry for not being here to reply, for I was once again off in that headspace which involves stripping something down to it's nuts and bolts, cleaning, examining and putting it all back together again, a 1995 GT Timberline mountain bike to replace the highly individual bike I had stolen recently. But, I have come out of that fettling diversion now and am wondering where the hell I have been all week, as this place is a complete tip and I didn't go to work, it is as if I have just woken up and trying to remember a dream I had.

So given all this, could it be said my habits, my way of thinking is living in a dream ?

As we all know the dream world is far nicer than reality, but is this Aspergers, the desire to live outside of reality ?

But as I know now I self sabotage myself, to live in the dream, I am finding it very difficult to get out of it, because I need to face my reality to exist. I find it very difficult to find the off button, the mechanism that turns off my dream state, where I live my life whilst sometimes going through the motions of existing in reality. Which is fine, except that the dream state is naturally preferable than the reality and with that I achieve nothing.

You stole a bike?

Yes.... We all would love to sit around and do nothing more all day long than our obesssions. And yes, many of us lose ourselves in them and lose all time. NTs would like to do nothing all day long but their hobbies too. The facts are though that we hafta eat live somehow so most of us really should stay grounded enough to do something that earns income. The really savvy ones will find income in their special interests.

I think I understand; I get random obsessions where I feel I must take things apart, to fix them, clean them or just to see how they work, only to leave them incomplete; my latest projects have been a pair of binoculars and a Blackerry cell phone. I have re-assembled them since only because I wanted to use them. I dont know of any NT's who would consider doing this, and I think it is at least symtomatic of an Aspie.

Oh yeah, I definitely have a habit of breaking down and building up for myself. Otherwise, the knowledge doesn't feel real. People used to tell me that I was always "re-inventing the wheel".

That is my problem though, I want to work and further to that because employers are not interested in the way I work and that coupled with a high unemployment area, I am trying to start my own business in repairing things and my metal craft. In an attempt to stop myself getting lost in an interest at home, I have taken all my tools six miles away to a eighteenth century smithy I have rented a space in to start that business. The only trouble is, I have just woken up to the fact that not only have I not gone to the smithy this last week, but I have also rarely eaten, relocated to my sofa bed and this place is a complete tip with stuff everywhere. Further to that I have only today found my mobile phone, discharged under piles of stuff as I attempt to make some sense of the mess, so I recharged it, and the memory is full of missed calls and unanswered SMS messages from friends asking where I was, so I have not communicated with my friends either.

Now my friends ( Yeah friends, all of them with a screw loose, schizophenics and other societal fringe people) know I do this from time to time, so they know a non answer is not a reason to worry, but the problem is, I only know I have gone into one of these phases when I wake up and realise what I have again done, the same pattern every time, and I do not notice myself slipping into the phase.

Now regards the business set up, I am working with Working Links on this and from time to time attend seminars on how to start a business, but I am finding i am not understanding what is being put to me, least of all the tax thing. The mentor I have has even asked me if starting my own business is the right thing for me, to which I have replied, it is the only thing I can do at this point in my life, as the option is unemployment as I have already been told by the job centre, my diagnosis, makes me virtually unemployable and positively that in this present recessional climate.

But as we know the government has declared war on the benefit scrounger, and if anyone hasn't noticed the price of everything has gone up, massively so, people who exist in poverty tend to notice such things, as essentials become more and more expensive almost on a daily basis. Fed up with poverty propels me, as poverty has the nasty habit of allowing all sorts of nasties to assail the mind, depression and self worth issues being but two of them, and I have in the past tried to terminate on a couple of occaisions, I must keep clear of the mind rot.

But prior to the mind rot that caused the near termination, I was employed in industry for twenty odd years, including seven years in the armed forces, which was a complete nightmare, but I could not leave. I bhave been married and I have had a family, but all that is gone now, so I must look positively towards my future, but my future will be nothing if I cannot recognise the initiation and there control my obsessions.