A vicious circle?

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Lately I have been coming to terms with my diagnosis.

Strangely for once in my life I don't disagree with it. Usually when I felt I was having a label slapped on me like a lump of prime beef I would go home and sit down and read about it, trying to connect the dots.

I had already studied Asperger's Syndrome and forms of functional autism as I was told I exhibited autistic behaviour many years ago, so really I kind of already knew what made me tick.

However (and I am a bit depressed at the moment) I just feel like I am going in circles in life, like it's a vicious circle.

Obviously my case will be unique, but my life feels like I have this set of building blocks. And whenever I try to pick them up and start stacking them (with them representing my life and progress through life) I always tend to get them just about there before they all fall down.

Up until I was 34 I found myself able to get up, dust myself down and go about things, starting all over again. By that I mean a career, bills and rent etc.

Up until I was 34 I did not accept defeat and I wasn't put off by failure. I have held around 3 jobs for more than a week in my entire life and each time I would mess things up. Whether I would just not want to go one day and not be able to convince myself to go back, or, would so something outrageous and get the sack it always ended the same.

However lately (and I don't know if it's because of my depression getting worse) I just can't be bothered any more.

I almost feel like I am just ready to die, so all I want to do really is sit around and wait for it to happen. I have no ambition and haven't done for many years now, and my life just feels like Groundhog day. In other words I get up in the morning, get dressed if I can be bothered or just sit around in my pyjamas all day, before staring at the walls and watching the hours go by before taking a nice big dose of anti psychotics and going to sleep.

Sleep is always something I had terrible problems with, so these anti psychotics are a revelation to me. They basically knock me out within an hour of taking them and I get to sleep solid for a good ten hours.

But, I do feel deep down that it's not good to just want to be asleep, but it's better than being awake.

I really wish that I could muster up enthusiasm like I used to be able to, and actually want things from my life. But, as of now I feel like I have had it all (fancy cars, a wife, a job) and there's not much left for me to be enthusiastic about.

I hate leaving the house unless I am accompanied by my mother or uncle and aunt, and that isn't improving either. Last year my doctor tried his hardest to get me out of the house and signed me up for a day centre, but I just refused to go because it was frightening going out alone.

I no longer wish to have people around me, but I think in honesty I have felt like that my entire life but just forced myself to socialise as that is what every one else did. The problem of course was that socially I am a load of crap and I just piss people off and start arguments. I miss context, don't find jokes funny unless they are about farts or something very childish and due to that not changing with age I no longer fit in with people my age.

Even if I wanted to by this time in life (38) people are usually well sorted. Lovely wife, couple of kids, full time job. So even if I did find friends they would have bugger all time for me any way.

Before I decided to go to the USA and I lived in London I had many friends. Thing is, I decided when I came back to the UK that I didn't want to bother with any of them. So I didn't. I did meet up with a couple of old friends but it soon turned sour. It was probably down to me, because I just woke up one morning and decided I couldn't be bothered with them so I just told them to piss off and deleted them from my Facebook.

Does any one else feel like they are just going around in circles? right now I feel like I have stepped out of the circle and I just sit here day after day not wanting to step back in.

I must say that I do feel happier with my life now. I don't feel pressured, I don't feel pushed and because of that I am able to avoid all of the things that used to cause me problems. Is it normal not to have any ambitions and to be happy with nothing? I've never really been materialistic. I generally tend to be happy with just one thing. It used to be my stereo and listening to music, but I found I would obsess and end up listening to loud music all day and night. So now it's my computer.

You do sound depressed. You need to see a doc for this. Maybe they can give you some meds for it. And don't forget to ask the doc if the meds you are currently taking could be causing your depression.--Yes, some meds do this. There are some coping methods you can try, but right now you sound like you aren't even able to muster the energy for those, except music and surfing the web. Still, here goes.

- Exercise. It generates mood boosting endorphins.
- Read funny stories and watch funny shows. Humor also generates endorphins.
- Volunteer. There are people out there worse off than we are. Helping them will boost your mood, too.
- You are getting plenty of rest, which is good, but you also need to eat reasonably healthy, too.
- Take up a hobby. It will keep you occupied and distracted.
- Take courses, either in person or online. Some of the online ones are free.
- Join a club.

Hope this helps.

I've taken every anti depressant and mood stabiliser there is. Honestly I could run off a list as long as my arm

I'm currently taking Seroquel as it calms me and helps with the depression, but nothing seems to help much.

I think you should try to scare yourself about death, or about failure in general.

Any time I consider "giving up" I usually end up thinking about the fact that if I just stop and do nothing, "waiting to die" like you said, it's going to be a pretty bad experience, probably more horrifying and unpleasant than taking the risk of persevering. You can't just drift away into a dream and forget about the world, you are still the one who has to sit there and experience the negative feelings of what it is like to wither away to nothing even after you have quit.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to be sitting in some gutter when I'm 70, feeling the pain of a heavily damaged body, twisted bones and undernutritioned muscles and organs, trying to scrape some disgusting trash off the side of the road to eat it because the hunger sickness feels even worse.

I have also convinced myself that after you die you still exist as some kind of vague depersonalized will to live, and feel restlessly compelled to initiate biogenesis again in the middle of some existential void, trying to bring order to the chaotic nothingness around you by dragging together a new single celled body to inhabit, to start the multi-billion year process of evolution all over again from scratch.

It already happened once before, or we wouldn't be here. There's no reason to believe that it wouldn't happen again after you return to the state of nothingness that you came from.

Whatever you have to try and escape from now, is probably nothing compared to the challenge of a few billion years of struggling to survive just to reach a level evolved enough to contemplate human problems again, to take another shot at what you failed at last time. I would prefer to just keep dealing with the problems that I already have instead of piling all of that crazy BS onto my plate too.

There really is no guarantee that being dead will end your problems. It could be a good idea to make yourself too worried about failing, because you obviously don't really want to, or you wouldn't be on here asking us loons for advice and an alternative.

Even if you disregard the baseless assumptions about even worse problems after death, realistically, waiting to die is still going to be a pretty damn terrible thing to experience, and it's pointless too since death is inevitable whether you give up and wait for it or not. Might as well keep trying while you can.