Aspie with a serious problem.

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I was diagnosed with Asperger's when I was very young. I've always had a hard time with school (I've dropped out of college twice), and don't seem to get along so well with counselors.

Here is my problem; I am 22 years old, living with my parents, and I want desperately to become independent. I've been unemployed for a year and a half now. I'm currently working with vocational rehabilitation, but the process is painfully slow, and I don't really want a job.

For as long as I can remember, it has been my dream to be self-employed. The one thing I want to do is to achieve finical independence by running an online business of some kind. My ideas have ranged anywhere from self-publishing fiction (I enjoy writing) to creating music. I've also thought about things like game design, legos (no idea how I'd make that into a business), and basically anything else that might interest a typical aspie.

But, anything I attempt to try always turns out being much harder than I imagine it to be. Things are more complex than I envision them. I end up getting discouraged and give up easily. It's frustrating.

That's only part of it though. My really serious problem is that I have a severe OCD behavior that makes it almost impossible for me to take action and do the things I want to do, when I want to do it.

This behavior is running from point to point, usually inside the house. It's how I process thoughts. Depending on how much into a thought process I might be, the movements can become fast-paced and I may make complex movements and humming noises. I've been doing this ever since I was little.

The problem with this, is that it's easier for me to think about something than to do it. Whenever I get an idea, instead of trying it out, I run around and think about it. And when I think about it, I think of things that could go wrong, which makes me anxious. In order to deal with this anxiety, I run around some more. And when I think about actually doing what I want to do, I get more anxiety. And on and on it goes. It becomes almost impossible to just stop and do what I want to do. It gets to a point where my knees start to hurt from the impact of running around, and it can get so bad I can barely stand. Despite this, I can't stop. I just keep going.

When it gets to a point where I'm about to collapse, I can finally force myself to stop. But by that time, I'm too tired to do anything. I have to rest. And when I have energy, I just start running around again.

I've been dealing with this problem for years, and I haven't been able to beat it. It's so frustrating to have so many ideas, and to be incapable of even working on them.

I'm posting this in hopes that someone will have some idea or know of some resource that can help. I'm trying counselling again, but for some reason the meetings keep getting canceled. In other words, it's a long and slow process. It's obvious I'm just going to have to help myself, but I don't even know where to begin to fight this.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope someone here might be able to help.

a type of therapy that's been shown to help OCD is a special kind of cognitve-behavioral therapy called exposure with response prevention.

your symptoms sound severe enough to warrant disability payments. these payments, along with subsidized housing could be your ticket to living independently while you get well enough to start your business.

Hmm this all sounds familiar. And yes cbt (cognitive behavoiral therapy is helpfull). I would suggest trying any one of the following options:

Read qs much of the writings of B. F. Skinner and A. T. Beck as you can( and have my brain to see how beck presents an incredibal aplication of what skinner explaines in verbal behavoir, thou he gets the theory all wrong).

Or to cut to the chase, find a way to force yourself to put your ideas into action before yunstart thinking of all of the reasons why it isn't worth trying. Example I hate having to call people so i have an app on my phone where i can schedual a call ahead of time, so at lets say 4 pm my phone rings and i get a message reminding me that i am calling the insurence company about getting new cards to put in my car, then the call connects. I don't get anxious or avoident of doing what i need to.

The even shorter version, find ways to stack the deck (ie rig reality) so that the outcome you desire becomes the most probable outcome, run experiments with yourself to test your belifes about the world, you may find yourself startled by some of the outcomes

Well, I'm not certain what to do about your running around and thinking problem, but since you listed Lego as something you would be interested in using as a business, I can help you with ideas on that. There are pretty much 2 ways people make money from that. Buying sets, not opening them, and selling them years later (takes a long time) or doing commisioned work/selling creations (requires a lot of building skill, and a lot of parts to start with).