Getting responsible for my own choices.

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When i was young i have always relayed on others for making important decisions for me, my parents or some figure of power.

Now i am 34 and i cannot make myself do anything i don't know how to get ahead in life on my own i feel need to have someone around to help me and guide me either a friends or business partner or wife.

How do i get out of this misery and be my own man?

I have struggled with the same issue my friend and after 43 years I still haven't figured it out. Anytime I set a goal for myself it always seems like an overwhelming Mount Everest that I can't entirely wrap my mind around. I've attempted to make plans for myself but they've always blown up in my face so at this point I may have to simply concede defeat.

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*** High Functioning Autism - Asperger's Syndrome ***

ADHD, OCD, and PTSD.

Keep calm and stim away.

I don't mean to be discouraging, but I'm 61 and still face the same issue. I find myself wishing I could get some help or accommodation in making personal choices and also find myself facing the societal expectation that as adults we're supposed to do that for ourselves. The difficulty I have in weighing how I feel about various options (part of alexithymia) can make evaluating choices really hard. I often find myself choosing direction based on how a typical person might feel which lets me sort of limp along in life, getting by but not finding the joy and fulfillment that others seem capable of directing themselves to. Therapy helps some with this, although I frequently find myself aware of the situation without being able to change it.

Found a book that explains it. called Robert Glover - No More Mr Nice Guy. Lemme know how you find it.

The government has helped me some. I still have to make my own choices though. Even getting something for "free" takes work.

I certainly have struggled with this in the past and from time to time in the present. A couple of "maxims" helped me get over it (mostly).

1. Any choice is better than no choice. In other words, do something. It may be wrong, but how are you going to learn otherwise?

2. Choose as often as you can about as many things as you can. In this way, you build up experience and start to get some confidence in your choices. Some will still be less than optimal, but at least you will be living and experiencing and making choices.

Finally, I think I remember a study that was done with people to see about the effectiveness of their choices if they are given a lot of time and research to make a choice, or short time and little information about making a choice. What they found was that over a lifetime, people who make choices rather quickly based on adequate but not deep research come out better. The conclusion was that the person who took lots of time and researched everything over the span of life may have made some better decisions, but because they spent so much time at it, they made fewer decisions. I am not explaining this very well. Maybe someone else remembers the study.