Life Sentence
07 May 2009, 9:35 pm
Did you ever feel that life is conspiring against you? Do you feel that everyone is against you even though you've done nothing to deserve it? Welcome to my world!
All my life, I've been punished for no apparent reason. I've been denied friends in high school, winning ribbons on Track and Field day, high school graduation, and high school prom! And my classmates hated and bullied me. I was the only one in class out of all those kids who didn't graduate, a sad fate for someone who used to be on the honor role. Even today I'm still waiting for my first date, my first kiss, and my big break in life! I'm still waiting for something to unlock my cell and let me out!
I feel like since the day of my birth, I've been sentenced to life imprisonment. My name has been drawn at random from billions of entries in a lottery. Some lottery! And my prize? It's more of a curse. Hardship after hardship is thrown upon my head. My sisters and brother never had these problems before! They all lead independent lives, two are married, one has children of her own. Even my younger brother has it better. I'm 26 and I'm still living at home with no end in sight to my suffering.
In times like this, I wish I was never diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. I was born with it, and I'll have to live with it for the rest of my life.
This sucks!
07 May 2009, 9:52 pm
I'm having a hard time dealing with it too. All my siblings have had friends, graduated and live on their own. I still live at home and it took longer for me to graduate. I don't work too.
But I don't want to get down about it. I have in the past and it's a horrible feeling, one I don't want to feel again. So, I focus on what my strengths are or busy my mind with something else.
_________________
My band photography blog - http://lostthroughthelens.wordpress.com/
My personal blog - http://helptheywantmetosocialise.wordpress.com/
07 May 2009, 11:17 pm
It sucks but my advice to everyone is to do your best to cope with it and move on. No matter how hard you stew on it nothing is going to change. Yes it's going to be hard and it really sucks but thats all that you can do.
_________________
"All this pain is an illusion" - Keep that in mind at all times
For me there is no day and night. Just one continuous passage of time.
08 May 2009, 12:34 am
Well on a lighter note, I'm glad I dropped out of school and got my GED. I seriously thought about going back to school and finishing the hard way, but I'm sure the same thing would've happened to me again since there was no diagnosis for AS in '93.
I was complaining to God tonight about how my life has been pretty messy ever since then, but it has also been an adventure. I don't think I'd be who I am today without those experiences. Being that I didn't know I had AS all these years, I worked, got married, got divorced, got married again, have had lots of self-employment and made what I wanted to be reality a reality.
For me, AS isn't a sentence. It certainly explains a lot of things for me, but I don't plan on letting the label hold me back. If anything, it has simply helped me to know myself more - my strengths and weaknesses, things to work on, etc...
Eventually you're gonna get tired of the pessimism towards life, and thats when things will start changing for you.
_________________
Have fun being you!
08 May 2009, 1:15 am
I have felt the whole world being after me in the past. People wanting to discriminate me, treat me like the bad guy when I'm not, etc. I'm glad things got better once I finished high school. I've even felt ret*d too because my brothers got girlfriends before I even got a bf and they were doing more things I didn't do at their age. They had a lot more friends, got jobs in high school, but I was happy I got my driver's lisence before they did and moved out before they did and did sex before they did.
08 May 2009, 1:19 am
Why don't you get a college degree? This will get you out of the house.
08 May 2009, 7:22 am
Why don't you get a college degree? This will get you out of the house.
Yeah, and enslave you to a life of debt unless you happen to get a very good job. That's where I'm at.
His experience is very common. The hardships are not limited to AS or NT, we all have them, but it seems like my life has always been about seeing the prize but never being allowed to obtain it.
I had the cynical outlook of "When I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but when I'm right, I'm still wrong." That's how my life felt.
Thinks, overall, are better, but I had to really adjust my expectations and goals in life. Now that I understand about AS, it's helped me frame things better rather than think the "world" was "out to get me."
08 May 2009, 7:27 am
Are you diagnosed with AS or just another random bullshitter? A lot of AS people have problems with school. Statistics from the UK, Sweden and other countries show that only around 10% can actually manage to get through college and get themselves a job.
I tried getting through school several times and it just can't be done, being me.
Also, my life is exactly the way the topic author describes. I'm 25, living at my dad's house, no job, no education. I spend my government money on clothes and luxury to at least look good. That's all. There's no opening for me anywhere. I've tried and there just isn't.
I'm planning suicide around 30. Possibly 35 if I still look young and good at 30.
I used to have friends. I used to be quite social and I think what really limits me is living in a community of 100 000 people in a distanced part of Sweden.
If lived where there was more things going on, and still had this security I have at home/my family lived there/I had lived there all my life etc, I would go out and do things. However, life is pointless living out in nowhere because there are no interesting people, no openings, nothing.
I don't have the ability to organize a move and I don't have the economy for it either. Booking domestic airline tickets is where my organizational ability ends. I have no way to get away from this place.
08 May 2009, 8:12 am
I know how you feel. Unfortunately, there is a "stigma" attached to every "label", and unfortunately people think Asperger's is the same as mental retardation. If anything we do not have any learning problems and/or any problems that would need the type of "care" and assistance that a person who is mentally ret*d and/or a classic Autistic needs. Actually, with me, it is the other way around. What I mean is because of my Asperger's, I am more able to be more independent than the "normal" person. I also have my high intelligence, as well. See, if their was no "label" to my life, I would have been seen as the "queen" or at least the smart one of the bunch, because of all of my talents. But because of a label, especially a label that is in the same spectrum as people who can not even care for themselves and/or at time feed themselves, I get treated like as if I am like that and need the same care.
That is why I am in a group home, rather than being where I truly belong, independent in my own apartment, having real friend. Not being forced to be friends with "abusive" clients(who have classic autism) who also "tease" and/or physically attack me, especially the higher functioning autistic clients(who also have mental retardation along who have Kanner's autism, who would be considered more of classic autism, except that they talk adequately, but have all the symptoms of autism, including severe behavior disorders). This is not a group that a person with Asperger's would do well in, especially when I am so independent, that i do not need anyone to even watch me, never mind control me.
I know and a lot of other people on here also are "suffocating" because of this label. Rather than seeing Asperger's as a difference(the way it should be seen), people see it as a "retardation", like we are incompetent and/or stupid, that we "need" control. If anything, we need to be more independent, have less people in our lives. I thrive on independence, than dependence. When I was 18, I had the world. I had good grades, so the only controlling my mom did was to control my life direction, which she sucked at it. Then she got surgery and I had to be independent(and even take care of her), and I did well that I thrived as a person. Unfortunately, I also at the time was seeing a therapist that used my label to convince my mom that I needed a group home.
When I went into the group home, not only did I lose my self-confidence and self-esteem, I developed "learned helplessness" and I ended up physically sick, not to mention severely depressed and had major mood swings and my "illness' was manipulated by the group home nurse trying to say I was "crazy", so they can take more control over me. It turned out that the all of my mental health problems were caused by the situation, not an actually "illness". The situation being I was put in a "regressive" situation, where not only was my ability to thrive and grow taken away from me, but not only I was forced to "regress" and "submit" myself into a life where my life was controlled,but I was forced to lose all of my rights and abilities to make any decisions, especially decisions that I excellent at like my health. I always and still am able to make even the biggest decisions, which I do a lot better and have a much more healthier positive outcomes than "normal" people can not do. But because of the "label", I was "abused" by these "people" trying to get me to think and go along with them that I am not capable and that I need them. i fought tooth and nail and after medications, accusations of that I am defiant and crazy, my doctors realized it was the group home's fault and that I never even needed any care, never mind that strict care. I never even needed to be hospitalized for any mental issue(the hospitalizations were because I would not "submit" myself to them, so the nurse tried to convince the doctors of trying to diagnose me as "bipolar" and/or something that would "force" me to give the group home more control. So I got of the medications, got accepted into school, and I am now waiting to get into my own independent apartment without no supervision, staff, and/or help. Turned out I needed to be more independent then be in any care situation, and that I needed opportunity to grow and thrive. Basically, I was a butterfly that was held to long that needed to breathe and was not allowed and practically"died" from it. That is how my life turned out to be, all because of a "label" that is misjudged and misunderstood by everyone around me.
AmberEyes
Veteran
Joined: 26 Sep 2008
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,438
Location: The Lands where the Jumblies live
08 May 2009, 1:25 pm
That is how my life turned out to be, all because of a "label" that is misjudged and misunderstood by everyone around me.
Seconded.
This is why my family wanted me to ditch the AS label: it was hurting me far more than it was helping.
I still have social difficulties, but they're misunderstood.
I've been talked down to and patronised by professionals, when in the grand scheme of things, others people (who are ignorant of the label) rate me as very intelligent.
Not everyone requires the same kind of help.
Why can't professionals realise this?
08 May 2009, 2:44 pm
I would rather you did not do that, think long and hard. The chances are that there is something on this earth which you want to do, a reason for living.
_________________
Health is a state of physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity
I am not a jigsaw, I am a free man ! Diagnosed under the DSM5 rules with autism spectrum disorder, under DSM4 psychologist said would have been AS (299.80) but I suspect that I am somewhere between 299.80 and 299.00 (Autism) under DSM4.
08 May 2009, 5:13 pm
I was once in a program in which I would finish my bachelor's within a few months of today's time but I decided to quit after the first semester due to the fact the pay would atrocious. Now, I am currently in a program in which you can choose your hours and schedule and you have bonuses such as time and a half. Thus, I will have the potential to take home a 6 figure income. College isn't expensive if you take many courses at community college or at a local career college. Much of my classes cost a mere 60 dollars per credit hour. Of course the cost is comparatively more expensive now since I wish to have a 4 year degree. By 2 years, I will have 3 degrees, one associate's which I already have, another associate's which will get me into the career of my choice, and a bachelor's (that bridges on to the associate's) which can put me into management or supervision. Perhaps I am lucky that my parents can afford to foot the bill. If you want to save money, stay home while attending college and search for colleges that are comparatively less expensive.
08 May 2009, 5:19 pm
Those countries are socialist hellholes that encourage people to leech off of government services. No, I am not formally "diagnosed" but I do have the symptoms of AS. My problems are not in the academic arena and I am currently making a 4.0 average at my new college.
What exactly did you have trouble with?
I
Can you please stop the victim mentality?
If lived where there was more things going on, and still had this security I have at home/my family lived there/I had lived there all my life etc, I would go out and do things. However, life is pointless living out in nowhere because there are no interesting people, no openings, nothing.
If your problems are academic and not social, perhaps you don't have Asperger's.
08 May 2009, 5:40 pm
That is why I am in a group home, rather than being where I truly belong, independent in my own apartment, having real friend. Not being forced to be friends with "abusive" clients(who have classic autism) who also "tease" and/or physically attack me, especially the higher functioning autistic clients(who also have mental retardation along who have Kanner's autism, who would be considered more of classic autism, except that they talk adequately, but have all the symptoms of autism, including severe behavior disorders). This is not a group that a person with Asperger's would do well in, especially when I am so independent, that i do not need anyone to even watch me, never mind control me.
I know and a lot of other people on here also are "suffocating" because of this label. Rather than seeing Asperger's as a difference(the way it should be seen), people see it as a "retardation", like we are incompetent and/or stupid, that we "need" control. If anything, we need to be more independent, have less people in our lives. I thrive on independence, than dependence. When I was 18, I had the world. I had good grades, so the only controlling my mom did was to control my life direction, which she sucked at it. Then she got surgery and I had to be independent(and even take care of her), and I did well that I thrived as a person. Unfortunately, I also at the time was seeing a therapist that used my label to convince my mom that I needed a group home.
When I went into the group home, not only did I lose my self-confidence and self-esteem, I developed "learned helplessness" and I ended up physically sick, not to mention severely depressed and had major mood swings and my "illness' was manipulated by the group home nurse trying to say I was "crazy", so they can take more control over me. It turned out that the all of my mental health problems were caused by the situation, not an actually "illness". The situation being I was put in a "regressive" situation, where not only was my ability to thrive and grow taken away from me, but not only I was forced to "regress" and "submit" myself into a life where my life was controlled,but I was forced to lose all of my rights and abilities to make any decisions, especially decisions that I excellent at like my health. I always and still am able to make even the biggest decisions, which I do a lot better and have a much more healthier positive outcomes than "normal" people can not do. But because of the "label", I was "abused" by these "people" trying to get me to think and go along with them that I am not capable and that I need them. i fought tooth and nail and after medications, accusations of that I am defiant and crazy, my doctors realized it was the group home's fault and that I never even needed any care, never mind that strict care. I never even needed to be hospitalized for any mental issue(the hospitalizations were because I would not "submit" myself to them, so the nurse tried to convince the doctors of trying to diagnose me as "bipolar" and/or something that would "force" me to give the group home more control. So I got of the medications, got accepted into school, and I am now waiting to get into my own independent apartment without no supervision, staff, and/or help. Turned out I needed to be more independent then be in any care situation, and that I needed opportunity to grow and thrive. Basically, I was a butterfly that was held to long that needed to breathe and was not allowed and practically"died" from it.
That is how my life turned out to be, all because of a "label" that is misjudged and misunderstood by everyone around me.
This story has me boiling in rage. I cannot believe that these monsters forced you into a group home with the mentally incapacitated simply because you have a different way of viewing the world. They would rather force conformity on the populace and keep as many people they deem "disabled" forever dependent on government services. If I were you, I would file a malpractice lawsuit against your imprisoners.
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