Nervous/Sad/ Poor/Tired/Bleak

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I only today decided that I would seek out some kind of solace and comfort in the company of others with the disorder I have. Hopefully this will not fall on ears too eroded by hardship/time to appropriately find common ground with one another. I have had my fill of people telling me my problem is that I am just lazy/worthless, which perhaps I am, rather than voice some productive advice on how to improve my position in this world. If you could bear with me, I'll go ahead and explain my background so perhaps you can more accurately judge my current situation and base any advice/criticism on it.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's when I was 15. I was a perfect student until the introduction of homework. This began in depth around 7th grade. My grades fell from all A's to the point where I barely got by with a 1.87 gpa graduating from High School. School, to me, was something that was in the way of other things I wanted to do, and homework I always found to be mildly offensive, as it was taking even more time away from me after school. Basically, I hardly ever did my homework, dreaded school, would sit with anxious anticipation for teachers to call me out on my failures, shortcomings, and their predictions of my dismal future because of it.

I was always very private as a child, and spent the majority of my time by myself, up in my room or (oddly enough) in the bathroom. It was the one place where I felt that there were no windows or cracks for people to watch in on me, and I could keep the door locked and remain isolated as long as I wished. This wasn't exactly what my parents had in mind for me, and the combination of my lack of social interaction with others and my decline over the years into repeating failures created a pretty tense situation at home.

I did have friends from time to time, however usually either my parents didn't approve of them or I got into trouble and I was forced to seperate from them. I was never a violent kid or into heavy drugs, but I generally spent the majority of my teen years hanging out at the mall, smoking cigarrettes, drinking alcohol, and doing stupid little things that excited us. As for girls, I had a handful of relationships growing up, most of them ending unfavorably, one of them having completely exhausted me emotionally for years. My outlook on women has been changed significantly since this relationship, with me having been a rather naive person, and then being torn apart by a particularly cruel and self-concerned girl in my late teens.

I barely graduated (I went to a private school, and they loosely composed my transcript so that I narrowly graduated), and the following summer I spent at home, doing nothing. This was my first summer without responsibilities, and despite pressures by my parents to get a job, I spent all summer playing video games and hanging out around the house. It was at this time that I began to make a significant withdrawl from any social situations. The following year I went to college at the only university that had accepted me, and things went moderately well. I made a number of A's, yet many class withdrawls (official and unofficial), as well as a handful of D's and F's. I had a genuinely psychotic roommate, who I had to request a seperate room from because I thought he might kill me. The only people I talked to were from a University file-sharing community or people I knew from highschool. I seldom left my dorm room, normally only to wander/explore the city or go eat somewhere if I did. Unlike the commercials & shows tell you it's going to be, I made no lasting friends and never had any "wild crazy" college years where I partied till the sun came up. My experience was dismal and uneventful. After two years of continuously changing majors and dropping/failing classes, I decided to try something different.

When I'm around people I don't know, I get very anxious/nervous. I generally try to avoid eye contact with people and say as little as I can when I have to speak. And so at this point, I decided to enroll in a private information technology course. My previously accumulated knowledge in the area allowed me to progress easily through the first half of the course, however soon enough I began to not attend class and I eventually ended up not graduating it. As of right now I am a few months past this and I have no job and no leads to get a job.

Generally, I play video games and watch movies/porn and listen to music all day. Occasionally I take a drive to somewhere I don't know, some city or place, and go explore. I have a girlfriend that I'm not physically attracted to, but I greatly appreciate how kind and generous she is with me. No places of employment will give me a chance due to not working for so long and having a bad work history. I usually ended up walking out or calling to quit jobs in my past. I am currently paying off bills by credit cards and paying off credit cards with other credit cards. I have no source of financial income and cannot find a decent job that I wouldn't absolutely hate. I'm no longer in contact with any of my friends from high school, and haven't made any new ones since I left home. My roommate despises me for one reason or another, most likely that kind of envy/pity/spite people feel when they see someone being worthless. It's hard to describe, but it seems people despise others when they are lazy, even if it doesn't directly affect them.

As of right now, I am running out of options. I have a horrible job history, no job skills, no (productive) interests, no money, few friends, no connections and the bills & pressures are stepping up. The prospect of returning to a crap job where you desire a quick death at the end of every day doesn't appeal to me. I always feel exhausted/tired, worn out, and lethargic. It's rare that my few interests coincide with others or I get along with most people. In fact, most people that even share common interests with me still find me unpleasant. I've always been deeply entrenched in the pursuit of truth and purpose in this world, and the longer I live, the less I know is for certain. Nihilism seems to be the stopping point for any logical explaination of anything. This belief (or lack of belief) system makes for a pretty dismal outlook on life.

I decided today to look up asperger's forums to see if anyone is/was in a similar situation as myself, and how they are coping with it. I guess I'm not really looking for answers, but more solace and comfort. I'm not really certain at this point if there is any real purpose in continuing to exist, as I produce nothing of value to anyone and seem completely detatched from the world everyone else is living in. I guess I'm just looking for a beacon of light and someone to relate to. I've been in kind of a rut for a month/year/decade and I'd like to maybe find someone to be on common ground with. It doesn't matter if they're a guy or girl, or where they're from, I just want to find a similar soul out there to maybe share thoughts and help each other find our way through this life.

I apologize for making this so long. Please feel free to message or e-mail if you feel you're maybe likeminded. Anyways, I'll be around, glad I found you all.

Take care

You talked to me a little earlier over AIM, so I already had a small idea of just how similar your situation is to mine. But yeah, I'm basically stuck in the same rut - lack of motivation for what I'm doing and lack of organisation, with no social skills to help me. You're obviously an intelligent person (your pre-homework grades prove it), just it's difficult to prove it when people force things like homework on you.

However, I've recently discovered that a lot of courses offer an exam-only option. For my Literature course I'm now allowed to ditch the coursework and take another exam instead - I only found this out about a week ago. You should be in a good job, so maybe it's time to go back to college or wherever and try to get some improved grades with examination-only courses? The problem, of course, is motivation. You need to actually go and do it, other than just thinking about it. I know how hard this is, the only reason I've been able to join the college I'm in at the moment is because my mother did all the work to get me in.

I know it's tough, but you need to be doing something, working towards a sustainable life for yourself. Even if it's just working in a crappy job to pay off debts, or having some course to earn you qualifications. What is your life goal? What job would you enjoy doing? It doesn't matter if it doesn't pay well, I find that if you can do something that you're obsessed with all day, it doesn't matter. You need to try and do something day-by-day to work towards that goal.