Aspies in midlife crisis, how do you deal with it?

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I'm going to be 50 on Monday. I've been trying to live and fit into the NT world all my life, and am failing miserably. I feel like my soul has been rubbed raw. But I remember reading Steven Silverberg's "Wired" article back in '01, and thinking, 'this is me'. Further research has confirmed my hunch. I've definitely got Aspergian aspirations.

Of course, being an adult, and wanting to keep my health insurance, I decided that getting a formal diagnosis of Aspergers would be counter-productive. I've noted that once you air any sort of 'disability', people start treating you like delicate china, or worse, a not-bright child.

But today I had a 'talk' with my sister, who does not know that I'm an Aspie. She grated me about my stand-offishness, my dislike of touch, my shortness with her boyfriend (I am very uncomfortable with men I do not know well), and told me that she told him that I was 'strange' after he told her how rude I was to him. I did not need to hear that. I know I am 'strange'. And brilliant, eccentric, funny, odd, snarky, etc. My real friends call me 'strange'- and it's a compliment. From an NT- including a sibling- it's a profound and hurtful insult.

I've been battling depression off and on for months, and drugs do not help. And I'm going to be seeing the VA about getting some disability compensation. It took me 15 years to work up the courage to do it.

I'm an emotional wreck, but my Inner Spock is calm, logical, and whispering "You'll get through this."

This is an awful introduction, and I apologize. But there has to be a way to be 'in' the NT world, but not permit their often ham-handed attempts to 'help' and 'understand' scrape away every last bit of coping armor I/we have. Mine is worn thin. I want to re-make it.

I'm relatively healthy physically- although I have been suffering from a lot of stress of late. I feel that I have many years ahead of me. I want to make them MY years, not someone elses' idea of what I should be. I want to reclaim my true self.

Can that be done?

I get out my old British Invasion CDs and listen to them.

I'm pretty depressed myself so my advice may be a bit hollow... But I think you have to focus on the things you enjoy and go out and do them. For instance, I enjoy crochet and I'm good at it since I've been crocheting since I was 8. I've been making little crochet animals and dolls that I make up as I go along. That may sound rather lame but it makes me a little happy. (I recently sold one too!) I also bought some oil paints (I went to art school and I actually know how to paint, though I haven't kept up with it so I'm no Picasso) but I haven't broken them out yet. Still, they're something to look forward to. I find it's important to create things to look forward to, even small things like posting on the forum and looking forward to the responses and the insights that other people will contribute to a thread.

And I concur with Cockney Rebel that you should listen to music that makes you want to sing along.

But in spite of this cheer-fest that I had no idea I had in me... I do relate to most of the posts in this thread.

I am 42. I guess I have never had a mid-life crises at all. Such behavior would be out of character for me. I have been in really the same mental state all my adult life. Pedantic, obsessive, slightly depressed, self-sufficient and alone. I have little to guage my life in reference to my past, since I have not had the typical experiences most N/T adults have had. (i.e. getting a job, getting married, starting a family, etc.). The only thing I regret is finding out I had AS a year ago. If I had known earlier, it would have helped me overcome some frustration and confusions about my unusual life experience. I do feel physically older now, and am not as spry as I was when I was younger, but that is an unfortunate part of getting older. Other than that, I am the same as I always was.

I am having a hard time lately, with this aging thing. Having been diagnosed with ME/CFIDS in 1995, and AS in 2007, I am feeling cheated. I don't like this aging process. It felt like my life was put on hold, in 2001. That was when I had to go on disability. I kept thinking that if I took a few years off from work, I would heal and then resume my life. Never happened. Now, on top of the symptoms of the CFIDS, I have the aging stuff to deal with; stiffness, arthritis, menopause, etc.

My whole life has been a crisis so it would be hard to make a distinction.

Things take a lot longer to heal. I tore an adductor muscle going over a cliff face and the injury has lingered to the point where I am becoming annoyed at my imperfection.

I don't think I ever grew up, nor had the normal life events that most people have to mark the passage of time. I still feel youthful, even though I am far from it now. I worry that not having a great career to rely upon, or my own family to care about is going to lead to a painful desmise at some point in the future, but I can't quite twist my mind around the thought of it to care enough to alter that outcome. I would rather fight until I can't fight anymore then succumb to whatever peril. I suppose I have had plenty of opportunities to change that mindset, but I find myself stangely detached from my own well being. It is all the cycle of life and few people are worth remembering anyhow, so why concern myself with the inevitable.

I reach for my midlife crisis gun.