Lost Generation?

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1. 49, 1961

2. I was an outstanding student in High School and undergraduate work, but was constantly picked on in school, and had very few friends and little social life. University was better, and I had a nice social group, but no female friends. During graduate school, I came down with severe depression, and had to drop out. Since then I worked on numerous psychological issues related to depression, social anxiety, PTSD. Showed slow but steady improvement, with occasional setbacks, and occasional periods of severe depression.

3. I encountered the term "Asperger's Syndrome." It made sense and explained a lot of things, but didn't really affect what I was doing. Dealing with depression was my most pressing issue. Now that the depression is (mostly) under control, I'm trying to go back and deal with things that I neglected. I feel that my second visit to the world of Asperger's syndrome is a lot more productive than my earlier visit.

1. Born 1968, self-ID'ed/self-dx'ed about 2000, I guess. (First became aware of autistic people's online communications in 1994.)

2. When I was in my teens interacting with people was very overwhelming (wasn't as oblivious as when I was younger), such that even interacting with store clerks or librarians was a big problem. Lots of social rejection, trouble with interviews (never passed one), trouble interacting with pretty much all humans, such that doing so basically never worked out to be a positive experience. As far friends, lovers, etc. -- zippola. Not knowing why that was happening lead to the conclusion that my soul was horribly defective or something. And that led to depression, which made everything much worse.

At about 19 I made a big push towards 'normality.' A lot of it was trying to understand speech & generate verbal responses faster, eye contact, supressing stims and so forth. It was very stressful, and I didn't allow myself a break (even in private) for almost 10 years.

About one year into that I started having some strange cognitive and physical health problems. By 25 I'd lost a lot of cognitive ability (i.e. couldn't comprehend the newspaper), and would get near passing out when on my feet for more than 30 minutes. After 5 more years of that my ability to work tanked and I ended up on SSDI+SSI. Offical reasons: "cognitive disorder NOS" and "neurocardiogenic syncope." My view: "autistic burnout."

I lost a lot the skills I'd sent my life up to that point developing, and a bit of more basic things like reading & writing. So, that was the end of grad school, hopes for a career, and having a family, and such. But I've made my peace with most of that.

3. After 15 years of knowing about this stuff, it's been good/critical information to know. I'd likely have off'ed myself by now if I hadn't heard of it.

OTOH, it doesn't change some things at all. The world is still the world as much as it ever was. I still have the same health problems. And the increased social functioning I have (not that it's great) I figured out on my own before I'd ever heard of ASC's.

I still have people walk away because I don't understand them quickly enough or give a confusing response. Still (actually more so) get overloaded in crowded places, can't understand speech when it's noisy (or sometimes even when it isn't), find eye contact and touch deeply invasive, and so on. The difference now is, if people can't handle that, then I consider it their problem.

So, in terms of how I feel: better. In terms of changing the reality of what I have to deal with: not so much.

As far as lamenting the past, that's one of those thoughts I try to throw in the trash as quickly as possible. It's very clear at this point that the "standard model" of life is not what I'm going to be living. If I spend time lamenting that, 1) it will make me feel like crap, and 2) I can't do anything about the past, anyway. It's a less than useless thought.

Yes, I think this is a real physiological phenomenon that can happen at almost any age depending on the person and the environmental circumstances. I'm sorry it happened to you at 25. I went there at 21 and found my way out. So many times in my life I felt like I was on the edge of going there again. I started to think I was bullet proof, but got humbled again, later in life.

[quote="Another Alien"]1 - When were you born, and how old were you when you were diagnosed?
2 - How did Aspergers affect you before you were diagnosed?
3 - Most importantly, how are you post-diagnosis? Has your condition improved, and how are you dealing with what happened to you?


let's just say i'm sufficiently ancient to have watched TOS on its original run on NBC thursday nights. before i was diagnosed i always knew there was something major wrong with me, and so did everybody else i knew. when i was an elementary school student, i remember peeking at the school shrink's notes, and i remember seeing the words "schizotypal" ["schizoid" with a different school shrink, i always peeked at their notes when they turned their backs or left the room for any reason] and at the time thinking, "interesting- what could that be about?" i didn't find out until recently, what those terms meant.

all my life i've stumbled from one situation to another, with no rhyme or reason obvious to me. when somebody mentions "free will" to me, it is utterly meaningless. i have always just managed to react to things, and never have been able to bend reality to my will. my only respite from this world is a vivid fantasy life, that in large part keeps me semi-sane enough to function. that, and lots of porn. i am not sharp enough to be a [video] gamer or any kind of game player. anything that requires assimilating and understanding arbitrary rules is beyond my ken. social rules are included in that category. i never "got" people and they never "got" me.

through the years i was in the shrink's office more often than not, at least 5 different shrinks over 40 years, and in retrospect i believe they were similar to economists in that if you lined them up they would still point in all directions. aside from the school shrinks, some said "dysthymia" - some others said "ADHD [inattentive type], and the last one, early in the last decade, said simply, "asperger's syndrome." it was only the first and the last ones that really spoke to me in terms of letting me know where i stood in relation to the bulk of society. it was only in the last few years that i had enough presense of mind to comprehend any of that psychiatric mumbo-jumbo, and to come to terms with the fact that knowing is not the same as understanding. knowing about asperger's syndrome [and schizoid/schizotypal/schizoaffective personality disorder] gives me at most, a sense of perspective when i feel the world closing in on me. it doesn't prevent the world from closing in, it just gives me a bit of cold comfort at those times, that i know the how at least, if not the why of things. so, i can only say that i haven't really improved in any measurable sense, but i've learned work-arounds/short cuts for the most critical/unavoidable life tasks. for everything else, i remain a hermit in my tin can out in the woods- alone but not lonely.

Yes, I think this is a real physiological phenomenon that can happen at almost any age depending on the person and the environmental circumstances. I'm sorry it happened to you at 25.

Possibly, one of the worse risks of having Autism. It seems like this kind of thing merits research to find effective ways to at least reduce the potential for this.

I think my period was 1990-2003. I had an abusive relationship until 1995, three day jobs in that time, was constantly looking for work (and not getting it), which meant tons of interviews, a very active social life (focused on one of my interests), trying very hard to fit in, pushing my ability to manage multiple tasks with a writing career, three attempts at college, and it all started falling apart from 2001-2003. During that time I had periods with intense panic attacks, anxiety, insomnia, my depression seriously kicked in, and then with 2001, I had a severely bad traumatic reaction to something that was not and should not have been traumatic, but was tied directly into all the ways I was pushing myself (and they were already falling apart). This ended when I could no longer write a month or so later. I dropped out of my fourth attempt at college a year later because I hit a point where I could no longer cope with the classes - I went from straight As to simply not understanding the material, material I had in fact studied in the past. And then I had another series of nonstop panic attacks for a month, that I was only able to control with clonazepam.

Then in 2003, I overcommitted again and hit a wall the third time. Each time, my social life contracted more and more. My ability to write contracted more and more. And I ended up spending a full year from 2004 to 2005 almost completely socially isolated. Since then, I've been mostly isolated with only hints of a social life this past year.

I noticed while this was all going on that everything was falling apart and I had no idea why or why things I could handle before became much more difficult. I sort of explored it tentatively several times, and Asperger's Syndrome came up in 2003 and 2007. In 2003, I didn't think I was at all (I don't remember why) and 2007 I realized I was and then went into a degree of denial (but anyone who talked to me about autism could tell I felt like I had a personal stake in the subject).

I am still not 100% sure this was burnout, but at the time I definitely felt burnt out, and I have since felt less capable, and this has been noticed by other people.

I think my writing style - if not consistency - and self-awareness improved a lot, however.

Oh, and I totally agree:



I came to the same conclusion when ADHD came up. I had already been through worrying about all the "What ifs?" when I hit my first realization about AS. I realized if it's true, it's true, and worrying about the past will change nothing. I've been trying to continue forward ever since.

So true, I spent most of my life looking forward; when things got really bad, I started trying to hold on to the past, and found out when I did it long enough eventually the memories faded and all I had was the present.

I'll bite:

1. 1968 41
2. Confused as to why my social situation was so bad in terms of relationships, friends, etc.
3. Sort of sad and bitter, but much better off. Incredibly cynical; I wish I knew earlier. We really are the lost generation of AS.

1 - Born in Southern-Brazil. Diagnosed last year, when I was 29.
2 - It affected in every single way it does as described, I took gardenal (strong medication like prozak I guess ) for a long time of my life. One doctor back when I was 3 told my parents I had some sort of autism, but my parents didn't like the diagnosis, and didn't do much about it, so I never had an official diagnosis as a kid.
3 - As an undiagnosed kid, teenager and adult I learned to cope with many things, because quite good at social skills, made some lasting friends. By social, I mean, better than many autistic people do, for I never go out with people, specially during the night, never ever managed to go to night clubs, discos, etc. The only time I tried, I fainted because of the noise the the crowd. But, as I never had a diagnose until last year, I always thought my problems were isolated cases. So many times I brought myself to having melt-downs forcing myself to act normally.
Nowadays, with a diagnose, I have learned so much more about myself and my limits, never push myself to where I cannot stand, so in consequence, I have had much less anxiety attacks and melt-downs.

Yeah, definitely. And especially with some young kids being put into 40+ hour per week ABA programs.

Re: Lost Generation
I only discovered I had Aspergers last Xmas 2010, and was officially diagnosed in August 2011.
Born 1973, age 38. Prior to this the previous years from about 13 years old up to now got steadily worse.
I feel maybe at age 13'ish we begin to break away from our mother's apron strings for the first time and start to socialize with our peers in the first tentative steps towards independence, I don't know if others agree with this? Anyway, this was when the problems started for me. Truancy, being bullied, not fitting in, etc. at High School, missed out on relationship thing, became a 'Weirdo', i.e into Music, Artistic stuff, played in bands. Didn't fit in with artistic types either. Became a recluse, heavy drinker, unemployable, etc. Daily suicidal thoughts, cinical, etc... Life meaningless. Post Diagnosis I have been left out on a limb so far by my family, they seemingly couldn't give a monkey's, although my Dad has been ill, and hence have nihalistic attitude, emotions up and then down, in other words the help i've been promised, is much needed and overdue.

Last edited by riverso on 09 Sep 2011, 2:06 am, edited 3 times in total.

Good luck to you and I hope you get the help you needed. About the time of puberty kids start getting pretty mean to each other when the hormones start raging. A competititve time and a hard one for people that are left on the fringes.

I'm really sorry it didn't get better for you from age 13 on. It does for some, and I was one of the lucky ones there. It's not good for me either now, but I'm fairly worn out as a human being that tried extremely hard for 47 years to adapt.

Last edited by aghogday on 09 Sep 2011, 12:41 am, edited 2 times in total.

I hear ya, I guess since I was born 6 months after all the other thirty year olds, I don't count. We should start a "lost-lost generation" thread for ourselves

...

Last edited by riverso on 09 Sep 2011, 2:24 am, edited 2 times in total.

You read my mind. Just edited it
Thanks for your help.
Must watch the loose tongue.

Last edited by riverso on 09 Sep 2011, 2:22 am, edited 2 times in total.