Do you feel guilty for the way you are?

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I just feel misunderstood.

That's one of the reasons I eventually started on meds. Earplugs and earphones just don't cut it for me when faced with a barrage of noises (even noise-cancelling ones). As for the OP, sometimes I feel ashamed to be autistic. It's like one part of me wants to socialize and be in a relationship, but another part of me doesn't feel for others.

If you care hat you don't care, then you actually do care, and it's not like anyone really cares anyway.

"Out of sight, out of mind" is definitely true for me, although I wouldn't say it's necessarily because of disinterest. I simply forget that they exist when they are not around, including people close to me. It has certainly caused some problems, and I've occasionally felt bad about it, but as soon as I get engaged in whatever I do, I forget about that too.

I feel guilty sometimes and I don´t like the way I am. I can definitely relate to the person who started this topic.
I make appointments with people only to cancel them a few hours, a day or several days later which makes people feel angry and disappointed.

According to the experts people with aspergers have the same need for social contacts as NT´s but experience trouble when it comes to obtaining these contacts and maintaining them in an apropriate manner. My desire for social contacts and relationships has always been low and there are periods in my life that my need for contact is below zero. Most people don´t get that at all. It seems to be very important to them to have friends or to be in a relationship. Most people can´t manage to live without that. I can genuinely say that I´m not like that at all. Social contacts wear me out and I don´t enjoy them very much to be honest. I´m happiest when I´m on my one or with the two or three people that I have known for years. I can´t give people what they want and I don´t understand their needs because of the fact that those needs are unknown territory for me.

That means I have hurt a lot of people in my life without realizing it and I consider that to be a serious downside of my aspergers. Maybe there are variations in the severity of aspergers, I don´t know. The people who had to diagnose me had no trouble at all to come to the conclusion that I have Aspergers because it´s so clear in my case. I don´t have a few aspergers traits, I seem to have and always had, all the asperger symptoms one can think of and that is as difficult for the people in my direct environment as it is for me and I regret that.

Last edited by pokerface on 14 Feb 2012, 8:48 pm, edited 5 times in total.

All my life...

Quite the opposite. My diagnosis was the most empowering thing that's ever happened to me.

"Of crucial consequence is what un-, under-, and misdiagnosis in women mean in the lives of women who are AS and don't know it. One meaning is that they have no way of explaining themselves to themselves, thus no access to the support and positive sense of self they need. And, perhaps more important, more difficult, and more destructive than that, they accept the default explanations for the string of problems, setbacks, and oddities in their experiences and behavior: character weakness, resulting in a vague yet profoundly affecting belief in their own worthlessness."
-- Jean Kearns Miller, "Under-diagnosis in Women", Women From Another Planet?

The only thing I feel guilty of right now is stupidity for thinking that I could make a difference.

Oh so true. I could deal with having few friends, being considered weird, feeling isolated (although that hurt is so deep that I usually just repress it), and being emotionally immature. It's all the other things that come with being an Aspie that I really hate. I hate that "out of sight, out of mind" applies to everything for me. That I'll put off important tasks I don't like until I do forget about them. That if I decide to skip doing a chore I dislike in my normal routine even once (which is easy if I get absorbed in something I do like), I'll skip it every time after that. That I need someone to constantly nag me so I don't put off/skip things. That I'd be so terrified of getting in trouble, that I'd lie about what I did (which always got me into more trouble, and often made things worse). That I'll do something wrong/hurt someone, it'll be explained to me what/why I did wrong/hurtful, I'll feel absolutely terrible and promise never to make the same error again, and then a week later make the exact same mistake again. I always seemed to only care about myself, and I felt like a horribly selfish person. The worst part of it all was that I wanted to change, but no matter how hard I tried, I never could.

And some days, I realize that I hate social events and meeting new people. But I don't want to wind up an old spinster. I'm secretly a hopeless romantic, but I realize that it's very unlikely that I'll ever meet someone who I'll love and will return the feeling; especially since I don't put myself in situations where I'd meet such a person. Then I consider that if I were to meet someone, they'd have to spend their life taking care of me and putting up with all the baggage that comes with having AS. I can't help but feel that I'd be a horrible burden on them, and I don't see how I could inflict myself on someone I truly loved.

I used to get such horrible bouts of depression/feelings of self hatred at least once a week. The standard, "Think of people who have it worse than you," didn't change the fact that I disliked myself and just made me feel even more pathetic and worthless. I got diagnosed and started taking adderall in my first year of high school, and many of my more significant problems have become more manageable. I still need to be nagged all the time, but I didn't/don't seem to get in as much trouble at school. Ultimately, being diagnosed made me realize that I'd never be normal no matter how hard I tried. So, I lowered my standards. I accepted the fact that I was always going to make mistakes and not learn from them, and that I'd never be the person that I wanted to be.

The only problem is that I still have a low sense of self worth. It's just that I can usually ignore it and just go about my life normally. But when I do compare myself to other people/really think about myself I go into another bout of depression, it just happens much less frequently than it did before.

tl;dr; Yes I do

Why should I feel guilty about something that isn't even my fault in the first place?

You do make a difference; it's maybe not the difference you were originally hoping to make, but it's still a difference. I can't speak for anyone else, but your comments almost always make me stop and think for a moment. I appreciate your participation on these forums.

I'm curious: What kind of difference were you originally hoping for?

Never begin a counter-argument with an invalid assertion.

Yes, because it seems like all I do is cause problems for myself and annoy/disturb/bother/irritate/frustrate everyone else. So what's not to feel guilty about.

I feel ashamed and embarrassed of who I am, more than guilty as such.

This aswell. I can sit here now and say I will never have another outburst again or I will never be difficult to live with again and I will respect other people's rights, but a time comes where I'm having a bad day and things happen that frustrate or worry me, I can't always help blowing up because it's just the way I am.

But I got a lecture from my social worker saying ''you must consider other people's feelings....'' and all of that bollocks. That makes me feel like I'm some sort of crazy freak.

Ah, touché. Although, I think my ultimate fault was in attempting to make a counter-argument at all, when what perhaps I should have addressed was my general unease with your statement as a whole. I'm not quite parsing it to my own satisfaction.

You strike me as someone who believes he is making a difference, and that assumption is not meshing very well with your statement. Is my base assumption incorrect?

Usually I spend more time concerning myself with other peoples feelings than my own......I am constantly worrying about everyone else and neglecting even my basic needs at some points. I mean half the reason I feel so insecure, guilty and bad about myself is because of me worrying about what other people must think. I really wish I wasn't so pre-occupied with that especially when I can't seem to make anyone else happy anyways. I mean its great when I make an effort to try to come of as the decent person I try to convince myself that I am only to have people accuse me of causing problems to get attention or for my own entertainment..........even though I see nothing entertaining about drama.