MarcDC

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Hello there,
I'm Marc, 48 years old, live in Belgium.
My mother tongue is Dutch, but my French and English are also rather good.
I'm married, have a loving and understanding wife. Also two children, a girl of 19 and a boy of 16.

I have special interest in mechanical watches. I guess it's the idea that they look like miniature solar systems.

My diagnosis was only 3 years ago.
I like to say, it was like Darwin's theory of evolution... everything makes sense, but god (hope) died...

On the flip side, I shouldn't be complaining, I have a good job, rather comfortable life, and enough things to keep busy.

Welcome aboard.
How do you feel about transmissions that use planetary gears?

Welcome to WP. Wishing you a lengthy and enjoyable stay!

Welcome to WP!

I was diagnosed in 2019, at the age of 64. I agree the diagnosis explained so much! I disagree about hope dying, though, I was the same person before and after the diagnosis, except I finally had the explanation of why people always seemed a little strange to me.

I'm very interested in hybrid drive technology like Toyota introduced it in the Prius.
Automatic gearboxes in cars also use them, but there I prefer a manual gearbox, cheaper and more reliable.

Well met. I would answer your question in a sarcastic way: I could imagine a life without them, but they are fun.
My favourite mechanical device is a mechanical watch, I also love the mechanics of a car, the differential for instance.
I actually did my thesis on CVT-technology, I think Mazda used these transmissions,

I mean that autism doesn't have a cure as such. I take anti-depressants, low dose of escitalopram (not sure if that's the same name where you live)... but until the diagnosis I still assumed some energy eating disease like Lyme or remnants of mononucleoses,... I got so used to hearing from the doctor: no problem, just take this pill for two weeks and you'll be fine... I did come to terms with the diagnosis, but I still think it's somehow strange to have it.

If you've met one Autistic, you've met one Autistic.

Personally, I would decline a "cure". My autism is mild and has partly been a disadvantage and partly an advantage. I just think of it as something that makes me different.

The only real downside is rather low energylevels. I have a good job, pays rather well, my own car, house, nice wife, two good children (nice left them about 3 years ago, 19 and 16), a rather pleasant just big enough garden. I've been places and can afford to go to good restaurants often enough... I think my autism makes me an excellent programmer and accountant, and in the field of IT and accounting for banks the pay is good and the required effort is rather low. If they would offer me a cure, I might even put it off until my pension. I guess calling it a 'cure' means looking at the diagnosis like a disease. Sorry about that.

Hello.

I was unhappy with my jobs most of my working life. 1985-1992 was nice, I was a DBA and I enjoyed that, but other than that I was never very happy working from 1982-2011. I wonder if it was the Autism that gave me the stubbornness to keep at it.

Keeping at it worked out well. I retired in 2011 at the age of 56. Thanks to having stuck with it I am financially OK and feeling much happier.

Something I started doing after I retired was taking a walk most mornings. That improved my mood and my posture. And I really like having few schedule obligations.

I do have an alarm clock--I use it with my pills (I'm old). I take all of my pills in the morning when I am still following a routine (I'm an Aspie). If the pills are sitting in front of the alarm clock I didn't take them, yet; when I take them I set the pill bottles behind the alarm clock. For my purposes, the alarm clock does not have to show the correct time or ever make a noise.

Retirement is nice. Stick to it. Get to it. Enjoy it!

P.S. I worked in IT, when I worked. From 1992 until 2011 I was in computer security--unless you really, really want to do computer security I recommend avoiding it--I did not like it.

I think a few companies use them, Honda and Subaru as well.

Thanks, I am an agricultural engineer. Passed all exams 5 years in a row first time right. But didn't find a job, so became a programmer, 1997, the Euro, then the Y2K... I always had a knack for programming, but I'm also clever enough to think bottom up from what a line of code can do to who will use a GUI to move a certain proces along. I worked always in accounting software for banks... that pays handsomely. I also enjoy my job. Now I'm a business analist and I do project lead of the things I analyse. I have a reputation for 'getting thing done'...

For my pension, I hope I'll have the energy to move to a place called La Roche in the French part of Belgium. There we go regularly, my wife enjoys a small shop there where they sell semi precious stones and the likes, bit hippy... the retirement home has a view on an old castle, it's 300 meters away from a place that has a nice terrace by the river, with decent cappucino... and across the bridge is a wonderful butcher shop with a guy that still knows the art. It would be a sweet kind of purgatory to come home with a load of sausages and smoked ham and then hear a nurse say: mister DC, you know that stuff is bad for you... right sweety, I'll probably die young... (that would be my little joke) I would also complain a thousand times per day when they will finally renovate that old ruin of a castle on top of the hill... (that would be alittle joke, because it's kind of supposed to be a ruin...). On top of that, this city also has some WWII tanks on display... talking about a sweet place to spend my final hours...

Besides persevering at work, another thing that helped me on the retirement decision was having kept good financial records. It helped me assess how much money I would need--based upon how much I'd actually used in the past--and helped me build a humongous Microsoft Excel spreadsheet to project things into the future.

Autism is likely at least partly responsible for me having kept those records. Autism probably helped me build that humongous spreadsheet. And Autism almost certainly helps keep my cost-of-living down (my interests are not expensive and I'm not, by nature, a tourist).

I'm 48 now and in October my house is fully paid for. The financial aspect is one worry I don't really have. Today I spent the entire day just sitting here, filled the dishwasher twice, and that's it, kept busy a bit on a Dutch forum. Recovering from the workweek, I guess. I read about a guy who was so used to the structure from every day going to work that retirement really got him to commit suicide. I think it's a wise thing to start already planning this issue. We all have to die, but the time until then we'd rather spend in a bit of comfort. and the time after that is eternity anyway, no need to make that any longer. I'm cynical about this, my father committed suicide when he was 42. I was 9 then. Not funny, gives a bad example. The husband of my mother's sister also, and her son... makes me wonder about the nature of my mother's genes.

Also, I see you live in the USA. Here in Belgium things are a bit more state-oriented, we usually don't retire before the age of 60, most people retire at 65, taxes are high, and things like retirement homes and hospitals and daycare for children are sponsored by the state from tax money... that makes greater equality, but also that everybody works about the same number of years. Flip side seems to be (so they tell us) that here crime rates are rather low. I think every person that gets murdered in Belgium is actually mentioned on the national news, I guess in the USA that would be impossible. Correct me if I'm wrong. First hand experience is always more interesting.

Paying off the house was a good move. I bought mine in 1986 (I'm OLD!) with a 30-year mortgage--which I finished paying off in 1998. Since then no mortgage payments and no rent.

And is everyone murdered in the U.S. mentioned on the national news? Only if they are famous or there was something very unusual about the murder.

In the major U.S. cities the morning news doesn't even mention everyone who has been murdered in that city...usually they just give an incident count and a body count--and then move quickly on to sports. However, people who are well known in the city would get mentioned and unusual murders would get more detail, for instance if it was part of a robbery or an innocent bystander...or, these days, if the police were involved.

We have this idea in Belgium that the socialist nature of society, everybody chips in and if you're having a good job you basically live a bit better, but not 4 or 5 times better. I'm 48, so still a while to go in the working environment.
The past year was all telework.