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Hello my fellow peers neurodivergent or not,

I'm a late diagnosed 50 year old single dad.
Driving my 2 cylinder body through life, cylinder A is named "monotropic" and cylinder B, "alexithymia".

My goal here: sufficed to say that I'm looking for a peer group, but am still unsure that I deserve such a gift.

For those not interested in my infodump below, please feel free to stop reading here and I'll leave you with a fun, quirky question;
I often find myself struggling to get limbic-ally aligned, but as to not keep my conversational partners waiting, I engage something I call my "LLM"-mode. a kind of predictive non-conscient, prefrontal cortex based set of algorithms that, similar to google and Alexa, can respond to most queries or even keep a conversation going.
-> The question: sound familiar to anyone else here?

who am me, why here am?
As stated I'm a single dad, who tries his best to stay within the rational part of his 'id' as my emotional side feels so distant or muted that I have pre diagnosis come to view myself as a failed experiment who does not deserve to be.
To the point that this sentiment might as well have been tattooed onto my eyelids as it is pervasive even now, a full crash and burn and slow recovery later. I doubt seriously that I have something to add in the life of my neurotypical children, excuse me young adults and actively try and exclude myself from their life...
I have never told anyone this as even touching this subject remotely instantiates such waves of towering emotional righteousness with even ASD peers that I have learned to ...
I was hoping very tentatively, to perhaps take this anonymous first step into the online ASD community. Mostly to verify the communality of this rather destructive mode of being, and perhaps learn from others...

Kind regards,
Kada

Welcome to WP! I hope you find it pleasant.

Hi Kada, and welcome to the planet

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome to Wrong Planet Kada ..glad you found this place.

Hi! I'm a dad too, though not single. Hope your kids are doing well!

Keep developing your executable, keep installing more RAM. It's all doable.

Thank you all for your welcome, my dear veteran's of the wrong planet

and @Sugamon ; maestro, thank you. My kids are doing all but my daughter have now reached the "adult" level and are socially active, healthy and have amazing hearts. (perhaps a parental evaluation is not always the most unbiased, but ) and ps: My "executable" has run into many issues vis-a-vis the "doable" attribute, as such I'm trying to install the "wisdom" module to help differentiate.

Kadanuumuu

I'm sure you've got more wisdom than me on many points... You're older than me and got your kids past way more stages than me so far.

I've never been to Belgium sadly ... Isn't the beer said to be particularly tasty?

@Sugamon
Thank you for the feedback maestro.
to be older to have faced more challenges, just mean that I know not to walk into the doors when they are closed, I'm still as are we all at a loss on where they'll appear.

and yes the beer is not only said to be great, it is (miniature proud smile)

kadanuumuu, Welcome to Wrong Planet.

You seem to be a little bit depressed at the moment. But perhaps you are on a journey to better understand yourself. Not everything is negative. We generally have certain skills that other people do not possess. Have you figured out your good and unique skills yet. They may be remarkable.

About our condition. It generally runs through the family. Your children may have the same traits. But it is portrayed differently between males and females. Females tend to try and fit into society better. They blend in.

@jimmy m
Maestro Jimmy,

Many thanks for your warm welcome.

Firstly my apologies for a negatively themed first post
I am on the upward path from a recent burnout and as such do not yet (again) stand fully within our lived reality.
excuse my cryptic way of wording this; I mean to indicate that when on the 'boat' of life you take the waves as they come, but 'tis only when distanced from the lived reality of 'steering your boat' that questions along the lines of 'what am I doing here on this patch of water in the middle of nowhere' take center stage.

Hope our boats cross paths again some time

ps: I have figured out my skills but am also keenly aware of the deficiencies I have especially in regards to my neurotypical peers.

perhaps .... there is a saying ,not sure if it helps, but if your exe. is running into problems , a reboot , with a new
line of code inserted " As a parent having lived in their past , you may not be allowed to visit your childs future program, not even for a visit". EOM

So let's talk about burn out. I do not experience burnout. Why is that? Well in part it is because I know how to treat it (or at least I think I know how to treat it). It requires two things.

1. Adequate exercise.
Generally, I walk a mile each day. But I walk up a steep hill, up and down, up and down, etc. It takes me about an hour to do but all I have to do is step out my home, and my driveway is a steep hill.
But sometimes I go to town and swim a mile. I am 76 years old and I can still swim a mile. It takes me about 2 hours. I use professional flippers and swim on my back. But it is a good workout and with flippers I can swim almost as fast as professional athletes.

2. Sleep.
Sleep is very important. But not just any sleep. One needs deep sleep. This is REM and deep NREM sleep. Most adults get 2 hours of combined deep sleep each night. But as we get older, it can be much more difficult to achieve this deep form of sleep. I have slept on a heated waterbed for 50 years and it definitely helps. Also the inside of my bedroom is very quiet and dark. It is a beautiful sleep environment.

@Jimmy m

Maestro Jimmy,

Thank you for your compassionate and caring feedback, thank you.
And I can confirm your advice full hearted;
If you'll allow me to restate in the words of a friend of mine who has been practicing clinical psychology for 25 years:
"Most people come to me, stating that there is something amiss with their minds/patterns of thought as they are in full depression or burnout. 30minutes of questions on their living conditions later, I can for 90% of them simply state the truth, that there is nothing wrong with their minds but there is with their basic living conditions: food, sleep and or exercise."

Even our classical ancestors in Italy and Greece knew as much "mens sana in corpero sana"
I myself walk to work and back (10k) each day and try and keep up with my 2 sons in our local fitness.

As far as sleep is concerned I completely follow your take on getting older. I work in a sector where a call late at night is more the norm than the exception. And in getting older I noticed my resilience for these interventions is dwindling

My burnout/in, however it's called nowadays, comes in cycles. I know why they arrive, but sometimes "Vesuvius erupts" and no amount of selfcare can preempt this. We're faced with the inevitable and just have to get through it, cfr. my post on discipline.

Again very nice meeting you Jimmy and keep taking care of yourself as only by doing so, we remain available for our loved ones and ourselves.

Kind regards,
Kada

welcome to wrongplanet fella

Thought is was cute that you referenced a Large Language model as your goto for various conversation interactions .
Its sounds very pragmatic as a fall back model for your interpersonal interactions with others. Am hoping your interaction circumstances do not get you down? if not too late for that suggestion. And the healthy reccomendations mentioned above will give you good results .
quote from some book as follows:
Of all the virtues that can be bestowed upon man .
Faith.
Hope.
and Charity .
The Greatest of these is Hope.