Screaming into the void -long

Post Reply New Topic

Hello, I am not expecting anyone to read all of this and if anyone reads any at all thank you and apologies in advance both for whiney contents and sections were my sleep addled mind will probable result in incoherent sentences and poor grammar. It is currenlty 07:47 for me, I do not have a single reason to ever leave bed let alone at this early hour but i'm here whining into the digital abyss because yet another night has proven that even the release of sleep is being denied to me these days so apparently I am going to take this time to vent.

I am currently 34 years old, diagnosed with autism, specifically aspergers at the time of my diagnosis but I know here at least they just use the umbrella term now. My biggest difficulty comes from anxiety and non existent self esteem, it is not arrogance because I do not think that anyone cares about me, im just another random face on the street, but I am such a piece of s**t that so much as opening my front door induces violent to the point of bleeding vomitting because of the mere possibility that somebody might glance in my direction, which also effectively renders me a semi functioning agoraphobe.

0-7
I don't remember much of these years, a few times of my parents arguing, getting out of school early when my sister was born, but as far as i've been told I was a "normal" child

8-11
My parents got divorced and my mum moved us back to where was originally from, this happened part way through the year and close to my birthday so the school wasn't sure which year of primary school to put me into so I was bounced around between classes for the remainder of this school year.
I wasn't comfortable enough to talk to anyone in class, I spent break and dinner times standing in a corner of the playground staring at the ground, the only interaction I had was people coming over to tease the weird kid
Outside of school we lived in a relatively remote area, i made friends with 2 other kids in the estate, they were 1 and 2 years younger than my respectively and had been bullied by kids my age in the estate so they stopped playing. I could not tell you what caused me to knock on their door and ask them to come out, but I did, I stood up to the bullies for them and things were ok

12- 16
As I see it, i died when I was 12

Me and my sister were sent to visit my dad on school holidays, on one of these holidays the bullies decided with me gone it was their chance, they beat up my friends badly enough that their parents moved out of the estate that very day, their mom held me responsible for what happened so i never got to see them again

One friday after school some guys jumped me on the way home, they weren't even after me, they got the wrong guy but not knowing that at the time they kicked the s**t out of me while other people from my year and class watched. The following monday I returned to school and the people in my class who had just ignored me for the most part started to actively bully me because I had got beat up

I can't recall the reason but I had a doctors appointment one day, she noticed my low mood, started asking me about life, school, friends etc and put me on anti depressants. Another thing I cannot explain, for some reason I was only given them for 2 weeks and then the prescription was cancelled, it was never explained to me, I don't know if another doctor questioned putting a 12 year old on anti depressants or what

16-17
After the mandatory school I had no idea what I wanted to do in life, but I liked games at the time, so i did a 2 year games development course figuring at the very least it would buy me time to decide and if I decided to go to uni it would give me the UCAS points needed. It was a disaster, the "education" system in my area is an umbrella organisation "southern regional college" and I believe it is the worst "education" facility in existence. The course started out without computer access, then once they realized game design requires computers we got computers but the IT department hadn't created log in details for us, once they did the school was too cheap to buy any kind of coding,animating,modelling software so our "education" revolved around using free flash tools. i stuck with it because at this point i had a moped and a part time job in a warehouse so again, at the very least seeing the course through would buy me time and a path to uni should I choose it.
In terms of socializing, there was none, during class time we would chat now and then but that was the height of it, basically just co-worker esque small talk

18
Having finished the course I was applying for the military, again, its a thing I cant justify or remember exactly why, but maybe something about the discipline, rigidity, standards, routine appealed to me, so that was the path I chose. I had spent my time during my course training physically to be more than ready for physical entry tests, I had also been sent on a week long experience, there was a gap between intakes so to give myself and other applicants a taste of military life before next intake window we were sent to a bootcamp, we spent a week living and training as recruits. Physically it was fine, I got good reviews on that front, but communication and self loathing were not great, I could never take lead and during down time when everyone was bonding and having fun, i was again sat staring at the ground, twiddling my thumbs wishing I could be a real boy

Throughout my teens I had been trying to learn guitar, I have an uncle who is just a few years older than me. One day I went to him to ask for help because I wasn't progressing, he told me about a trip he had coming up, he was going to east europe, no plan, he had bought a plane ticket and was going to backpack around for as long as he could and he invited me to go. I had never had a holiday or any adventures of any kind and since I finished my 2 year course i agreed and 2 days later at 4 in the morning I was on a flight to mainland europe

That trip turned out to be one of my biggest regrets, because we travelled around, staying in hostels, we went to so many cool places, met so many different kinds of people, found ourselves in all kinds of venues and I wanted more than anything to have as much fun as everyone else, but I couldn't, I don't know if it's part of my autism, part of my anxiety, an unbreakable constitution or something else but no amount of alcohol or weed had any impact on me, just to cover myself here, I am not condoning or encouraging substance abuse, I am just saying in my one off adventure I went in with the mindset of saying yes to everything, to experience as much as I could, but no matter what my mind remained so painfully self conscious and uncomfortable that I could never let go. It's been 16 years since then, I can still remember some of the people we met trying to talk with me, some other backpackers inviting us to a club and asking us to dance........ I could not get out any words to say and when everyone got up to dance I sat in a booth staring at the floor and then walked back to the hostel by myself, I still have nightmares and I still kick myself about it all. Part of me wanted nothing more than to take another chance and go again, but I had no one to go with and part of me knows that the location won't fix the problem that is this truly horrific disease.

That adventure was cut short by a call from the army, they wanted me to return to start the interviews part of the application process. So i flew back, had an appointment with a recruitment officer and had my world crushed again. They told me that because I had been on anti depressants I was deemed as "PMU - permanently medically unfit", it did not matter that i had reports from the week long recruitment camp stating that they support my applicaiton that I am more than capable and will "come out of my shell" during training, it didnt matter when I got a letter from the same doctor who prescribed anti depressants acknowleding I came off them with no issue, never had any dependencies and they too support my application, none of it mattered. Without even being allowed to have a single interview or go through a single stage of physical fitness tests, i was branded with a label that prevented me from even being allowed to apply for any branch of the military.
So I ended my 18th year in this world feeling lower than I thought possible, I failed myself backpacking and was permanently banned from the military without even being allowed a chance to prove myself and I started to cut, not in some kind of cry for attention or help, it is punishment, I am an abject failure so i deserve it

19-20
I upgraded from a moped to a motorbike, so I had some mobility and could apply for jobs and was still going to the gym. I had the bike for a total of 1 month before an old man not paying attention at a rounadbout drove into the back of me, the bike was write off, the old man accepted fault at the scene but then denied it afterwards. I wasn't trying to sue him, I wasnt claiming any money for harm to me, when the accident happened i helped him change his tire so he could move his car and not block traffic, I just wanted enough money to replace my only means of transport, but the words of a soft spoken elderly man go down a lot easier than the frantic, voice cracking, dry mouthed words from a tard so i was left with nothing

I tried to learn to drive a car, I did not have any confidence to go for the test but eventually my instructor pushed me to and I failed. My instructor had told me I had a "natural talent" for it and I had no reason to doubt he was being honest because he made me a deal, I book another attempt and if I don't pass i don't have to pay the instructor the £70 fee for using his car for the test, so i tried again and failed again and again and again. Most of the times they were silly little mistakes I never made in lessons, like touching a kerb when reversing around a corner and one I was failed because the test was during rush hour and the guy handling my test didn't feel I tried "aggressively enough" to merge into the lane he asked me to get into

After constant knockbacks in a country that has never been anything but overwhelmingly negative for me I decided to try and give myself a fresh start, if I cant join the military I will be a civilian, so i applied for a university in england and got accepted. This could not have went worse. First I was roomed with 3 girls, I am not misogynistic at all, i grew up in a family as the only boy, but being a slightly older not to mention awkward guy sharing a flat with 3 18 year old girls who fully embraced the partying side of university, I was never able to connect with them, which is my failing not theirs of course, I am just painting the picture.
In my class I had not spoken to anyone, no one had spoke to me, I was doing group assignments on my own which meant I was doing more work for fewer marks since I would be missing out on marks assigned for group/team cohesion.
I had started seeing a counsellor at the time, she noticed my behaviour, lack of eye contact, sweaty palms, dry mouth, my mannerisms and the way I worded things and suggested i should contact an "autism team" which is a special team that city had which was a branch of the nhs that handled diagnosing autism, so I did. The process was very thorough, multiple people interacted with me directly and shadowed me day to day to observe how I interact with the world, they requested my mum fly over and spent a weekened asking her about my childhood behaviours and developmental milestones, then they sat us both down and told me I am less than human, that I have an incurable, untreatable, lifelong condition. I couldn't keep going with uni, like I said I was already struggling both academically and socially having to come to terms with being less than human on top of that was too much I couldn't handle all of that for another 2 and a bit years, so i dropped out and a few weeks before my 21st birthday I was back as a peniless, prospectless loser living in my mums house.

21 - 30
I was talked to about benefits and the single bigggest regret of my life is that I accepted it. Of course I was not forced into it but the premise that was sold was that it would be a "helping hand" to let me have some degree of indepedance and normalcy.

instantly this was a disaster, the british government tried to sue me, before I had even started receiving any support me and my family had to go to a "tribunal" which is basically a small claims court type set up, where my mum and I had to stand up in front of a panel of jurors and argue that autism is real while a government suit was sent to argue that autism does not constitute a dsiability and so I should get nothing and should be penalized for even applying for benefits under such context. We ultimately "won" but i often wish we hadn't

Now as for those at this point probably thinking "why is he bitching about free money?" it is not free, it costs you your life, I accepted benefits and rented a 1 bedroom flat in town on the hopes of being in a more urban area I could find work and earn enough money to stop relying on benefits, I could pay my own way, turns out that is not allowed. The british government in all it's wisdom proclaim that on benefits you can not do any form of job that requires more than 14 hours a week, you are not allowed to earn over £100 a week, you are not allowed to have any investments, stocks, you are not allowed to do any form of education or training that requires more than 14 hours a week, you are not allowed to have more than a few thousand pound in your bank at any point in time. Which i was not aware of when i accepted benefits nor was i aware how draconian they are. I applied for a part time IT course in my local college and got accepted, throughout the whole process I was in touch with the benefits body to be up front and told them the course is 16 hours a week, they kept stringing me along saying "it will probably be fine" with nobody ever willing to commit to an answer, then the day rolls round for the course to start, i am sat in class getting an induction from the teacher, surrounded by new people, I had possiblities again.........wrong, my phone rang, I had to excuse myself and I never walked back into that classroom because the call was the benefits office saying if I do the course not only will my money instantly be cut but they will be pursuing legal action to have me pay back any money I had received to date because apparently going to school part time is enough "evidence" for them to argue I am not disabled.

I will also mention here, the gym was a part of my life from the age of 16-30, I went a minimum of 5 days a week, the only exception being my attempt at backpacking. I am not saying the gym is a social hot spot, I fully appreciate people are there to work on themselves and leave, but I also feel like being a familiar face in the 2 gyms my small town has for over a decade is a failing that i wasn't able to have a single conversation with anyone

The next decade is a long s**t show, I tried anything and everything nhs, private practice, therapy, hypnotherapy, counselling, support groups, social groups, autism and mental health related charities, I did some unpaid work placements to help buff my cv, none of it matters, my cruel beyond words constitution still holds up no anti depressants no beta blockers no sleep tablets no amount of talking no amount of exposure has ever made things any easier for me. Also again, the british government deem that once you reach 30 your life is over, so a few months before my 30th I got a letter from the mental health department of my hospital "congratulating" me on all my "improvements" whilst telling me that because I am approaching 30 their "services" will no longer be available to me.
So there I was, early 30's, no money, no job, no car, no qualifications, no relationships of any kind, fewer prospects than death row inmates.



31- 34 ( today)
I found a course that is an HLA (higher level apprenticeship) course, it had one day a week of class time so was under the governments arbitrary limit and 4 days of apprenticeship work. This seemed like a last ditch effort, the b enefits office was as unhelpful as ever, I tried to ask them if it was ok for me to pursue this given the combination of school and work hours, while retaining benefits just long enough for a paycheque to come in so I can afford rent, as always they refused to commit to any kind of answer, but at this point i decided to just go for it,the money I get is less than minimum wage so landing any apprenticeship at all would still leave me financially better off once i figure out how to pay 1-2 months rent if my benefits was instantly cut, so the course seemed like a path to work and a qualification all in one.

Probably tired of hearing this now, but this too was a disaster. The course was 3 years long, over that time I applied for countless jobs and nevermind getting a job/apprenticeship role I only got 3 interviews and I don't even know what I could have done differently because when I asked those companies what I could do to improve my interview performance they refused to give answers. Throughout the course nobody, literally nobody took it seriously, because they never had to, the rest of my class were all young, early 20's, they all landed apprenticeships so they never cared about schooling, it was just a formality where neither they or the teachers were held accountable. The course was a level 5 course with modules starting at level 3, meaning the end qualificaiotn is a foundation degree ( level 5) but to progress though to that you need to successfully pass level 3,4 and 5 modules through the course, if you fail at level 3 you are not allowed to progress to level 4 until you do re-sits and pass level 3, at least that is how it is supposed to be. Instead I am genuinelly the only person in the class who got passing grades, every other person in the class failed multiple level 3 and/or 4 modules but were allowed to progress to level 5 and see the course through to graduation. During those 3 years there was one single instance where an external body came to "examine" how the course was going to determine if it was a course worth funding the school to continue, but since everyone else in the class was being allowed to skate by without putting in any effort the feedback he got was " yea its grand" and my lone voice was drowned out. If you are thinking i am lying or exagerating or wondering how the school could get away with this, easy. 1: it is the main and basically only education establishment in my country meaning they know people have no other options to use them so they are lazy and complacent. 2:they cheated, i dont know exactly how they handled the coursework side of things but with exams they outright let the rest of the class cheat. I have been sat in class where because everyone else failed the "teacher" decided to use that time period as a resit, which consisted of them putting the answer sheet on teams, telling people to download it to their phone and then letting them sit the exam with their phones in their hands.

The people in my class were the epitome of the easy living normal people that frustrates me so much. I am not trying to sound too arroggant or belittling but at the same time, I don't know how they kept their apprenticeship positions for 3 years when they consistently had failing grades, did the school liasons lie to their employer and say they were doing better than they are? were their employers so disinterested in the students whose course fees they are paying that they didn't see any results until the end of 3rd year when they had been allowed to cheat re-sits? One guy in particularly really pissed me off, I only ever had one company take me to a stage 2 interview, they hired a guy in my class over me and by his own admission he did nothing, he rarely showed up to school, including missing exams and presentation deadlines, when he did show up, he turned in 3 hours late in pyjamas with beer in hand and spent the day yawning and bragging to his friends about how he hasn't turned in to work in months, he just logs in to teams, tells his boss he is "working from home" and then sits on COD all day. Even if that is an exagerrated and he's playing it up for his mates, he is still failing school, he is still late and he does stay up all night drinking and gaming, so a company hiring him over me, ok fair enough, he's young whereas I am old and have a blank cv I can understand that choice, but keeping him on their payroll for 3 years and paying thousands upon thousands to cover the fees of a course that he failed and had about 5% attendance? how? why!?

this would be another really long section that to be honest i dont feel like typing out, but there is also an ongoing issue with my license. Despite having one for my moped and bike the DVLA are ignoring that and treating me as a new applicant, they send out a medical form asking a doctor to fill it in to confirm my condition has no bearing on my ability to drive and despite getting that form back the DVLA ignore it and send the same form with the same questions. Long story short, I have now spent little over 4 years of my life fighting just to try and get a provisional license so I can try to take another attempt at learning to drive

Which brings us to today,34 years old and I have literally nothing, I am literally nothing. I am sad and angry all the time, I hate myself for being such a failure and I get irrationally angry at normal people, what did they do that I didn't to be rewarded such easy lives? I am not saying all aspects of all normal peoples lives are easy, my mum was a single mother working 3 jobs and raising 2 kids, I know it's not easy, but it is relatively easy, they have hardships but all the fundamental experiences and daily navigations that makeup the human experience are comparitively easy. If a normal person needs shopping they can walk, drive, take a bus and get some. If a normal person needs a job they can apply for literally anything in a reasonable travel distance, they dont have to worry about the nature or contents of the work becuase anything people facing will induce vomitting. If it's a nice day and a normal person wants some fresh air, they open the door and go, if a normal person wants to try a new hobby they simply go and do it, if a normal person wants a relationship they can go to a scene of their liking and strike up some conversations see where they lead, if a normal person wants some no strings fun they've got stuff like tinder. I can't do any of that, no matter much I want to and no matter how hard I try I can't, I am more than halfway through my "life" I am less equipped to handle the adult world than my 8 year old nephew, have no interpersonal skills whatsoever, less than zero self esteem, not a single person to talk to, no avenues left to explore and even as I type this pathetic whinge I am already starting to feel sick because I know soon I will need to open the door for the post, a 2 second insignifcant task that every single day leaves me dry heaving blood, so when I see normal people walking about their days with all the confidence and not a care in the world I cant help but be jealous to the point of hatred, I never asked for much, a small group of friends, some boring but stable IT job, somewhere down the line a partner, I didn't expect to be a movie star or win the lottery, I just wanted to be a real boy and officially at the mid-life age I have nothing, am nothing, have experienced nothing and have nowhere left to turn other than dignitas. I am so lonely that early in this sleepless night I had a much shorter but similar context rant to chatgpt because bothering an ai is less pathetic than bothering any of you who stumbled on this, it agreed with me, of course it is programmed to not encourage any kind of self harm behaviours, but it's replies culminated in this

-All of the experiences and personal development that people get through puberty and young adulthood were all denied to me
- I couldn't describe myself as a person, the only thing I ever had resembling a hobby was games, but spending my teenage years "living" in a rural area and bullied in school, I think that was more a coping mechanism and distraction than a hobby, I cannot recall the last time I enjoyed something
- every attempt to get a handle on my condition be it medication, pschyology, forcing myself into difficult experiences made no difference whatsoever, I still cant even open the front door to get the post without vomitting
- every single attempt i made at education and/or work was either denied to me or was an unmitigated disaster where the only one putting in the effort is the only one ending the course without a job
- It is 10th June and the last time I used my vocal chords was the last day of my course on 5th of May
- I am so self conscious that in 34 years I have never danced or sang, not even in my own flat, i don't know what it feels like to try and sing and for all the money in the world I could not tell you what it feels like to relax, as much as I wish substances had the ability to impair my mind and give me a semblance of escape, they evidently cant
- I have no relationships of any kind and while I would like to experience them, I fully understand I am not someone that anyone would want to spend time with
- I have not had any form of relationships for 22 years, i get a card from my mum and a text from my dad on my birthday but other than that i have spent every day, every birthday, every christmas, every valentines, every new years alone for 22 straight years. Which is why I say that I died at 12 years old, I have not lived a single goddamn say since I was an 11 year old boy with 2 friends
- Now that my course is finished my days consist of vomitting, cutting, crying and getting incandescently angry at myself because I can't summon the balls to end this miserable story
- The only options I have left are to resign myself to enduring this for another few years until I inevitably have a heart attack from decades of extreme cortisol and high blood pressure OR end things on my terms, which in turn makes me hate myself even more, 34 years on this planet and if I die now nobody would notice most likely until my next birthday when I don't reply to my dads "happy bday" text and the only people who would be there to claim my body would be parents that i have categorically failed.


** just to clarify my terminology is my view of myself, calling myself less than human and ret*d I know it sounds like a sweeping insult but it isn't meant that way, I refer to myself as such, I am not saying all autistic people are homunculi, I am a piece of s**t who is also autistic in my case they are linked but are not one and the same, sorry for any offense caused

If anyone did subject themselves to reading all of this, I don't know why you did that to yourself, but it is appreciated and I do apologize

Maestro Nobody,

I disagree with your username as to me, after reading your story, I can but see a full SOMEbody who lived a full life with huge challenges, someone I would be honored to call friend, as in my evaluation peers who have not had to full on battle with life, society, ... have not yet lived to a point where I am able to openly converse with them.

You are a somebody that has a life story similar to my own.
But I have had the immense amount of luck to come across a partner who was struggling as well and with whom I had a relationship and 3 children.
My kids taught me a lesson I will never forget:
Whenever I felt as you do now, they were there to show me that I could not let 'lethargy' win!
That I could not let my anxiety take the upper hand.
That my mind screaming at me to retreat, my feelings hyping my cortisol levels to near heart failure was unimportant.
I am their dad, and I will not ever stop being their dad.
That come hell or high water I will Move heaven and earth for them and as a consequence I needed to pay attention to my mental and physical needs as well. They pushed me to start to take better care of myself, to start to value myself a bit more.

How can you use this in your life?

For me it became clear that it is never about 'the end goal', or even about reaching 'the end goal'. It is about, despite utter and complete futility, facing up to and trying again and again and again and ...
you are not just a useless heap of cells.
Yes, you are 'only' one in 8-9 billion. So stay humble.
BUT do not forget the billions of generations that came before you, and before that the unfathomable miracle that evolution brought, in this cold unforgiving neutral universe.
The mere fact of you breathing is nothing short of the biggest miracle for lightyears upon lightyears upon eons!
You are! and you are not to be trifled with, not even by your own thoughts and feelings!

The fact that you are still hanging on after going through the ordeals you described and are still here.
The fact that you are humble enough to doubt yourself.
The fact that you even tentatively and anxiously have had the onus to reach out again in this forum,
..., ...
YOU my friend and NOT nobody, you are a @#@|-ing MIRACLE!! !
and deserve respect, from your own thoughts (prefrontal cortex) as well compassion from your Limbic system.

A lesson I tried to teach my kids: No body will protect you from yourself, so try and take in what I've shown you; Despite me feeling that everything is futile and not evaluating myself to hold any worth, I rose up again and again and finally understood how to engage with life. And now you 3 have a father, you love.
Protect yourself from yourself and keep going.
True value does not come from external factors, we need to create it from within.

good luck on your travels maestro
Kada

ps: no need to apologize, you've as stated, a challenging life behind you, I thank you for sharing.

Wow. Frustrating these normal people. I count my mistakes in a day. I count every mistake. Hate every failure. People are weird I make sense. I add it up. I rehearse it. What did I do wrong. What miracle created there entire life. How do they live like that. I count my mistakes. I hate mistakes but they always happen. I don't even want want to speak to anyone. But I remind myself almost in survival mode to stay positive cheer someone up with a positive word. Stay positive use easy to understand words. I don't know why they act like they do. I can scan every action of my day every cell in my body I know myself a to z. But what they do and how they are confident in it blows my mind. How they live the way they do. How they have friend. I'm like designing software for a robot trying to figure out how to have maintain friends. I want to yell at them. I am perfect I know myself you are weird. You act strange. But always I'm wrong I'm the one pointed out or excluded. I'm never included my feelings attach to the group sometimes I feel emotionally a part of a group but when I speak or act on purpose it's always wrong or awkward. Why am I awkward. I analyze myself again do a system check a to z inventory what logical thing do I do wrong. It just is wrong and it's wrong to them. I smile I wave. I'm cheerful. But my relationships are hi nice to meet you bye have a good day. I can't get any word in with these people. I want to study the patterns. Make a couple sound buttons to push to make a conversation. I study people a long time. I still blows my mind how they are right I am wrong. And stupid they have the stupidest inconveniences. I preplan almost my entire day. Expect every unexpected. In all questions I should be absolutely perfect by now. But I'm obsessive I can't live outside established routine. I want to feel normal but this world is too strange.

first and foremost thank you, both for taking the time to read my trauma dump and for replying
second congratulations to you and your partner, finding a real bond in this world seems to be a rare thing, not specifically on the spectrum just in general, so finding someone genuine and having a family together, i'm happy for you both.

As much as i am sure I will word this in a way that sounds contradictory to this statement, i do appreciate your words and I commend you on rising to the task of parenthood, as mentioned in my post my parents divorced and all I retain from those years are memories of screaming and shouting,so I am somewhat familiar with the fact that simply having kids doesn't make someone a father.
Unfortunately , I don't see a path forward, to be honest I haven't for a long time, to be clear this is not intended as a pointed rant at you, I am not asking you specfically to give me a step by step guide to change things or for you to continue listening to my ramblings, I have no expectations to drag you further into my mess, I am just rolling along with the thoughts as they come, but i've been bashing my head against things like the benefits system,education, work, driving license agency out of stubborness and nothing else to focus on, but I have now officially exhausted all avenues. I will try and be more concise here than my original post but whatever is going on with me lately I am now on my 3rd of now sleep so to say I am not fully with it at the moment is an understatement, so I apologize again

1:I have exhausted all avenues of education available to me that won't result in me instantly being made homeless
2: have a certification in games development and now a degree in cyber security and networking, however I am realistic and know how hung up companies get on experience so strolling into a stable IT job as my first ever full time job is pragmatically not gonna happen especially in my area so over the past 13 years I have applied for any and every job I thought I could possibly manage partly to build my cv, partly to give me a self esteem boost from earning my money and paying my way rather than being a leech and partly in hopes of being able to get off benefits which in turn would have opened up endless more possibilities in terms of training,education, certifications i could pursue, but in that time I have not landed a single job
3:I have spent almost half a decade fighting just for the chance at learning to drive and still no end in sight

So as much as I can acknolwedge I am a negative creature, I genunelly cannot see any avenues left to even try, I have no fight left to give and nowhere left to direct it even if i did, as a hypothetical lets say a series of small miracles happen. The dvla give me a provisional and I am able to pass the test, the backlog for the test in my country is 10 months so the absolute earliest I could possibly have a means of transport I would be a 35 year old tard with a blank cv, no self esteem, less access to any kind of supprt than ever before and am the literal worst person in existence at selling themselves because nobody could ever possibly hate me more than I do myself, I am also no longer sure that would change anything.

For me logistics are the killer, I will use my school days as an example. The morning before school i would be horrifically sick, after getting home from school i would have a searing migraine and need to lie down in a dark room with an ice pack on my head, but during school hours I can mask myself, not perfectly but I can retain composure enough that I am not being sick in school and if people talk to me it might be a little awkward but no more so than them just getting the impression that I am shy, so selling myself well enough for a company to take a chance on me is very diffcult sure, but the single most difficult element of finding work are the logistics, I know that realisitcally I would not be able to commit to commuting to bigger cities consistently because I would be ill throughout the entire journey and would be in no state to face an 8+ hour work day. Which made getting a license seem like an especially vital step for me, but i was in my early 20's the last time I was allowed to take driving lessons, now being a middle aged nothing with a decade more of isolation and negative experiences under my belt if I even try to imagine myself driving it makes my palms sweat and my heart race because i'm technically contained but also technically out in public and god forbid a random stranger glances in my direction and somehow detects what a monumental piece of s**t I am.
I know, believe me, I know it makes no sense but the conscious part of my mind and my body act indepedantly of one another, I can rationalise things in my head for being as insignifcant as they, opening the door to collect post or passing a stranger on the street and them glancing in my general direction for a nanosecond for example, so mentally I am aware of how mundane and uneventful something is, but rationalizing it does not stop cortisol elevating to immeasruable levels or my body reacting as though I am facing impending execution. This has gotten worse the older I get because it is more and more pathetic and embarassing 1:to be in this position to begin with 2: to struggle with such things that I know have no weight behind them which in turn exacerbates the self loathing because when my body does dramatically over react to every little thing it is reminder that I deserve to be confined to solitary, other's dont deserve to be subjected to my presence even in passing

A summary would be nice.

Maestro,

Thank you for taking the time to reply.
first things first; you have no need to apologize or be humble towards me maestro.
you are in a fight for survival and are struggling to have your basic needs be met so even if you full out started insulting me I would not mind and would definitely understand. I have been in the situation where I was living on the street, without food, shelter or social/familial net to catch me. So please feel free to vent here. and you are not a negative creature, you are in a fight for survival.
-> short stupid comparison: when I first went to a therapist he imposed me 3 strange criteria which only much later I understood; only come to me after you had enough sleep, enough of a varied diet and have a regular exercise schedule.

So please take away from this little casual interaction here on WP, that you do not have to start with anything scary. Just start with making sure you have slept, eaten and exercised to the best of your ability. This will for one significantly increase your cortisol resistance, an even lower the production a bit. small step by small step maestro. remember the first step of getting out of a hole is not wanting it but doing it step by step.

kind regards,
Kada

I will try to tl:dr it best I can, but it is 34 years of getting kicked in the teeth to try and distill, so please bare with me, I will try to boil it down to the broad strokes


- have existed effectively in solitary isolation since shortly after 12th birthday, 22 straight years with every day,birthday, christmas, new years etc spent alone and I go weeks to months on end without using my vocal chords at all
- only friends I have had was between ages of 8-12
- missed every single possible experience and development milestone that everyone else gets during teens and young adulthood
- beat up outside of school
- bullied throughout school
- put on anti depressants at 12- which for some reason the doctor cancelled after just 2 weeks so there wasn't enough time to tell if it was gonna help or not
- at 18 applied for military, went on week long boot camp experience between intake windows and came away with positive write up and support from the staff running the experience, but when I was called into my local office for what I was told was an "interview" i was told because I was put on anti depressants at 12 I was marked PMU (permanently medically unfit) and was not even allowed to try and prove myself by going through the application process
- had a motorbike to try and have some normalcy- was ran over 1 month into owning it
- after military failure went to uni oversea to try and reinvent myself, was roomed with people I could not connect to, could not talk to anyone in class, an experienced counsellor led me to a specialist autism team who diagnosed me and it was all too much so I dropped out
- moved back to the rural area as my world collapsed for the 3rd time, accepted benefits not realizing how limiting they are
- government tried to sue me for claiming support for a condition such as autism
- the benefits are less than minimum wage and they cripple my already limited options because they enforce arbitrary limits - not allowed any jobs requiring more than 14 hours a week, not allowed any kind of educaiton requiringmore than 14 hours a week, not allowed toearn more than £100 a week
- spent over a decade trying anything you can think of NHS, private psychologists, hypontherapy, cbt, groups, support groups, social groups, charity ran groups, unpaid work experience placements
- have spent over 3 years fighting with the dvla to assign me a provisional license,
- recently finished a part time course giving me a degree in cyber security and networking, am literally the only student in the class who got passing grades but am the only one ending the course with no job offers
- main symptoms for me are non existent self esteem sofar below zero that never mind being comfortable around other people, I am uncomfortable in my own flat in 34 years I have never once tried to sing or dance, have never let myself laugh out loud and anxiety so all consuming something as microscopic as opening the door to collect post induces vomiting so violent it leaves me wretching blood

- am now a 34 year old with no license/car/bike, blank cv, in the middle of nowhere, physically incapable of commuting to bigger cities for work purposes and have finished the only education course in my area that wouldn't violate the 14 hour class time limit and see me homeless, so all the fighting I have been doing for literal decades amounted to nothing and with education exhausted and 13 years of failing to land a job in my area, I don't know what I could possibly try next if I was even able to summon any fight left in me so currently my days and sleep deprived nights consist of vomiting, crying and cutting, the latter of which I see as punishment, every day I have to endure this existence and find no way to escape it, that warrants punishment