I'm 44, I've struggled through life in such a way that everyone always thinks I'm okay. Last year I finally figured out I've got Asperger's having had a pretty severe crash which pretty much took a solid 4 years out of my life. The predominantly resulted in some self medication, huge and destructive meltdowns at home much to the distress of my wife and 2 daughters. I am at times a complete nightmare for anybody to live but I am still living with my family.
Its 6 months since I first saw the doctor, I've had metal health assessments, I think I'm in a queue for ASD assessment. I've more or less shut down my business and started and I started a job at another company in an effort to simplify my life and separate myself from my total inability to do the admin or stay constant enough to run my business.
I'm unusual for a male aspie, I was quite a gender confused child in my early years and most of my good friends were girls, as a result I do a great job of fooling the world that I'm doing okay, that I'm in control of the situation. I'm a pure chameleon and present whatever picture I think the person I am talking to will receive best. I lie a lot, these lies are nearly always meaningless and inconsequential, often just in order to steer a conversation in a certain direction.
Starting a new job, is making me worse, as well as the challenge of intermixing with lots of new people, I constantly doubt my own ability, which is nuts because the work itself is completely trivial by my standards but I'm constantly blocked from making any progress due to extreme frustration that just boils up. I have had multiple meltdowns in the office, so I think I will be fired, it's just a case of when. The company is joined is too modern, it doesn't agree with chains of command, management, job descriptions or job titles, in fact when I asked for a more detailed job description I was given a chance to retract the request because they would end my probation for asking for something so culturally backward.
The stress of all of this change is making things even harder at home, I'm too stressed for anyone to live with. My wife is angry with me for blaming my Aspergers and thinks I'm treating it like a crutch for failure. She cannot understand how complex and stressful it is for me to keep up the act, maintain all the lies and complexity. I'm definitely ruining my kids life and my wifes.
So I feel low, and I don't know what to do. All I have is a bunch of helplines to call, and there's very little that makes me more stressed than the idea of a phone call with anybody, especially when the subject is me, and I want to be honest and not just morph into superman.
I am too drained, stressed and distrusting of my own ability to even consider applying for another job. But I have a big, complicated life and I can't cope with it. I just want to find a small dark room and sit in it until the world forgets about me. I feel really trapped, guilty and pointless, I will not ruin my children's lives by ending mine. But I am completely stuck out of ideas for how to avoid ruining their life just by being a depressed and beaten soul in their midst. I have nor want friends, my parents, brothers and cousins mental health is universally in a similar or worse state to my own.
Somehow, because I have no financial security at all without work and having to move out of our perfect life in a desirable area of London would certainly be the end of my marriage and my relationship with my kids.
As I write all this, it's how I feel every day, all the time until I manage to force myself to keep busy. I can eventually distract myself from these thoughts but they just keep coming back, and the older I get the worse it gets.