Published on 12, July, 2020
I've come to a point in my life where, after looking back over it - at the things that have happened, the things I've done and not done, the things I've achieved and not achieved - I can begin to make a reasonable judgment about what's likely to happen with what's left. I have far more behind me than I have in front of me. My physical health is reasonably good for a man of my age. I could carry on for a fair number of years yet before things start to break down physically. But I know that, when they do, I won't want to endure them for very long. I don't want to end up on medications for life (I already have one that I have to take). I don't want to lose my independence, and need support. I don't want to be reliant upon others. When my time comes, I'll take my own action to obviate those things.
I have just over seven years to go now before I will be able to retire. It's unlikely, therefore, that my personal circumstances are likely to change very much. There isn't a great deal I can do to improve my financial situation. The hours I work aren't full-time, but they're as much as I feel able to manage given the current state of my psychological and emotional health. Recent events have shown that my mask is beginning to slip: that after a lifetime of trying to get by in a world which has rarely made much sense to me, I'm reaching the limits of my tolerances. I'm gradually burning out. I'm beginning to break down. Not physically yet... but the physical and psychological breakdowns will work in tandem with one another, of that I'm sure. I've already done myself some damage through drinking, which I've done increasingly heavily over the last ten years. I struggle with stopping it. I've had some periods before of not drinking - a week, two weeks, a month - but I've always gone back to it. Because it's really the only thing that relieves the anxiety I feel most of the time. An anxiety which I've carried with me for most of my life, from my earliest days at school. I have to weigh the damage it does to me against the 'benefits' of feeling temporarily relieved and happy - free of anxiety, able to laugh, able to enjoy myself.
So... what do I think I have ahead of me? Over seven more years of work, with the burn-out accelerating all the time. My financial position doesn't give me much room to change my circumstances in any definite or positive way. I cannot afford to move. I cannot afford to set money aside. There's nowhere else I can go. I have a job which gives me a good sense of satisfaction and life-purpose, but I'm finding the demands of it increasingly exhausting. I simply can't see myself being able to do it for another seven years. Meanwhile, given my age, my options are becoming more and more limited. If I end up having to leave this job through ill health before I can find something else, I face the benefits system, which many of us already struggle with. I had it once before, and it was certainly no fun. It's not the 'easy cop-out' that some of the tabloids like to portray it as. At my age, too - and given my limited skill set - finding something else, and something different, won't be easy.
My Asperger's diagnosis has a double edge. It enables me to make sense of my life. But it also enables me to see how my life has been 'limited' by it. I'm not saying that I wish to change the way I am - but I think it could all have been so much easier if I hadn't been born this way. The positives and negatives of it fly around in my head all day - like leaves in a whirlwind.
To many, I would sound ungrateful in saying this. Focus on the positives. I don't have money - but I also don't have debts. I'm in a location I'd like to leave - but I have a job and a roof over my head. I don't have friends or any close family - but I have this community, and I have my cat. Many people have far less than this, and are much more worse off. I should take reassurance from that. But it doesn't always work that way, does it.
I'm not saying anything that anyone else here doesn't already know. It's a common enough experience. But it helps, though, to write it down. Maybe it helps to share it, too.
Thanks for reading, if you have.
I am nearly 60 too.
Actually in many ways my position is stronger. My flat is paid for, which gives me a little more latitude in choosing work. I do want to take less and less and less morning courses, because I can never sleep properly if there is an early start.I don't want go retire altogether, I doubt my pension would be worth much either anyway. I just want to stay in the field and keep away from office politics altogether, if at all possible.
I want to devote more time to.the Art, though it is a snobby place if you still have no Name to speak of.
One day after the Big Day I was told to return with various documents and continue along the road to naturalization.
Everything is so up in the air, not knowing what is going on with Brexit, my parents' estate! My anxieties centre around all the horrendous turns for the worst in terms of World Events.Things have not exactly taken a fortuitous turn in various places in the last two/three years.
It is impossible not to be aware of mortality now. When Dad first coughed and I first got the inkling that something might be wrong. Atishoo, Atishoo. We do indeed, all fall down. With the massive question mark after all the mess and info ished business, ' But what was that all about?'
I saw a bothy for sale on the Scottish Isle of Jura. Big island, with only 200 inhabitants. The bothy looks beautiful, too - not just a stone hut. £120k. If I had, say, £200k, I'd not hesitate.
The problem is they just aren't enough openings for good quality professional recluses nowadays!
I found that to be rather brutal, and a bit too much like the 'Deathwish' movies. But yes... I can see what you mean. I could identify to some extent with the thoughts, emotions and motivations of the character.
There used to be some lovely contemplative jobs - very few these days. I enjoyed working behind the scenes for a major bookseller in the 'old days' - researching book orders and corresponding with customers, mainly by letter.
This is interesting - but the sense I get from some of them is that they can at least afford their hermitude. The woman who lives in a village by the sea in Devon must surely not be hard up, because it's a very expensive place to live - though not as expensive as London.
I'd certainly have loved to have been a lighthouse keeper. And when I was at uni, I always remember the chap who managed the Slides Collection section. He had his own room in a remote corner, filled with racks for slides. You'd go to him with a reference number, then he'd direct you to the right place, then sit back at his vast desk and get on with whatever he was getting on with - with some soothing baroque music playing in the background. It didn't look like he ever had many visitors. Job probably doesn't exist any more, with the internet.
My favourite in the genre has got to be 'The Accountant'.
Sounds more like a psychopath than an aspie. My problem is far too much emotion.
Wouldn't mind seeing that, but I don't have a TV licence. I'll wait until it comes out on DVD. I really enjoyed 'The Night Manager' with Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie.
The only problem is that they reckon 3 people can keep a secret - as long as 2 of them are dead...
I've been watching The Little Drummer Girl on iPlayer. Maybe Martian Tom can be your forger or wordsmith/good cop interrogator -
www.bbc.co.uk/.../b0bqs366
Dream team!
That's why you'd team up with Plastic and Moggsy :-D
I think I would make a good spy, far too squeamish to dispose of anyone though!
I commuted to work in London from Norfolk for eight months. I got off the train one night and was walking across the car park with the other commuters when I heard someone say: "Don't they all look bloody miserable!".
The environment I work in, and my journey to and from work, have a massive impact on my well-being. That's why I thrived in jobs that allowed working from home.
I would love to do that. I thought the bit about London being a hall of mirrors where every face is slightly angry was well put. Although I would disagree with the slightly. It feels like everyone hates their life and hates everyone else to me. Can't stand the place. Unfortunately it is where my current job is located :-( which is doing me no good at all
I did very much. I even worked in different places and had a plant that always came with me. Spooky.
Yep.......Harry Brown too.