Haha, yeah!

Success is a relative term, of course.  In our society, it seems to have quite narrow and specific definitions... and mostly connected to financial and material wealth.  I think a lot of people feel 'failures' because of not meeting these standards. 

I'm reasonably content with not earning much because I don't need a lot of money  to live - as long as I keep within Mr Micawber's principle!  It would, perhaps, be nice to be able to afford a bit more space and a bit more flexibility.  Primarily, though, it's about being able to make a living out of what I love doing: my life's passion.  I've gotten close to the tree a few times, but have never quite been able to reach the fruit.  Again, it wouldn't necessarily be about fame and wealth.  Just being able to do it, and not have to do anything else.  Not have to clutter my head and time up with stuff that I don't really want to know or do, but have to to make ends meet.

As you say, though... I'm in a crowded boat there.

I wouldn't beat yourself up too much - in my assessment of people, almost all of them fail to live up to their own expectations - they just brag a lot to make themselves sound better that they realy are.

I remember Friends Reunited back in the day seeing what my peers ended up doing - I was shocked at the low levels of success - I can only assume they were happy in other ways.

Fundamentally, it's what credit cards were invented for - "Rubbish job? No money? - Then get into debt buying yourself some happiness you can't afford!!".

Thanks.  I will give it a look.

It is really interesting to hear your story and to compare experiences. Working on oneself is indeed a lifelong project I feel?

I wondered if you had read this book:

The Chimp Paradox: The Mind Management Programme to Help You Achieve Success, Confidence and Happiness

(Sorry that font is so massive - I couldn't work out how to reduce it!).

This book has helped me quite a lot as it is all about managing the difficult part of our personalities - for example, when I get very anxious now I can manage it a little bit better by realising that my 'chimp' is taking over. I would certainly recommend this to anyone who is trying to manage difficult feelings and emotions that they are experiencing. 

Plastic said:

I've achieved things in my life that most people couldn't imagine and it's my AS that has made that happen.

I really would love to be able to say that.

I suppose if I had been a high-achiever (in the way that society makes that assessment), then I might feel better about myself.

I know I have achieved things.  I managed to overcome failure at school and consignment to the scrapheap, and later go on to get a degree.  Not that it's done anything for me career-wise (though that's not the reason I did it - I simply wanted to get some education). 

But I haven't achieved what I wanted to achieve.  Not by a long, long shot. And this has nothing to do with societal perceptions and expectations.  It's about personal sense of achievement.

I've always been a late-starter, though.  Still time, maybe.

Am 30, and seeking diagnosis at the moment and I can relate to so much of this, I realise too that a lot of my strengths come from AS so o I would not want to give it up, just wish I could do something about my anxiety levels and shut downs at the most random times.

Hi Andrew,

Since getting my diagnosis in 2015 (at age 56), I've learned to understand myself, my behaviours and my life a lot better than I did before.  I've come to view myself through the prism of my autism, if you like.

Have I learned to like myself more?  That's a harder thing to answer.  I suppose, objectively, I can think of myself as a human being just like any other.  I have my good points and my bad.  Mum used to say to me - the same as she said about dad, whom I guess I got it from - that I'm a 'Jekyll and Hyde' character.  Most of the 'Mr Hyde' stuff has tended to come out in more recent years - which, not surprisingly, has coincided with the onset and increase of a drinking problem.  I didn't drink at all up until around my mid-thirties, and it was never very much.  It began to increase in my early forties.  There were several reasons for this: a bit of middle-aged disillusionment with my life, doing a job I hated... and being in a marriage (the first time I'd cohabited in my adult life) that simply wasn't working.  As well as this, I think (and a therapist I later saw seemed to concur), it was about my life as an undiagnosed autistic finally beginning to catch up with me.  I'd always struggled with friendships.  Always been chronically insecure.  I'd suffered a lot of bullying at school.  I always felt 'different' without knowing why.  So it all began to get me down... and I sought solace in something that could make me feel better and feel confident.  The trouble was, as I said, it brought out the demon in me.  It brought out behaviour - especially verbal abuse of others, and self-destructive actions - that must have made me look, to anyone who didn't really know me, like I was this horrible, obnoxious, ignorant, abusive... pig!   At the time, I used to wake up the next day and say 'That wasn't me - not the real me.  The real me is a caring, compassionate, sensitive individual who wouldn't hurt a flea.'  But I was deluding myself, of course.  It was just as much the real me as any of those other qualities.  The drink just became the conduit for it.

On a daily basis now, I struggle with those aspects of myself.  I struggle towards some kind of self-acceptance.  I know, essentially, that I'm a good and caring person.  But I also know there's this horrible person in there as well, which sobriety keeps in his cage.  I suppose 'liking' myself is being able to accept those things about myself.  I'm still a 'work in progress' on that score.  I've hurt some people in my life.  I've broken a very dear woman's heart.  I've been greedy and selfish.  I've borne grudges.  The green-eyed monster takes up too much space in my head at times.  I can be dismissive and judgmental, aloof, arrogant, high-minded, petty.  I know that stuff is all in there, and is a part of me.

I don't follow a religion, but I find the philosophy  of Buddhism to be congenial.  The 'God' of Buddhism isn't some invisible being in the sky.  It's in each of us - just as are all of those contradictory qualities; all those good things and bad things.  Enlightenment comes with acceptance of that.

I'm working on it, as I said.  I've a way to go yet.  I'm currently working on a piece of fiction-writing, with a central character who is very much based on myself.  Just writing things down on a daily basis is giving me insights.  It's interesting self-analysis.  It's helping me to understand myself better.  Maybe it'll make me.... well, not necessarily a better person.  But someone who can learn to like himself more.  It's all a process of self-discovery.  Perhaps it'll take me the rest of my life to get there.

Thank you so much for sharing this. There's so much that I can take from it as I develop my understanding of who I am just because you took the time to write about your life. Thanks again

Thank you Andrew - I imagine that will prove to be excellent advice. I really appreciate it

I think I like myself equally as much as I hate myself.

i'm 52, diagnosed 10 years ago. I'm a twin (he's NT) so from an early age I had a correct model to copy and build a labrary of correct behaviours.  I soon was analysing those behaviours and seeing the randomness & chaos of everybody else and so I learnt to see through every action and do the right thing. This meant I was effectively improving on everything and becoming more perfect.  I was singled out as special in infant school because I was so advanced.

In secondary school and onwards I measured that big, unusual personalities were admired and not bullied so I became the biggest personality - faked learning some instruments and formed the school rock group.

In the work environment, my eidetic memory meant I could do more than anyone else, better than anyone else so at 22 I was working for ESA in Belgium commissioning satellite ground stations.

Unfortunately, I jumped jobs a few times and ended up in a company that was all politics over capability. They paid me a bucketful of cash but the environment was terrible.

That's when my compulsion to do the right thing was used against me and I became ill with the stress. With a young family, I needed the money and my health meant I couldn't jump to a new  job, so that's when I really began to hate myself and my inability to 'play the game'.  It's when I really started to identfy my weaknesses and my vulnerabilities of people using and manipulating me.

It's when I realised that I was too good. I didn't have the character flaws that NTs have. I hold myself to a very high standard of integrity, much higher than any NT I've ever met.  That means I'm an easy target for users and liars.

My mask presents a perpetual 'nice chap' to the outside and my inability to decifer emotions means I look like a good listener - but the real me is a total mess on the inside.  I've presented the mask for so long while minimising the real me that I cannot identify myself any more.  As any 'need' is a vulnerability, I've minimised those too until I've reduced myself internally to nothing.

None of this is healthy.  It means I identfy closer to a machine than a human. I'm reliable, efficient and need no maintenance. Apparently.  Best fit is Mr Data from STNG.

I've achieved things in my life that most people couldn't imagine and it's my AS that has made that happen.

I like my abilities and young outlook but I hate my vulnerabilities.

Hopefully you can find a good balance. I socialise less now but I enjoy it more when I do. For me, it has worked having a balance and I know that I can contact friends if I do feel lonely...

It's a fair point. I've run Marathons and Ultramarathons in the past but I am constantly exhausted at the moment. Feels ridiculous. I've just been made aware of Adrenal Fatigue which associates with much of how I'm feeling. I've really got to crack down on the stress of social interactions which I've been subjecting myself too. I really had no idea what I'd been putting myself through and how unnecessary it was. No doubt it will be a like dominoes fixing it though - the knock on effect of not needing the stress of social interaction will bring loneliness I imagine. 

I don't have children - as much as I like spending time with kids sometimes, I don't think I would have enough energy to have my own.

It is really good to know that other people face similar challenges :-)

Hi Andrew,

I can certainly relate to so much of what you are saying. I'm only days in to my initial diagnosis but the challenges you are talking about are some of those I have identified as the things I must overcome. 

Do you have Children??

I came to terms with myself before I was diagnosed. I was diagnosed at 32, but by that point the diagnosis made little difference to my sense of self. I was already going through my own psychological and emotional process throughout many years before diagnosis. I think it was only after I left school that I really was able to start my journey because it was where I had to start trying to build a life without the constant bullying at school. It was a slow journey filled with challenges and difficulties but as I look back I think it's safe to say that no matter the challenges I just kept going and never gave up on myself. I was like that during school, as I always focused on the end of school, to get an education that would lead to me being able to get a decent job while knowing that I would leave all the people at school behind me when I left. However, without the bullies at school, and starting with attending university I was slowly able to start pushing myself to take small steps. I pushed myself, just seeing everything as a challenge and to rise up to the challenges.

I still faced issues, but I had the space away from everything to grow and develop, to try and find my own way in trying to build up my life.

Sure, lots of things didn't go to plan, but I've learnt a lot about myself and that although there are difficulties in life I feel that I am quite able to accept things. We all have our strengths and weaknesses as well as our differences, but I'm perfectly fine with it all.

Though to be perfectly honest, the learning to like myself hasn't happened and is most likely not going to happen. I don't like myself but I can't help how I feel, so I just try my best to keep on going and to live my life the best that I can. I just don't really think about it, or try not to think about it, so I just accept that it's part of who I am and part of my life.

I recognise some of that, I received my ASD diagnosis in 2016 at the age of 53 and when I did a lot of thigs in my life made sense.  I am still on the learning curve with this.  I can now realise that some of my former career ambitions are unlikely to be met, so I no longer pursue them and I have come to try to make the  best of things as they are.  While I was thinking about this post, the quote in the following link came to mind:

www.passiton.com/.../6503-grant-me-the-serenity-to-accept-the-things-i