Asperger's the Great, really?

Lots of identification from me, too.  I go through phases with my condition, since being diagnosed with it in 2015 (aged 56).  In one sense, I feel relief that I'm able to look back on my life and finally make sense of it.  I now know why I've always struggled with friendships, relationships, social situations.  I know why I've always felt like there's this invisible wall between me and other people, and this gap of understanding - like everyone else is in on a secret that I'm not privy to.  This has enabled me, naturally, to understand myself better, to accept myself more, to go a little easier on myself.

But then it swings the other way, and I get into a pit of wondering what my life might have been like if I'd been diagnosed much earlier and had been able to get early interventions.  Or if I hadn't been born with the condition at all.  I generally try to counter that with the thought that maybe 'corrective' support measures might have messed me up even more.  And if I hadn't had the condition at all, would I now have this singular and unique view that I have on life?  Would I be in a position to look around me at the way other people live their lives, and to feel glad I'm not a part of any of that?  Sure, I feel like an alien much of the time, which can be isolating.  But I'd still, in many ways, sooner be me with my autistic brain, and my sense.... not of being superior or special, but of not needing to have many of the things that - particularly in our culture and society - seem to be regarded with such importance.  I find much of it to be trivial, frivlolous, empty and meaningless.  I'm not hung up on fashion or looks.  I'm not bothered about keeping up with the Joneses.  I don't need material things in abundance, the latest gadget, the latest app, the latest car.  I don't need lots of money.  I enjoy simple pleasures.  Okay, maybe I would have been like that, anyway.  But I think my life-long sense of being 'outside' has certainly helped me there.  Essentially, I wouldn't want to be any other way.  I don't see that other way as a route to 'happiness'.  I think happiness, actually, is a much over-rated thing.  It's like an orgasm: it's something that we feel briefly, and then it subsides again.  I've read time and time again about people who thought that success, money, fame, possessions, etc would bring them 'happiness'.  But they still need the fix of something... so where do they go next?  What do they do next?  What else is there to buy, consume, achieve? 

Having said all that - yes, I still get very low times.  Not now, though, as bad as they were when I was still in that cloud of unknowing: when I didn't know what the hell was wrong with me.  Nowadays, I try not to think about it as something 'wrong' with me, but as something 'different' about me.  That might not help a lot of people, but it gives me some much-needed reassurance.  And I take that from wherever I can find it.

One Golden Rule I've learned is: never compare yourself to other people.  Ever!  I, too, have relatives who've done very well for themselves - again, in accordance with how our society assesses 'doing well for yourself'.  My older brother has a big house that's all paid for.  His kids have both got successful businesses, houses, cars, the trappings of 'success'.  They all seem settled for life.  And here's me, the only person in my entire family - extended on both sides - with a degree, but in a minimum wage job, in a small rented flat, with no pension pot to look forward to.  No property I can sell to ease my retirement.  No savings, stocks, shares, etc.  No ability to jet off on another foreign holiday at the drop of a hat.  But I'm managing.  I don't want any of the stuff they've got.  I'm fine as I am.

Can I construct a future?  Well... I have seven years to go before I retire.  I'm looking forward to retiring, to have the freedom to focus full-time on the things that interest me: reading, writing, education, maybe a little light traveling.  It may not sound like much, but it's enough for me.  I admit that I do get times when I feel a little hopeless, but that's usually when I'm going through a dead spell with creativity - as I am now - when everything I try to start winds up in a blind alley.  I realise, though, that I'm probably putting too much pressure on myself with it.  So a rest and recharge is probably good.

I don't know if any  of this will help you.  It's just my own perspective.  Again, I do identify.  The whole thing has been - and still is - a roller-coaster ride.

Maybe there's some comfort in numbers, at least.  That's another things that's helped me, too.

Rollo May was a proponent of existentialist psychotherapy.  The existentialists believed that life is essentially meaningless anyway.  For me, the ability to construct that future therefore comes from finding something meaningful to do in life - and that, I've found, has to be something that's outside of myself.  My work, in special needs care, helps tremendously in that respect.  Being able to do something useful for other vulnerable people, and getting a positive response from them.  It also brings something out of me, too.  It took me a long time to find that place.  I think if I was stuck in an office again now, doing nothing except helping to improve profit margins for some faceless organisation, I'd struggle.  Sometimes, you have to look really hard to find that meaning, and sometimes it's found in unexpected places.  Growing up, I would never have dreamed of doing something like this for a living.  I initially came into it following a quadruple-whammy of major life events that almost did for me: my father's death, my divorce, moving home and losing my job - all in the space of a few months.  This just happened to be waiting there for me, just when I most needed it.  I got very close to the edge, and was suicidal with fear on the night before I first started in care work.  The crisis team came out that night.  Next day, though, my new life began.  I'm not superstitious or a fatalist, but I'm a great believer that the right thing will often reveal itself at the time when it's most needed. 

Rollo May was a proponent of existentialist psychotherapy.  The existentialists believed that life is essentially meaningless anyway.  For me, the ability to construct that future therefore comes from finding something meaningful to do in life - and that, I've found, has to be something that's outside of myself.  My work, in special needs care, helps tremendously in that respect.  Being able to do something useful for other vulnerable people, and getting a positive response from them.  It also brings something out of me, too.  It took me a long time to find that place.  I think if I was stuck in an office again now, doing nothing except helping to improve profit margins for some faceless organisation, I'd struggle.  Sometimes, you have to look really hard to find that meaning, and sometimes it's found in unexpected places.  Growing up, I would never have dreamed of doing something like this for a living.  I initially came into it following a quadruple-whammy of major life events that almost did for me: my father's death, my divorce, moving home and losing my job - all in the space of a few months.  This just happened to be waiting there for me, just when I most needed it.  I got very close to the edge, and was suicidal with fear on the night before I first started in care work.  The crisis team came out that night.  Next day, though, my new life began.  I'm not superstitious or a fatalist, but I'm a great believer that the right thing will often reveal itself at the time when it's most needed. 

Thanks Martian Tom, that was a massive amount for you to deal with...I'm getting a bit old for the right thing to reveal itself now though....