Rollacoaster

It's nice to see that there's other people out there going through roughly the same as I.

I also tend to limit the number of appointments to what I can remember. If I notice that I start to forget appointments, I take that as a sign that I'm trying to do too many things at once. 

If you guys have the ability to express yourselves with such accuracy through language, then you should realise that you have already a lot of abilities going in your favour. 

MDC said:

Since then I have energy to meet up with some colleagues now and then and go out for a meal. And with those people I don't have this, I do sleep well after meeting with them.

Yes - I find playing the social game with NTs to be exhausting - but I can spend all day with other aspies with no problems.

MDC said:

I take at least 1 day of doing absolutely nothing useful.

I need that too - I try to arrange that 'useless day' to be when it's rubbish weather so I can sleep/do nothing and it doesn't affect anyone else - then be fully functioning on days when it's nice out and we can do things together.

Hi Carl .. there are some great replies on this thread .. and I concur with all of them .. I'm in that age bracket too

.. I'm 15 years into having the Aspergers diagnosis .. it knocked me for six at the time but now I have to say I'm really comfy with it

.. when things get tough in a social situation I can just shrug and remind myself its not something I can do and so don't beat myself up

.. I'm becoming a lot more comfortable with spending time on my own

.. and this lockdown/Zoom communication with people is a real boon .. .. there's sufficient seperation that I can feel ok with conversations and its far more factual .. and less small talk .. and if things suddenly feel bad I just press the 'exit' button :-D 

.. Keep chatting on here about your thoughts and ideas .. there's some lovely people and we're all in the same boat .. 

.. there's no captain and no navigator .. we're navigating this journey together .. 

Bashing away at it is indeed what seems to get us there in the first place. 

I have this feeling I drive a car with square wheels and I also get places. 

The official diagnose was requested by my wife. Now she realises that I have the right attitude as husbands are expected, but if she wants me to mow the lawn or do the dishes, she has to realise that I can't just drop everything and get doing what she asks. She now also understands that when she tells me something, I do care and act upon it, it's just that on the spot it's hard to tell if I'm actually listening or just dismissing. 

If you're different, it does seem so that you're not the only one. 

What helped with me, I broke all contact with a brother in law. He gave me very weird vibes. I would not be able to fall asleep after he talked to me. Since then I have energy to meet up with some colleagues now and then and go out for a meal. And with those people I don't have this, I do sleep well after meeting with them. 

Also, in the weekend, I take at least 1 day of doing absolutely nothing useful. Playing video games, watching youtube video's on atheism, philosophy, history,... 

Oh no...i’ve Done it again....I seem to always not answer people in the right place. Sorry plastic & NAS67669 

I was diagnosed with Aspergers at 58yrs or so. Felt a lot like yourself. I had a melt down or I think it was a mental breakdown 2 Christmas ago after I was diagnosed. It took me a long time up until now to except I’m autistic. I’m happy with that now. 

 More importantly take the positives from the past, learn from the negatives....don’t bash yourself up & live for today. It’s the now which is important....

i too didn’t know who or what I was after my diagnoses. But then I didn’t before to be honest....I fooled myself & pretended to be other than myself. 

I have a few dear friends who i feel happy & comfortable with....often the right friends are often a mirror to ones self. Or there may be people you admire....they may have characteristics of yourself. This is a starting point too...to discover more about the positives in yourself. 

Don’t go back to the past....learn. Or like me just let it go & concentrate on the future. 

You are not a fraud....you are just processing a lot of stuff. Secondly you were probably over whelmed with life & in the past didn’t have coping mechanisms in place to protect you. 

To know you have Aspergers is the easy bit but to except & digest you have Aspergers takes time....give yourself a break....just let things settle & yes you will or might feel uncomfortable but this is the learning phase which is good not bad. It means you are excepting. Just chill & read etc about Aspergers a little at a time. Don’t take on board too much as you’ll be over whelmed. 

Do stuff you enjoy or take pleasure from....surround yourself with things you like...make a ‘nest’ of all that comforts you. 

Might I add people of our age did not have the understanding & help like there is now. In fact about 8yrs ago I was diagnosed with personality disorder! What a joke! When actually I had Aspergers. 

So don’t be too hard on yourself.

 Take care. 

Once you realise that you might not be the same as everyone else, you start to endlessly reprocess all of your past interactions where there were unsatisfactory outcomes - that becomes frustrating and annoying as you realise just how many times you've been screwed over and you didn't notice at the time.

Hi 

Thank you

I really do need to validate this which seems to be the way to go . I struggling to understand why I hadn’t noticed this before when I was younger as it seems as obvious now , I keep getting memory flashes of situations which make me wince (I’ve had this many times before) I haven’t a clue but I’m starting to think that these are times where I got things wrong so I am trying to go back and fix them . I know I don’t like this but I haven’t a clue why 

I am also extremely concerned that I could be a fraud 

Again thank you very much for your help

carl

Welcome aboard!

I suspect what you're experiencing is burn out - we are bad at the social game so we mask like crazy - but this takes a lot of energy.   It's ok when we're young but as we get older, we just can't sustain it so cracks start to appear - and then there's some realisation that we're not the same as everyone else - and we go down the path of diagnosis.

I've found that the anxiety and stress all boils down to uncertainty - with everything.      The more uncertainty, the more stress - and it just burns up all our energy to keep moving forward - so we eventually stop.

Good luck with it all - and be kind to yourself.