No idea where my life is going...

I’ve always felt this way long before my later in life diagnosis at age 51 in 2021, as one by one, my hopes, dreams and ambitions for my life slipped away, the last of which were my hopes for retirement/pensions when I reach retirement age, as during Covid, I’d discovered that all my pensions were gone, on top of not being able to visit family because of travel restrictions - at age 52 now, I face a very bleak future, yet I’ve never had a good childhood to start with - Covid just made things far worse and Christmas 2022 was even more heartbreaking than Christmas 2020 - since my diagnosis, family in Ireland have become far less understanding and use my diagnosis as yet another stick to beat me with, given thier refusal to understand, so I’m beginning to wonder what their true motivations and purposes were in “encouraging” me to get a later in life diagnosis in 2019, as surely they must have known that adult autism support is far more limited compared to children’s services - I’d come through a lot of bullying in my life (and punished for being bullied) - frankly, due to thier childhood traumas arising from disapproval of both thier and grandparents respective marriages, my parents were never suited to relationship nor married life and above all, bringing a child into the world, so I should have been sent to live with my grandparents family, taken into care, fostered or adopted - my case is textbook for how social services operate now and rightly so where difficult decisions have to be made in the best interests of a child, relating to certain types of relationships that are considered “inappropriate” or otherwise, where social services will (quite rightly) intervene to take that child out of that situation as part of thier legal and moral responsibility - I see certain types of relationships now and I cringe, such as Down syndrome, drink, drug, mental health, etc and I’ve come to believe that such relationships must never be allowed to form in the first place, especially if there is the potential for a child to be born, that couple must never be allowed to become parents 

Thank you my friend. I appreciate you taking time to reply.

Sometimes challenges life throws at us can lead us to better things and turn us to better people.

I'm sorry you get this. Enjoy every second with them. Life is precious. I'm living by the worry about it when it happens rule, for now I'll try to enjoy my life and the time with my parents.

Thank you. This was helpful to read. I think I'll get to a point where it will all settle and fall in to place, might take a while, but I'm on my way to that. My mind is trying its best. I guess I'm not being very willing right now.

21 is young still, alot of people classically even didnt have it all figured out at that age, infact that is actually the age most people "waste" their life and go traveling and so on.

I honestly don't know what to say . same for me i'm nearly 21 and i have tried all the things you said but with no avail and now i seem to be going nowhere with this honestly i have no idea what to say to you 

I was left in a legal, and bureaucratic, quagmire when my brother and I tried to sell the family home and land. However, going through those hurdles proved liberating. 

It's scary to me how much I relate to this post! It feels like something I could have written myself, so much of what you've said is what I'm experiencing right now - especially the fears about family getting older and worrying about what will happen when they are no longer here  So I suppose I'm just writing this as a way of letting you know you're not alone

you sound like your on the right path already. just dont let people soothe you or think its ok....

i was in your position a year or 2 back... i was 32, i had jobs and never liked them or could fit in, they was boring and ***, i didnt have any friends or social life. i was in my room constantly day by day thinking along those lines of thought, what will i do, where will i go, my parents are getting on and every day is a potential risk of losing them and id be homeless. i started to think on that and make all sorts of weird little plans from buying camping gear to make being homeless doable and for me to be prepared for it, i wouldnt be a type that slumps in the town center on the cold, id go into the woods with camping gear and a tent if that happened, then i upgraded my plans to the idea of buying a cheap 3k cost yacht and had just enough money due to welfare savings. then i invested a chunk into bitcoin and made a large amount off it large enough to get a bigger yacht maybe or maybe the same yacht and have savings to affordf stuff... but by then i was also in a depressive mood being crushed by no friends or contact and also still my mind screamed out what are you going to do constantly in my mind that i finally broke and my mind forced me to actually legit seek a job and try to keep it..... i got a job, i still have it to this day, my money i made on crypto went to a property desposit and i live in my own place, my job fully funds my life and pays everything off with plenty to save up so again i can save up and make enough savings incase even this falls through somehow.

tldr.... let your mind agonise, its a good thing.... do not let people lull you into accepting your position, your mind should agonise over it and in that it finds a way and self pushes you into the way that will work out. i never thought id get a job, i was so against the idea of work and how it dominates life and is boring, but it comes to a point your mind agonises and tortures you and finds many reasons to eventually self push yourself into doing this thing you didnt like or want to do or thought you couldnt do. it makes you do it as that is the fix.. kinda like how if a kid doesnt get the minerals their body needs their mind forces them to instinctively start eating dirt that they wouldnt like but the mind takes over to try and force give the body what it thinks it needs. this is the same effect. so its important to not be lulled out of it, your mind is supposed to push you like this.