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When your in a fairly good place mentally and have free time, what do you do?

Paul_2025

I’m not sure what I was hoping to find in this on-line community. Hardly surprising as I’m not sure what I’m looking for. An answer to the meaning of life for a neuro-divergent in an alien world?

I had a late diagnosis in my mid-forties and decided to opt out of the work place as soon as I could. Work was never about work as such, it was about navigating relationships, being with groups when I wanted to be alone and getting stressed out year in year out. That’s all in the past now. I retired a few years ago, quite early at age 59. Not quite a burnt out shell. I’m stretching my pension to breaking point, but have enough to live on.

So now I have no need to work, no requirement to spend 8 hours a day with a group of strangers or commute. I’m free to do what I want, finances permitting!

I like photography, or rather I thought I did, I find I can wander around for ages with a camera but seldom feel the urge to take a photograph. It’s the same with drawing and painting, I now have the time to do things but no impulse. I busy myself decorating around the house, tidying the garden and so on, but I know I am just distracting myself from over thinking my difficulties relating to people.

I joined a group of neuro-divergent people. We meet up, have outings and chat. We go through all the motions of what “normal” people do. Somehow though it seems a pretence, slightly unreal, almost an act. There is a genuine effort by all to make the group work and we do enjoy each others company, as far as we can. However they, like me, are all slightly broken, or rather wired differently.

Not being integrated with society or perhaps more accurately the rest of the human race does rather throw a spanner in the works for so many things. Perhaps it’s enough to live quietly, go for walks, take the odd photo, draw the odd drawing and paint the odd painting. May be the answer is to take a step back from comparing my lifestyle to that of normal people and just accept that I’m different. But I feel I want something more.

So my question is, when the unwanted noise of life finally quietens and you have free time, what do people like us actually do?

How do we find meaning and purpose in what may be our very isolated existences?

Answers on a postcard...

  • Paul_2025 said:
    when the unwanted noise of life finally quietens and you have free time, what do people like us actually do?

    For me I spent a lot of time working on developing effective coping techniques for my autistic traits, amending problematic coping mechanisms and generally getting "in touch with myself" which meant I could identify my emotions easily and be able to express them in a healthy way.

    All these things made it much easier for me to socialise although I elected to do this sparingly but I found being isolated was like running away from things so I have more recently chosen to engage in more "normal" social interactions and even found a girlfriend on a dating app so I have a regular romantic relationship on the go.

    I find the balance makes me feel more complete. Grounded even. I am in a better place mentally and emotionally than at any other point in my life, but then again I am out of the rat race (early retired at 55) and my own boss now.