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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...

Parents

  • I also retired early, but only by a couple of years before my state pension starts. I read a lot, play video games, and converse online with others in this community.

    I live with my husband who is also retired, so I also have someone around to chat to and share stuff with. Perhaps that's what is missing in your life? Maybe try to cultivate one friendship so that you have someone to share things with?

    Also, finding it difficult to engage with things you used to like may be a symptom of depression, so perhaps you could consult your GP?

  • in reply to Lotus

    Thanks for your reply. I’m sure it’s not depression, I had that when I was much younger, several times. This is more an outlook on life that I find quite expected given the way my mind works. Not so much feeling down, as just a bit lost. The structure that working life brought to my life however unwelcome, did prop me up. Now that’s gone I’ll have to build something else to replace it. Sometines I do feel it would be nice for there to be someone else in my life, but solitude is what I’m used to, not something I want, but often what I need.

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  • in reply to Lotus

    Thanks for your reply. I’m sure it’s not depression, I had that when I was much younger, several times. This is more an outlook on life that I find quite expected given the way my mind works. Not so much feeling down, as just a bit lost. The structure that working life brought to my life however unwelcome, did prop me up. Now that’s gone I’ll have to build something else to replace it. Sometines I do feel it would be nice for there to be someone else in my life, but solitude is what I’m used to, not something I want, but often what I need.

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