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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 think you need to spend some time learning how to be a human being rather than a human doing. Retiring from work is a big thing, no matter how welcome, it removes both structure and purpose from our days, a lot of autistic people find some kind of structure really important, even down to the little things, like putting on your work clothes and having regular set hours imposed from outside.

    It sounds to me like you've not really found where you need to be yet, you've lots of ideas' photography, drawing etc, but don't seem to find a way to fit them in. Maybe when you go for a walk, don't take your camera or sketch book, just be in the moment and don't try and filter everything you see through a lens of "doing". This will give space for things to come to you and hopefully help you find where you need to be.

    You are normal, you don't need to compare yourself to others and find yourself wanting, what do you get out of all this comparison? If it gives you a list of shoulds and oughts then stop it, why not compare yourself to other autistic people? Trying to compare yourself with NT people is like comparing apples and pears, theres nothing wrong with either of them, they're just not the same. Also, don't forget that a lot of NT people lie about their lives, they're no where near as perfect as they appear from the outside and what they tell you is what they think you want to hear. I think a lot of NT people think they have to live life as shown in a colour supplement in a sunday newspaper, no one does, well some people seem to live charmed lives, but everybody else just muddles through.

    I read, I garden and I cook, I wish I had time and energy for more and the money and space too.  

Reply

  • I think you need to spend some time learning how to be a human being rather than a human doing. Retiring from work is a big thing, no matter how welcome, it removes both structure and purpose from our days, a lot of autistic people find some kind of structure really important, even down to the little things, like putting on your work clothes and having regular set hours imposed from outside.

    It sounds to me like you've not really found where you need to be yet, you've lots of ideas' photography, drawing etc, but don't seem to find a way to fit them in. Maybe when you go for a walk, don't take your camera or sketch book, just be in the moment and don't try and filter everything you see through a lens of "doing". This will give space for things to come to you and hopefully help you find where you need to be.

    You are normal, you don't need to compare yourself to others and find yourself wanting, what do you get out of all this comparison? If it gives you a list of shoulds and oughts then stop it, why not compare yourself to other autistic people? Trying to compare yourself with NT people is like comparing apples and pears, theres nothing wrong with either of them, they're just not the same. Also, don't forget that a lot of NT people lie about their lives, they're no where near as perfect as they appear from the outside and what they tell you is what they think you want to hear. I think a lot of NT people think they have to live life as shown in a colour supplement in a sunday newspaper, no one does, well some people seem to live charmed lives, but everybody else just muddles through.

    I read, I garden and I cook, I wish I had time and energy for more and the money and space too.  

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