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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...

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  • Paul_2025 said:
    I’m not sure what I was hoping to find in this on-line community.

    This site has many uses for an autistic person - friendship at a safe distance; shared values; being part of a community yet able to dip in and out without anyone questioning or pressing you to join in. Also, being able to give out ideas and read other people's ideas without fear of criticism. If I can't sleep or had a nightmare, I log in and read some of the threads or think up a thred to post - anything, something frivolous.

      

    Paul_2025 said:
    I now have the time to do things but no impulse.

    This is the problem about retirement at whatever age. For me, the trick is to always have a schedule /'to do' lists - the latter can comprise chores, cleaning, shopping or creative stuff like writing or craft - preferably a good mix for each day. I also create lists of little projects in the house or garden [depending on the time of year], so I always have something I can do. It might be as simple as watering and trimming house plants.

    Planning, buying materials then 'doing' the project is very satisfying. Days slip along nicely, because this way you choose to do things or not to.

    To avoid doldrum days [which I still experience], I find an 'end marker' - for example, 'before my GP appointment I'll finish [x or y]' or 'I'll do [x or y] before [specific TV programme] .

    Paul_2025 said:
    How do we find meaning and purpose in what may be our very isolated existences?

    This might be helpful - 5 ways to well-being from the New Economics Foundation.

Reply
  • Paul_2025 said:
    I’m not sure what I was hoping to find in this on-line community.

    This site has many uses for an autistic person - friendship at a safe distance; shared values; being part of a community yet able to dip in and out without anyone questioning or pressing you to join in. Also, being able to give out ideas and read other people's ideas without fear of criticism. If I can't sleep or had a nightmare, I log in and read some of the threads or think up a thred to post - anything, something frivolous.

      

    Paul_2025 said:
    I now have the time to do things but no impulse.

    This is the problem about retirement at whatever age. For me, the trick is to always have a schedule /'to do' lists - the latter can comprise chores, cleaning, shopping or creative stuff like writing or craft - preferably a good mix for each day. I also create lists of little projects in the house or garden [depending on the time of year], so I always have something I can do. It might be as simple as watering and trimming house plants.

    Planning, buying materials then 'doing' the project is very satisfying. Days slip along nicely, because this way you choose to do things or not to.

    To avoid doldrum days [which I still experience], I find an 'end marker' - for example, 'before my GP appointment I'll finish [x or y]' or 'I'll do [x or y] before [specific TV programme] .

    Paul_2025 said:
    How do we find meaning and purpose in what may be our very isolated existences?

    This might be helpful - 5 ways to well-being from the New Economics Foundation.

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