Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello I'm new here.
I have decided to make this new thread because I am a 25 yr old who has been known to have aspergers syndrome since I was a child and have grown up knowing that. However recently it has started to begin bugging me in terms of how I cope in the outside world such as at work or around other people at social conventions. Because of this I have also felt very depressed and doubtful about my future with this condition of mine recently and my anxiety is starting to hit levels of which make me feel very uncomfortable as I have had suicidal thoughts in the past.
Apologies for going down that dark route but now that that's out of the way I am not on here to look for answers to why i am like this. I just want to ask those who also have this same or similar condition how they cope with it and how they feel most of the time when doing other activities affected by their condition.
Thank you all for reading.
I can agree with Graham - think about your skills and weaknesses and take advantage of them.
I used my abilites with detail & memory to go into engineering and found all those around me were very, very average - so I could easily out-perform them. I was able to end up working on my own to my own schedule as my manager had no understanding of what I was doing - but all the things I did made the company loads of money so they left me alone.
In social situations, you can prepare a small set of typical converstaion chunks that you can do well - holidays, weather, Christmas plans, new car etc. - then let others do a lot of the work for you - people love to talk about themselves and it's data that doesn't matter if you forget. You need to learn a couple of "nice talking to you, got to circulate some more" escape plans when you are beginning to run dry and need a rest.
I have gone down the dark route many times - but I am driven by the fact that tomorrow is another day and in reality, if you are prepared to think to that extreme, then you could channel that energy into completey turning your life around and do something else. I have friends that are undiagnosed and oblivious to their probable Aspergers - but they all get on with life - one is a pilot, one is a software engineer, one works for the post office, one runs his own business.
At 25, there are so many options available for you for taking control of the direction of your life.