Published on 12, July, 2020
I've come to this realisation today sat in the library of my old university that the trajectory of my life is that I will be forgotten and die alone. This is where inertia seems to be taking me. Around me I see students making friends, sharing drinks, laughing. I am forgotten. connectionless. My few friends are either distant, busy or suicidal. My family is restless and leaving me behind. I have no wife, girlfriend or children. No one shares my interests, no one gets me. No one who is available, connectable that is. All I have is my science. It's the only thing I've been able to hang on to and even that has been a huge struggle.
Even if I am successful by normal career metrics I will most likely die alone and friendless, a lonely old university 'don.' The people I thought I would grow old with when I was younger will forget me, many will not even hear of my passing when it comes. They have their wives, husbands, serious others, a few of them have 'besties' of 'bffs.' Platonic friends they seemed joined at the hip to. Evidently, they all decided that shouldn't be me. Many have just disappeared. Even their Facebook pages deleted, almost nothing to show they were ever a part of my life.
I am tired of trying to be strong. I’m tired of trying to be good and take the moral high ground. But I don’t know how to be bad and even if I did it’s too late to do me any good. Lives of selfish and destructive indulgence are a young mans game and every day my body seems to betray me a little more. For years I tried to just pretend I wasn’t getting old. That nothing had changed since I was 18 or so. I probably still will as well as I can.
No councillor can help me. No program of inner healing or self-reflection can fix this mess. I need my circumstances to change. And no body cares. How could they, they barely know I exists and when I remind them of my existence the usual reaction is to try to sideline or exclude me as quickly as possible.
I need to do something radical. To pick the nuclear option, other wise my life will spiral down the plug hole unless a deus ex machina intervenes. But I’ve no idea what the nuclear option is.
Ideas?
Peter said:No councillor can help me. No program of inner healing or self-reflection can fix this mess. I need my circumstances to change.
Have you tried a psychotherapist specialising in autism to work through this? I think you will find this gives way more results than changing your circumstances and expecting something different.
If you change the circumstances, will you be a different person? I suspect not, so why would you expect this to change things?
Change comes from within - in your case you need to learn how to make connections that are meaningful to you, otherwise you are just a name, a piece of data that people would remember rather than a person they care about.
My thoughts would be to start making a positive difference in other peoples lives. Start volunteering for a charity to help those who really need help. Also learn some basics of social interactions to help you understand what is going on around you.
That is a meaningful thing to do and something that is likely to result in people connecting with you and remembering you in the present and in the future.
Iain said:If you change the circumstances, will you be a different person?
That makes no sence. I mean actually I will. I find that me around other nerds who share my interests and sence of hummer is almost a difrent me. That's been my experence. It's part of being an extravert I think. Social interaction recharges me, if it's meaningfull in nature. But even in general if you said to a quadrapleagic, 'will your life really change if you could get up and walk, you will be the same person,' they'd say of course it would.
Iain said:Change comes from within - in your case you need to learn how to make connections that are meaningful to you, otherwise you are just a name, a piece of data that people would remember rather than a person they care about.
Change comes from taking action. Either my action or someone elses. All the mental gymnastics in the world won't help unless it leads to new courses of action. For instance I've tried volenteering. I never really got close to the volenteers. I got closer to the people I was helping but that was a very unequal relationship. Not really a good basis for a frendship.
I'm open to the idea of a specialist in autistic therapy but it's a mute point because A) I don't know where I'd find one and B) I don't have the money right now.
Peter said:Change comes from taking action.
I was referring to change in your ability to find meaningful connections. By moving to a new place and acting in the same way you are unlikely to make much of an improvement, but changing how you behave is much more likely to make an improvement on how people interact with you. The behaviour is the "within" part I referred to.
I'm not talking about masking, but looking into why you are having people tell you to stop talking to them.
Peter said:They told me to stop texting / ringing them because I was stressing them out. 2
Understanding the rules of the social contract of neurotypicals is most likely to help here and working through where you are failing these with a therapist is where you will find ways to adapt.
Finding a therapist is pretty straightforward - have a look on https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/counselling/england?category=autism
They typically charge in the region of £50/hour so you can budget for this - I think they quote their rates in their profile.
Armed with this self knowledge and understaning the rules better it should be much easier to go out and socialise.
Peter said:beyond my controle no doubt.
Not so mate. Read below !
Iain said:I'm sorry if that wasn't what you were after - I took the "ideas?" part to mean you were looking for input. I wasn't aware of the back story you have now furnished but will temper future input with this in mind,
Sorry I didn't mean to come off as harsh. I'm just tired of rehashing old arguments and hearing the same 'advice' over and over.
Iain said:From what I have experienced the key seems to be not just holding onto the past things that made you happy but constantly looking out for new things to experience, subjects to explore and people to know - that constant renewal of the joy of living makes all the crap that goes with lifes difficult times tolerable.
I don't disagree. But those 'new things' that catch my interest seem to turn up less often nowerdays. a side effect of being forced into a more insular life by circumstances beyond my controle no doubt.
Peter said:You may call that growing up I call it losing what makes you special and I’ve known some special people and it’s so heartbreaking to see them lose that magic quality
This is a big part of the journey through life for NTs and for many NDs too - it is easy to loose yourself in the "responsibilities" of everything from further education, jobs, mortgages, children, looking after elderly parents, looking after a partners failing health, getting old yourself etc.
From what I have experienced the key seems to be not just holding onto the past things that made you happy but constantly looking out for new things to experience, subjects to explore and people to know - that constant renewal of the joy of living makes all the crap that goes with lifes difficult times tolerable.
Peter said:You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, you’re just offering solutions that I already know don’t work.
I'm sorry if that wasn't what you were after - I took the "ideas?" part to mean you were looking for input. I wasn't aware of the back story you have now furnished but will temper future input with this in mind,