Basic lifestyle

Honestly....no problem what so ever firemonkey.

I understand why you reacted and you were very measured and fair.

I'm sorry for causing the confusion in the first place......and please rest assured (and I'm sure I've said this to you before....with honesty)....I consider you a friend.....fwiw.

Yours, Number.

I feel the same about my life, I'm often to busy to be able to do much as about all I've got the energy to do is flop on the sofa with a book or the telly. I don't collect anything but dust, I dont' go on youtube or play games. I too try and aim for as much stress reduction as possible, other people stress me out, tech stresses me out and too much socialising definately stresses me out, sometimes people try and challenge me about what I don't do and I think 'I'm 62 years old, I think I know what I enjoy and what makes me stressed and unhappy by now'. I'm OK talking with one other person at a time but more and it becomes stressful, I think a lot of my interests aren't shared by others, either on here or out in the world, I've got used to people looking at me like I'm about to sprout a second head.

I think you do brilliantly on here and are one of my favourite posters

Don't worry too much.
I can assure You that You are not alone.
It is just part of Your journey.
Best wishes.

That is all that is important. You *are* her father and she *is* your daughter. The rest is just a technicality.

I should put the record straight on that. We are not blood related, but mutually regard ourselves as father and daughter. I sometimes use the term 'chosen family' to describe our relationship. I have known her for over 40 years. Her birth father was a bad man who was out of her life before she was school age.

I don't think that my life would be much different if I had lost my wife. She really pushes me which is both good and bad. We can't have kids so you are blessed with a daughter and granddaughter which is something I'll never have.

I can be overly sensitive at times.   This was one of those occasions. You are liked and respected  here.  There's no reason why you should step away.

That’s interesting. Thank you :) 

ah this is kinda what i was saying. the written word is superior.... but the written word can be read wrong and over analysed and taken the wrong way so that a harmless comment that wasnt a attack or offence can be seen as a attack or offence in any writers eyes. anything written at all can be seen as harmful to someone, its inescapable and all based on the readers own mind and perception of how they read it or comprehended it. this is why arguments and fallouts on written social platforms always lead to arguments and fallouts without intent or reason.

basic is very good. its best to keep to basic.
alot of people on here do have very good social skill and say they have partner and child, which i cant fathom. and yet they are also on pip and somehow eligable for that based on autism when they have such vivid social lives. so it is odd and shows the system is flawed in many ways.

id prefer to just stay at home and play games and watch tv all day, but i have been forcing myself into a torturous entire day consuming afternoon to next morning job to pay my life. thats my only socialness. a forced one by work. and to be fair i prefer my personal life being unsocial now so i can cooldown from that. although the unsocialness before work was a factor that made me want work so i can get a bit of socialness for once.

i prefer written communication. but written communications are easy to misunderstand and misread for both sides and it always gets to argument in writing or offence. i had one recently in my flat management whatsapp group that decided to always take offence at everything i said, strawmanned me claiming i hate all the tenants there in order for them to believe him and believe i hate them so they then hate me, then he claimed im hiding behind a screen and wanted to violently say things to my face or something lol so even if your prefered is writing some knuckle dragging idiot will want to call you out and force a verbal communication anyway without regard to you not really saying anything verbal and it being a waste of time, although i did have a face to face and although i was silent and listening and not saying much i did ensure that im not backing down from him..... yeah anyway face to face verbal comms is never good, its always a threat, its always just a scum wanting to intimidate you but then as of his case im not the type to be scared and likely he got scared instead then began talking about how he has kids for some reason lol i did tell him im gonna get him evicted for his behaviour.... anyway verbal bad, written good, but written is misunderstood. english skills are key but i live in working class places and the working class are poorly educated so basic english comprehension very bad, these people have never read a book in their lives and dont know basic word meanings.

The way it was said within the topic I had started.

Thank you. Apart from some breakthrough paranoia the sz-a/sz  is in remission. The bullying related trauma,severe social anxiety, and physical health problems are bigger issues nowadays. I've had some rather crap treatment over the years from mental health  services, but can't fault my current mental health team at all.

I moved to be near my 'daughter' and her family. She arranged the move including talking to the mental health team here, and demolishing some long held  falsehoods about me. From what I've read it's very common for those of us  first dxed with SMI and then sometime later with ASD to have been treated less than well by mental health services. 

In my case I was seen in a negative light, and treated as though I had a major character defect, because I didn't fit the expected pattern of being uniformly good,average, or poor at things.

I've recently had several  people from the FB high IQ community suggest that I may have ADD. That was based on things I said. Such as difficulty prioritising when it comes to multistep tasks. Days when it's as though there are 20 different channels on at the same time ,each showing a different programme. Being more focussed/concentrating on things I like than those I 'm not interested in. 

I have good support from my daughter and my granddaughters. They help me a lot.

I have always been a bit of a TV addict, but watch less than I used to. There's more choice nowadays, but a lot of it is absolutely awful.

Thanks for your support Sparkly - that is very much appreciated - and you are completely correct in all you say here.

Dear Firemonkey,

I never feel the need, nor intend to be hurtful to you, nor other members.

My original comment above did not relate to you whatsoever.

I absolutely know that you are a real person, and someone with whom I do feel affinity with........and I do DEEPLY hope that I have been able to convey that to you during our many interactions in the past.

I need to step away for a bit.  I have caused trouble.

Rest assured Firemonkey - I know you to be real, with deep feelings....and with an impressive intellect.

I apologise for causing concern and/or upset to you.

Yours,

Number.

I am struggling to understand how Number's response to Kate Kestrel could be considered hurtful.

If I'm not mistaken, I think Number had been referring to something he had spotted in a different discussion that was not related to you or this discussion.

Anyway, on the topic of your basic lifestyle, I consider mine to be fairly basic too.

I would say on the whole you're describing the vast majority here, myself included. My days are filled with music, drawing and dolls. Sometimes I might watch a movie if my attention span is in a good enough state. 

I think everybody else is much the same. 

Some go to work or school, are mums and dads, but still fill their time with internet, TV and eating and drinking.

You literally summed up my parents lives when I was little :) 

I'm sorry you have schizoaffective/schizophrenia. I know how hard that can be to live with. I hope you're getting the support you need. 

That's what most people do, internet, tv, eat and drink. All of that actually sounds great to me. But I think you get bogged down by thinking that your social skills are less than that of others. But from reading what you've written in the comments, you got married and had a long term relationship with someone, even with the challenges and difficulties you have, which is quite the feat. 

You have ASD and schizoaffective/schizophrenia, and your body and mind are pulling a lot of its own resouces into processing and reacting to things all the time. So there's this internal struggle happening that no one sees, and it tires you and wears you down, and this all happens before you even get a chance at doing anything in your external environment. So if you had to do a task, it takes you ten times the effort to do that task, which means that overall you are much mentally stronger and more resilient than many other people. So if you just say hi to someone, go on a walk, or cook a meal, that's ten (or a hundred) times more impressive than if other people did the same thing. 

I got it wrong. Sorry.

I don't think any of you are judging me. I've always felt like an 'outsider' from as far back as I can remember. Much of that stemming from a difficulty making friends IRL. I was with an older woman, that I met during last psych admission, for 22 years. Married nearly 19. The last few years of her life she had vascular dementia. I had no friends to go with that. I read somewhere,can't remember exactly, it was a long time ago, that first impressions matter. How you come across within  the first minutes of a social interaction is how you are judged, as to whether you are worth knowing or not. I've failed that unwritten test IRL umpteen times. I do comparatively better, but by no means really well, when it comes to online interaction.

I think I'm somewhat different  from many people in the autistic community, those I've come across at least, in that  I'm far from stupid but my 'daughter' acts as my carer. That's because I struggle when it comes to daily practical tasks most people take in their stride . Adaptive functioning significantly  < IQ.

That's about the same for me barring work! But 100% agree with everything that Kate said, life can be super hard and you should be proud of everything that you do