Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all, new to the forum so no doubt this may have been covered somewhere in past history but i'm in a bit of a 'stuck' place at the minute and have been so for the past 3 or 4 years and really looking for some advice as to how best get out of it.
I'm nearly 40 and on the face of it just a usual bloke who likes football and having a pint but i'm currently awaiting diagnosis for aspergers which will take anything up to 3 years. Initial interviews and questionnaires has confirmed i am on the spectrum and it is believed i may have high functioning aspergers which has allowed me to live a life that any NT could reasonably expect to live thus far. Trying to function as an NT all my adult life when you may have dominant aspergers traits has been an absolute nightmare but so far i've pulled it off. I have a NT partner and a young NT daughter and up until the past few years i worked in a public focussed role.
I'm paying for it now though, i have quite severe anxiety disorder (especially social and new situations) as well as being diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and other medical conditions which also tap into my positivity reserves. I am of the belief that the pure stress of trying to function effectively and in this world whilst at the same time being true to my strong autistic beliefs has finally caused my body to start cracking.
Anyway, my problem is simple. I have very strict and exacting standards of behaviour and conduct that i feel is inherent within me and when these are not displayed by others i get stressed, agitated and upset/angry. The problem is that the levels of poor behaviour, manners, consideration for others and common sense in our society in general is rife and i have no way of dealing with it. I cannot change it nor can i escape it. Therefore i need to try and find a way of dealing with it so that i may once again find the motivation to get out into the world again and 'tolerate' people once more.
As it is now i've given up. I have no interest in people anymore, they bore me and especially through working the past 20 years i have discovered that most are self preserving and disingenuous. I've resigned from jobs because morally what i was being asked to do was against what the organisation stood for and i wasn't able to do this. The rest of the staff and management decided their jobs were more important than doing the right thing.
Society is so alien to me. I often feel that i am an alien put on earth as some sort of experiement to see how i get on. Obviously that's ridiculous but living amongst many people day in day out and the banality of life i do have to wonder. Even people who you least expect will ask you if you are on facebook or some other pointless internet sharing website where we can see the triviality of others lives and as soon as they have said that i have instantly made a decision that i need to restrict contact with this person a much as i can because immediately i have decided we have nothing in common.
I go to the cinema with my kid and grown adults are sat with their kids flicking through their mobile phones. That's bad enough but it's the lack of consideration for others. I am sensitive to the light given off by the phones in the dark cinema as it's distracting but now i no longer am able to sit and relax and enjoy the film with my daughter but now i have been put in a stressful position by someone else's inconsiderate behaviour whereby i have to either sit and endure this or go up and confront them about it. This happens every time i go.
I drive the 4 miles to my mums house to take her to the shops and i drive calmly to reduce my stress and try to be mindful at the same time. I drive at the speed limit usually but during my 4 mile trip i find myself having to pull over 4 or 5 times in order to let some idiot go past who is drving bumper to bumper with me. Again, i endure the stress of others behaviour for the 4 miles or i am inconvenienced into pulling over several times during the course of a car journey.This happens every time i go out anywhere in my car.
I take my little kid to school and mums and dads are fighting for parking space right outside the gates where if they set off 5 minutes earlier they could park around the corner, walk and talk with their child until they get to school and in addition they aren't causing disruption or a danger to children. The school have to call in the police and parking wardens to do something about the problem even though parents have been warned monthly in school newsletters. My daughters school is in a reasonably affluent area too. This happens every school day.
Summer comes and the barbecues come out in force. Not a problem with that generally but then the rap music makes an appearance at a hundred decibels. Why? Why is it not enough to be enjoying the company of your friends just chatting and laughing? Why has a barbecue got to be turned into some sort of dining / outside rave experience? There are other people in your street who want to listen to the birds outside and not some blinged up neanderthal making grunts and coarse sexual references every 2 seconds.
Again, these inconsiderate behaviours and lack of any standards in our society as i go about my daily life aren't just amongst the stereotypical ruffian types (i hate to stereotype but i just wanted to try and get the point across that selfishness and ignorance is rife in all sections of society and not just amongst groups of people you might at first think of (perhaps unfairly though) but across all areas of society and i can't tolerate it. I struggle to form friendships because basically if the other person is not pretty much identical to me in terms of outlook, morals and interests then i dismiss them. Customer service in this country is appalling, cleanliness and attention to detail in a lot of things are appalling.
So many apologies as this is turning in to a bit of rant which i never intended but basically i have got to the point where my limited interests and severe judgements of others has resulted in me not wanting to do anything because no matter where i go or what i do there will be an overwhelming percentage of people who i have to interact with who show behaviours or interests that i just cannot accept.
I think it's a case of i'm right and others are wrong if they don't agree with me which obviously cannot be the case but often i feel that i have to bring my kid up to be a self obsessed, material driven, arrogant, social media junkie because these are the traits that most people i come into contact with display to me and by being kind, considerate, humble, helpful, selfless, respectful she won't stand a hope in hell in fitting in with the world as it is now.
Of course i wouldn't do that, it's against my suspected aspie nature but if there are very few people out there like me then where do i go from here? Sorry, all a bit doom and gloom i guess but i don't want for it to be like that. I welcome your advice and experiences and to be honest, with the way in which successive Governments have let autistic people and their families fend for themselves the past God knows how many years, your input will do much to help. Don't soft soap, if you have a view on where i'm going wrong and i could benefit then please tell me. Thankyou.
Martian Tom said:When I was getting severe depressions, before my diagnosis, he didn't want to know. I would get the usual 'Look on the bright side', 'count your blessings' comments - and that was all. Following my diagnosis, I did my best to explain things to him, to show him literature, etc... but I might as well have been speaking ancient Greek to him! He simply doesn't get it at all. He'll say things like 'You need to get out more'.
When I was getting severe depressions, before my diagnosis, he didn't want to know. I would get the usual 'Look on the bright side', 'count your blessings' comments - and that was all. Following my diagnosis, I did my best to explain things to him, to show him literature, etc... but I might as well have been speaking ancient Greek to him! He simply doesn't get it at all. He'll say things like 'You need to get out more'.
Unless you have been through depression, or have been trained to deal with someone with depression, it really is difficult (or possibly unreasonable) to expect them to know how to deal with this situation. A good place to start is to do some research and look at articles like www.psychologytoday.com/.../6-things-you-can-say-support-someone-whos-depressed or go to http://therecoveryletters.com/ where you can read the experiences who have gone through this. I had no idea about any of this for most of my life, I am learning (somewhat belatedly) how to do things that I didn't know anything about until now.
As an autistic person with two years since diagnosis I still really struggle to explain what I am going through. Given that part of this package is communication problems it is well nigh impossible for us to explain (communicate) to non-autistic people what the problem is. I no longer expect people to get it at all - I don't really see how they can get it. What you can hope for (note the "hope" rather than "expectation") is to come across a small number of people who have enough empathy and sympathy to be a little more tolerant and accomodating of one's differences. Try to count the people that do get it rather than counting the number of people who don't get it and you have something to measure that can only go in the right direction. Treasure those people and nurture those relationships and don't resent the people that don't get it - they can't help it, it isn't deliberate or inconsiderate it is just that they don't see the need and don't know what to do.