What is the point of it all

Hi TheHopster, I think the fact you've posted on here indicates you still somewhere have a bit of hope that your life might be better than you fear.  If so, I believe that hope is justified.  I've recently been clinically diagnosed at 55 with both Asperger's and severe depression (for which I don't take medication) - but I had both, and other related problems, thirty-five years ago when I was your age at university.

I'm not about to give you a pep talk about how wonderful life is and how everything will be fine.  There have been - and still are - many days in my life, especially in middle-age, when I too have felt life is overrated and barely worth living.  But if I were 20 again, and had a diagnosis, I'd certainly want to access all the support I could and try to make a go of it.  I know that service availability varies across the country but I hope you're accessing all the support you can.  Besides specialist autism services, what about university counsellors or personal tutors?  There is at least more understanding of Asperger Syndrome now than in my youth, when virtually nobody (including me) had even heard of it.

Just because you don't have friends or a relationship now doesn't mean that will always be the case.  I had no friends at all during most of my grammar school life, and only casual acquaintances in university, but I did make a few close friends in my twenties and one of them became a partner with whom I've lived for 27 years (and yes, it's a difficult partnership - like most marriages!)  For me, the breakthrough was the full independence I gained when I left my parents' home completely at 22, though it meant living in a grotty bedsitter for a while.

The ways in which your Asperger's affects you will no doubt be different to mine.  We're all different.  But when I was your age at university, I was so socially phobic (not lazy) I could not even use the toilets in the halls of residence which were shared with a bunch of particularly boisterous trainee PE teachers.  Any attempt at socialising would cause my hands and voice to shake.  These and (what I only now recognise as) other Asperger-related problems always prevented me landing a job commensurate with my university degree.  But maybe if I'd had the support now being offered to me (rather too late) I would have been more successful both in employment and the social world.

Life, for most people, is a constant challenge of struggling to overcome boundaries, but they are different for everyone.  My father, for example, had both his legs amputated in World War Two at the age of eighteen. The media bombard us every day with illusory images of a perfect life but I've never got to know anyone well - whether autistic or not - who is actually carefree and happy.  Indeed, when pressed on the point, several friends who appeared quite content told me they actually did not care whether they lived or died.  But so far they've chosen to remain living.

Hi TheHopster, I think the fact you've posted on here indicates you still somewhere have a bit of hope that your life might be better than you fear.  If so, I believe that hope is justified.  I've recently been clinically diagnosed at 55 with both Asperger's and severe depression (for which I don't take medication) - but I had both, and other related problems, thirty-five years ago when I was your age at university.

I'm not about to give you a pep talk about how wonderful life is and how everything will be fine.  There have been - and still are - many days in my life, especially in middle-age, when I too have felt life is overrated and barely worth living.  But if I were 20 again, and had a diagnosis, I'd certainly want to access all the support I could and try to make a go of it.  I know that service availability varies across the country but I hope you're accessing all the support you can.  Besides specialist autism services, what about university counsellors or personal tutors?  There is at least more understanding of Asperger Syndrome now than in my youth, when virtually nobody (including me) had even heard of it.

Just because you don't have friends or a relationship now doesn't mean that will always be the case.  I had no friends at all during most of my grammar school life, and only casual acquaintances in university, but I did make a few close friends in my twenties and one of them became a partner with whom I've lived for 27 years (and yes, it's a difficult partnership - like most marriages!)  For me, the breakthrough was the full independence I gained when I left my parents' home completely at 22, though it meant living in a grotty bedsitter for a while.

The ways in which your Asperger's affects you will no doubt be different to mine.  We're all different.  But when I was your age at university, I was so socially phobic (not lazy) I could not even use the toilets in the halls of residence which were shared with a bunch of particularly boisterous trainee PE teachers.  Any attempt at socialising would cause my hands and voice to shake.  These and (what I only now recognise as) other Asperger-related problems always prevented me landing a job commensurate with my university degree.  But maybe if I'd had the support now being offered to me (rather too late) I would have been more successful both in employment and the social world.

Life, for most people, is a constant challenge of struggling to overcome boundaries, but they are different for everyone.  My father, for example, had both his legs amputated in World War Two at the age of eighteen. The media bombard us every day with illusory images of a perfect life but I've never got to know anyone well - whether autistic or not - who is actually carefree and happy.  Indeed, when pressed on the point, several friends who appeared quite content told me they actually did not care whether they lived or died.  But so far they've chosen to remain living.