asplanet.info

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"The Autistic Community Mourns the Passing of Alyric a long-time activist
and supporter of autistic rights and neurodiversity. She passed away on
April 18, 2009, after a long and courageous battle with cancer. Her blog A
Touch of Alyricism <http://alyric. blogspot. com/> will remain intact. With
her incisive commentary, Alyric was unwavering in her commitment to defend
the rights of autistics to respect, honesty and accuracy in science and
reporting, and was unafraid to take a strong stand about issues she believed
in. Alyric touched many lives. She was always ready to help advocates with
research, support, and encouragement. She was a well-respected advocate who
made profoundly important and meaningful contributions to our community. We
will miss her vibrant presence. Several bloggers have posted tributes to
Alyric; here is one that describes her advocacy efforts<http://gonzogalore.

blogspot.com/2009/ 04/in-memoriam. html>inmore detail."

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I feel sad today: trapped within my own self made glass cage, where do you reach out too when mostly others do not understand, or wrongly judge. At times I feel like I have been sent to exile by the world, when everything I most love seems out of reach… a disconnect, at times I feel others unaware how their actions cause me so much pain…

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I have been reflecting over the new year on why I continue to come back to the black pit apart from the circle of life, what we know is where we always seem to end up the safer option, for me anyway at times is to hide away rather than face up to some factors, especially emotional issues... but the none parallel of my life with others does not help, my reality can be different in my eyes from what others expect of me at times. My version of things I wonder are they a little like in the movies or how I feel they should be, how off side is my comparable. We grow up and many of us are continually told who, how we should be and so often the very core of who we are is forgotten.... so no surprise many of us lack self belief.

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Being diagnosed late in life not easy either, as many of us get set in our ways, routines and then as we try and refit the broken puzzle pieces of our life's, change is inevitable and as we all know change for any aspie never easy, especially when flooded with so many things, questions to worry about!

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If only other people could understand Aspergers better, instead of expecting us all to change. I feel it is important to hear other people's point of view on this subject, especially if having a hard time yourself, always good to know you're not the only one. Can you imagine from birth being brought up as someone else, that's often what it's like for us. It can be so confusing growing up thinking your an NT, when in fact   an aspie - differently minded from others, not knowing can have huge consequences.

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We all have our melting points, to others I may seem strong, positive. But there are as I like to say my umbra moments, when the source of light goes into the shadows a total eclipse. The days when I just feel a need to hide away from a world that at times I guess can be exhausting to us all.... who knows if I will ever be free of my dark shadows, I'm not crazy or depressed, just a little lonely, lost and often so misunderstood. So please take a little longer to read and try and understand, as so many of us feel alienated from a society we were born to live in and I cannot always live on your terms only.

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Other people had a hard time understanding me full stop! I discovered Aspergers and with that came a personality reboot. Autism is my core and other things my outer layers. The best way forward is based upon understanding and the acceptance of difference. Remember that Aspergers Syndrome is also an expression of a different kind of personality that has inherent value. We benefit from help to develop ourselves where we are weak (typically socially) and are not 'broken mental defectives' in need of fixing. Saying that try altering my daily plans, then I may go into battle mode. I seem to need my routine and rituals otherwise may attack… feel this is just my subconscious protecting me and my Aspie differences, how else would we survive in a mainly NT world.

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If you're feeling lost come and join us on AsPlanet

The Black Pit - http://asplanet.info/forum/index.php?topic=875.0 

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"I feel kind of scared to even talk about this topic, and it may be a topic that no one else here experiences. But I feel like I live my life on the edge of a big, deep, intensely dark black pit. It takes all my focus and energy to keep myself above ground and in the sunshine, and I do manage to do that, but the fear of the black pit is always with me. The black pit is, I guess, the feeling that I'm about to screw everything in my life up and bring the sky down on myself by making some big mistake. Or something scary and awful is looming on the horizon about to jump on me and my animals and family. Or I don't even really know what it is!  Sometimes everything does go wrong in my life, and I fall off the edge and into the pit. Those are the really tough times in my life.....  Can anyone else relate to anything like this at all? ." 

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"I think I can I call it my empty place, it’s like I use to always want to be "normal" well like everyone else or so I thought, but that is changing I do now know I am not well will ever be the average "normal" but also not sure where if I will ever fit in, guess I am still searching looking for answers myself, but I also have dark moments when the world closes in. I think I read somewhere on this site which I feel describes it best "on the inside, looking out" it’s like the world is there but in the distance and I can never quite reach, it can feel almost like I exists in my own parallel world at times   the problem is when I make the effort to step over, so to speak I always want to run back to my own space and so never quite get there"

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"Sounds like most of my life, I call it the empty void   to be honest thats changing since discovering Aspergers and at last getting to understand my true self... before I often had times when I felt so totally lost and alone, and the intensity as you say is hard to explain. Many would say if I even tried to explain, your depressed but always knew this was not the case, it was more somehow, a total alienation from the world as we are meant to know it. Its like none thing we do seems to feel or be right, I am beginning to realize this was because I was in a way living a false life, a life of false hope and misconceptions....
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But  I am now learning to understand my differences and that in fact my symptoms are a part of who I am and living my life to suit my aspieness helps, instead of trying too hard to be what I am not, an average "norm" not even sure what that anymore! But many of us on the autism spectrum have seem to of gone via a never ending roller coaster ride to get to a place where we can feel content within ourselves. So I want you to know your truly not alone in your thoughts, or in this world.. but we need to understand ourselves and accept to allow change...
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Saying that I have found to keep a balance in my life I lead a life that fits me and my extremities and guess have stopped trying to fit into a world that I feel will never quite fit as I thought I should, we do not have to, we just need confidence of self..."

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"The black pit, the empty place, the empty void... i call it the abyss. It yawns in front of me when i realize I’ve made a mistake, when someone informs me of my shortcomings, when i feel i can never do anything right, that I’m a total loser, when depression threatens to swallow me....  it's always been there, ever since i was a child. I used to think it lived in my wardrobe!! Nowadays, it looms much less than it used to. Meditation and being on the spiritual path has helped. Finding out about being an Aspie has helped. Accepting and understanding myself has helped. "

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The Abyss, Unknown

Mysteries in the deep zone

Beneath the lost surface

Endless, bottomless depths

Surreal conflicting merge

Between the real and unreal

A dark void of emptiness

Maybe all things do exists

Where I dare not think of

But in my darkest moments

I am pulled in and sucked out

My life form is in question

My minds sub consciousness

Or maybe insane delusions

I believe infinite self-giving

Divine light shines through

Intensity of past and Perception

Only then will change occur

My parallel world may exist

Alyson Bradley  - January 2009

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 I believe in being positive - However, many of us on the autism

spectrum have many associated conditions and at times out  extreme

moods, complexities, society ignorance and general misunderstanding

can lead us all to question self and at times I feel myself being pulled

back into that "black pit", dark space.... but I have learned to embrace

my differences and all my symptoms as part of self and in fact in some of

my darker moments is when I am most creative, we cannot be positive

all the time, so dealing with our lowest moments in positive light helps.

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I do not like socialize much, but too much solitude I find depressing There are times I want to be like everyone else, get invited somewhere, just go and enjoy... but never happens, I over analyze, fuss, think and worry before I even get there. I had to go to a neighbor’s party and as usual was worrying about it all week, over preparing what to take, wear etc... always find it hard meeting lots of new people, awkward moments and hard to get out of going when next door... so nervous started breaking things before even got there and then drank far too much, as rarely drink these days for that very reason. If I am not in control I can kind of lose self, become very agitated, it’s like a duck out of water just does not work for long. Trying to be self in a NT alien world amusing to say the least. But I have found the more I believe in the aspie me and allow, I feel more at ease and even if I am a little quirky, different given up trying to be someone else, lost to many years already pretending.

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Screammmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm until no more!
I can totally understand the painting "The Scream by Edvard Munchu"

great painting, but feel you have to know to appreciate.

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I do find I need the outside contact or I start to cut myself off more and more, at times I wish I could but with children I have to be seen to be as normal as others expect a mother should be. This I find extremely hard at times, because it like out in the real world I cannot be true self, but know for my children sake I need to and my older son is on the autism spectrum himself. Maybe once they grow up I will exclude myself more and find real happiness who knows... But I also know only too well about the dark pit, but my moods like my other symptoms I have learned to live with, when feeling very low this is often when I am most creative and like to back away from people, but when I feel good I can handle people so much more and in fact can enjoy going out then, as much as I understand self I know I will never totally fit in, so I will continue to be a global cyber-surf trotter and continue to help the world understand that we should be able to live in this world differently able, as I would not expect my NT child to live as an aspie!

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Another autism sufferer let down

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/letters/autism-sufferer-

Alison Dixon continues fight for better alcohol services

http://www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk/sentinelle/Son-s-drink

-addictio-spurs-mum-action-audio/article-480438-detail/article.html

Join us on the asplanet forum to discuss more:

http://asplanet.info/forum/index.php?topic=970.0

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What one sees as a mental condition could just be another moment

of pure genius, I see mental illness as a label to  get everyone to

conform, control difference, ifwe do not step outside, push the

boundaries the world would stay static.  But at times it feels like

a society that never allowed many of us to be, push us to the limit

and then feel a need to give us more labels which they often caused!

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The National Autistic Society - Mental health and Asperger syndrome:

http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=128&a=3346

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Virgil Swing: Many people still uninformed about ‘mental illness’

It’s hard to stay away from people with mental illness because, during their lifetimes, almost one of every two Americans will be mentally ill — and about 22 percent will be in any one year. By: Virgil Swing, Budgeteer News 26 March 2009

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I’m mentally ill. You know, one of those dangerous people you try to avoid. Actually, it’s hard to stay away from people with mental illness because, during their lifetimes, almost one of every two Americans will be mentally ill — and about 22 percent will be in any one year. And rarely are the mentally ill dangerous to others, though some are to themselves.

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Most Americans know way too little about mental illness. The stigma that goes with mental illness leads some people to hide it, and ignorance about its frequency keeps many people from getting needed treatment. The nation’s psychiatrists and psychologists have failed us by not telling this story in a way that reaches most Americans. In the last 25 years, science has found many drugs that effectively treat forms of mental illness. The federal government has mandated equal treatment of mental illness in most health insurance policies, effective Jan. 1, 2010.

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My forms of mental illness are Tourette syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder, with the latter problem likely piggybacking on Tourette’s. Don’t take my word for anything here (except my own forms of mental illness) but verify anything I say that interests you with reliable sources. The best is the National Institute of Mental Health, part of the National Institutes of Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Like anything else, you can find many things on the Internet about mental illness. Ignore the ones who say it doesn’t exist, is a communist conspiracy or is due to eating cucumbers.

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Here are some facts about mental illness:

Most mental illnesses have physical causes. It is a “mental” illness because it affects our brains and behaviors.

Most forms of mental illness have a wide range of effects. Scientists now speak of autism spectrum disorders because they’ve learned many with the illness do not have the classic symptoms of not speaking or showing emotion. Many of those with Asperger syndrome, a form of autism, are functioning members of society, though often with difficulty.

The large majority of those with mental illness live fully in society and their illnesses are often not visible. They marry, have kids, work and do all the other things Americans do. The numbers below on the extent of this illness, unless otherwise noted, are for adults only and those affected in any one year.

The biggest single group with mental illness has what experts call mood disorders: depression, dysthymic and bipolar. Major depression affects about 15 million people; dysthymic disorder (milder depression) affects about 3.3 million and bipolar 5.7 million.

Schizophrenia affects 2.4 million.

Panic disorders harm about 6 million Americans.

Obsessive-compulsive behavior affects about 2.2 million.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, which many of us associate with military folks returning from war, strikes many more than that: about 7.7 million.

Generalized anxiety disorders hit 6.8 million Americans, and social phobias trouble some 15 million.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which draws the attention of parents of elementary-age kids, also affects millions — but there is controversy over the numbers and I won’t suggest any.

Autism, much in the news lately, also has disputed numbers of sufferers, but it is estimated to affect about 340,000 children ages 3 to 10.

Alzheimer’s disease, which those in my age group have to think about, affects about 4.5 million Americans, most of them older than age 65.

And then you have those with eating disorders, problem gamblers and others with addictive behaviors that likely have a physical cause and certainly affect their lives.

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The above numbers are all taken from the National Institute of Mental Health and can be verified on the organization’s Web site. My goal here is, in my little way, to improve the lives of those with mental illness by encouraging those lucky enough not to have it to be more understanding — and thus remove the stigma that goes with it.

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We don’t stigmatize folks with cancer or heart problems — why those with mental illnesses? Remember, that includes about half of us. My next column will talk more about this, specifically my little-understood disorder of Tourette syndrome, which is significantly under-diagnosed and under-treated. Virgil Swing has been writing opinion about Duluth for many years. E-mail him at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

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Disorders like autism and schizophrenia - link! 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/11/health/research/11brain.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin

"After all autism and schizophrenia are just labels names, for different types

of people, it's the misunderstood part that seems to worry many, or the continuous

bad press, every person is not like the worst person and same for us with ASD

whatever our other conditions may or may not be, there will always be extreme,

bad people on and off the autism spectrum  -  AsPlanet forum"

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Why will no one listen to me! The times I hear but my parents or friends will not listen or try and understand. Many just have no idea, first it's vital we get the support and understanding we need and if parents refuse to listen maybe ask a doctor or a profession to speak for you to them. Also try sending them emails about what it's like for you, as sometimes it's hard for us to express ourselves and so others do not listen, written words I find myself are a better way to communicate at times. When the school for my now teenager on the autism spectrum like myself would not listen, as when we voice things people can easy dismiss and only see from their point of view, so have found school etc... take more note if really explain and put in writing. When I first found I had Aspergers it took me a while to understand, and we can only help others understand if they want to know or listen, so much more awareness is needed for this reason. So it's no surprise some of us get a little paranoid from time to time I use to when younger as everything I seem to do and say was questioned!

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Mom of Ian: July 31, 1987 – March 11, 2006

I have been following the "dark side" of aspergers comments. I should say I am considered NT, however I know I have many NLD characteristics and consider myself ndiagnosed NLD. My son was diagnosed with Aspergers at 15, then later the diagnosis was changed to NLD – correctly, I believe.

My son had many, many dark moments before he lost his life to suicide at the age of 18. But I believe those with Aspergers and NLD have wonderful gifts and strengths. Our world would be a poorer place without NLD and Aspergers.

My son had an amazing memory and a wonderful sense of humor and loved history. We thought he'd make a fantastic history teacher – and have the capacity to make the subject come alive. His skills in reading, writing and grammer were without equal, he would've been a great english teacher, writer or editor. He was a loyal and loving friend and son and everyone who knew him said he was the best listener and helped his friends through tough times. He had so much to offer, but, in a moment of despair he lost his life and my husband and I lost our wonderful, beloved son, his sister lost her best friend and companion and his friends lost a very well-loved friend. And the world lost a truly remarkable young man.

I am writing because all these entries have brought tears to my eyes. Each and every person with NLD/Aspergers has wonderful gifts, strengths and insights. The world would be a very boring place if it were only filled with NT's. And, as the statistics show, more and more people are being diagnosed with various forms of autism. I believe NT's are going to have to wake up and accept and understand those on the spectrum – since there are more and more being diagnosed every day.

It makes me sad to see those with Aspergers/NLD trying to "fit in" to an NT world. Make it your world! Make the NT's fit into YOUR world! You (we) all have so much to offer.

Just my thoughts on the subject…

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Comment

I'm sorry... I grieve with you for Ian... and thank you for your compliments on my writing...

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NT's- Neurotypicals

(consistent with what most people would perceive as normal)

NLD - Nonverbal learning disorder - see link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonverbal_learning_disorder

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DICKINSON SPEAKS OUT ABOUT DAUGHTER'S DEATH

Movie & Entertainment News provided by World Entertainment News Network 05 Dec 2007

Actress ANGIE DICKINSON has opened up for the first time about her autistic daughter NIKKI's suicide.
The Ocean's Eleven star agreed to talk about the tragedy to fashion bible Vanity Fair for the publication's January (08) issue.

Nikki, 40, took her own life after battling autism-related Aspergers Syndrome Her mother says, "I miss Nikki so much, but it was her decision. The world was too harsh a place for her." Dickinson reveals her daughter was the reason she stepped back from Hollywood’s glare at the prime of her acting career.
She adds, "Nikki needed me so strongly. It wasn't a sacrifice. Would I have been out working? Yes, if I didn't have a daughter who needed me."

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Comment (Alyson):

I was lost as a child and have now found my true self, the real me."

Was it really Nikki's decision to take her own life, no one will ever know, but in some of my dark lonely, confused, misunderstood moments it so easily could of been me. So I feel a connection to Nikki as I do within the Aspie world, which where at last I have found understanding and able to be the real me.

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Quote: I feel life is a journey and we all have to learn to ride the

 storm,  for some of us it can seem more like a tidal wave, but with

 every storm the sun eventually comes back out. - Alyson Bradley

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 Dark Moments -  varies comments from different people - Aug.07

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I don't know quite how to phrase this, so it may seem like I'm starting in the middle: Why isn't the darker side of those of us who are on the autistic spectrum discussed/dealt with? By the darker side, I mean things like extreme frustration that leads to bitterness and perhaps even hatred, unwillingness to admit to any kind of "condition" by either the person or the person's family/friends, that dark downward spiral where they don't have a word for it that darkness takes over where a person simply has to close off contact with others, and, perhaps despise others, just to survive?

The "darker side" certainly exists. I can remember back in 1999 when I was working I was convinced I was incompetent at my job, and my boss was going to find out soon and fire me, and I wasn't every going to get a job again, and that my family could be better off if I just went up to the eighth floor and jumped out a window. That was before medication. The medication my doctors have given me has done a very good job in getting rid of that kind of depression.

I was thinking. I didn't have trouble reading in class, nor did I have too much trouble giving a presentation, I just "flunked" on social cues/situations. I guess that would be the "dividing line"? ut have heard of others saying no one knew, because I did not let them know, will can be to good at covering up own true suffering.

Is it because society doesn't want to admit that they are a big part of the problem? What about us, ourselves? Is it because we are scared/ashamed to admit this part of ourselves?. Or, is this just part of global human experience that nobody cares to discuss? Hm. Guess I could ask the same question on a gifted board......the extreme pit of what I've seen termed "existential depression".

Anyway, the reason I'm asking is because, there is definitely some type of autism or autistic-like "thing" on my Dad's side of the family, but I'm the only one who will openly talk about it. And, we've definitely got a "dark" side to us. It kind of takes the form of severe grudge holding, isolation on purpose, sometimes domestic violence, self-destruction, disconnection from even other family members, etc.

Personally, I am at the point where I am more aware now, not just of myself, but also of how the family interacts/does not interact, and of how society messes with people like us just because they can AND that the intersection of all this can be overwhelming. My Dad cut himself off from even his own siblings before he died, and, while I have no siblings, I find myself wanting to cut myself off from my own kids,and definitely from people in my church/community. I have to fight off bitterness and hatred a lot, and, sometimes I end up sounding like Dad did, what he said about people.

Interestingly, I don't find myself wanting to cut myself off from my husband very often, and, I think that is because he pretty much respects me for who I am and doesn't try to make me attend gatherings, etc., doesn't try to make me force myself to be "normal".

When I think about it, the struggle inside myself comes when I have to interact or think about interacting, or trying to rehearse how to interact if I'm caught off guard where I have to do so, and, probably the frustration and use of energy that comes from all of that.

Ok, if you read this far, thanks for struggling through my attempt to write something coherent.

I'm glad xxxxxx brought this topic up.."Dark Side". a couple of concepts come to mind: learning what we're taught/shown and the hazards of seeing too clearly.

While I like to think of myself as pretty disconnected from the messier aspects of socialization - picking up others' "bad habits" through imitation, indoctrination, or just immersion in them - my own behavior *and thinking* carry a lot of echoes of whatever I've been exposed to. Whatever I've been raised in is "how the world is", period. And even if I have difficulty with social understanding and behavior, it's still plausible, maybe inevitable, that I would absorb the emotional milieu/environment around me. (I feel strong internal responses to others' feelings, even if I have no idea what had caused them to feel that way.) So I wind up learning an emotional worldview just like I learn the names of objects and people. I find myself imitating behavior I do not understand, and thinking in patterns that are so ingrained it's hard to even see them as patterns - they're "just how things are".

And when I don't see my own patterns of thought as choices - as one way to think about things instead of the only way - then I'm likely to believe those patterns *are* "me". Without awareness that things could ever be different, I could stay stuck in them indefinitely.

When I look around at the world in general, things may not appear real great either... it can seem like zillions of people are stuck in patterns of thought and behavior that just don't work, or stuck in constantly seeking entertainment/ distraction/ stimulation to keep from thinking about how unsatisfying life seems to them. Yuck. The Moody Blues had a song in their 1972 album "Seventh Sojourn" titled, "Lost in a Lost World." What good is it to see clearly or think deeply if everything that's around seems to suck? Why bother even trying to interact with that mess?

But my perception/evaluati on is subjective, not objective... it's influenced/colored by my own patterns of thought. If I expect things to be dysfunctional, then by golly that's what I'll see pretty much everywhere I look. Life seems to live up - or down - to my expectations of it. Everything won't become wonderful if I take a fresh look at it, but little pockets of opportunity may start showing up. I've come to treasure ordinary interactions with sales clerks and the like, where things go smoothly and pleasantly. Most people would barely notice such things, but I choose to treat them as little successes. Thus any given day might have a bunch of these little successes, and I can feel good at night looking back on them. Of course they're not profound, but they are a chance for me to touch the edges of connectedness without having to immerse myself in it. I get to be me and still interact; I get to be me without feeling alienated. Not a bad deal.

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Comment:

I can so relate to the above stories, sounds just like my mother. Would go to visit my parents and quite often only see my dad, as my mother especially in her later years would just lock herself away and see no one. It was not until after she died that I started to look at myself and could see I was beginning to prefer my own world. But since being diagnosed that has all changed, unfortunately my mother spent her life lost and confused, still unknowingly she has now helped me and I will in turn do everything I can to help raise awareness and understanding. Because I truly feel understand, knowing you have asperger is the key to excepting and being able to be your true self.

I do also agreed with the above we do need to talk more about the "dark side" and I will be doing so soon...but is it a dark side, or is it that we are brought up to feel we are wrong, and grow up feeling lost and confused!

I think the hardest part being an aspie and living with a none aspie can be the lack of understanding of each other at times. For me it’s like I'm expected to conform and be like the norm most of the time and this I feel is where the problem really lies, It’s like if you had to try and act and be like me have asperger for most of the time, there would be a point where it would wear you down.

I have found with most asperger people they have a point and then just need a little of their own head space, time to be them self, without others trying to convince them to do things that are not always natural to them. It’s like we have to grow up being told so often we are wrong, when really we are just different and it’s important for others to step back from time to time and reassess this.

A lot of our frustrations and angry is often from lack of being understood, that emotional build up has to come out somewhere and quite often it’s the people closes to us who are the triggers. I need to be myself now and again why should I have to conform all the time, there is always a middle ground. But at the end of the day who are we conforming for! and if we need time to be alone, what’s wrong with that. (see my profile for more)

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Comment

I'm male, and can identify with this kind of experience. Like you, I tend to concentrate too much on negative things and find that it gets in the way of my enjoyment of life. I have to make a conscious effort to focus on the positives. And taking the time to put things in blunt language helps to clear the confusion in my mind.Yeah, I'm terrified of ending up like my Dad....I see it in myself a lot.

I can identify with this feeling too. I hate what my parents did to me, but I have come to realize that I have a similar character and am often likely to act like them.

What I mean is, in many social situations I am likely to make others feel bad unnecessarily if I'm not careful. This unfortunate tendency Isee as a major dark aspect to Asperger's.

Comment:

I don't know if Dad was on the autistic spectrum or not, although I suspect he was, as I suspect many of us from his side of the family are there somewhere, along with giftedness. He's dead now. He did't let any of his siblings know that he was dying of cancer, and, of course, didn't talk to me.

One of the things that I am angry with him about is that I think he always suspected some autism in me, his way of dealing with it was to terrorize me into learning things, and, I now know that he read my poems and essays online about finding out I had Asperger's. Those poems also dealt with his violence, but, if he read those then he also read the others. And, he never ever once got in touch with me to talk to me before he died. But then, he wasn't in touch with any of his family before he died, is my understanding.

Now, I know from trial and error that being treated lousy by others can cause a person to withdraw and isolate, but, I think what I'm asking about is can fixation on negatives occur in our brains so badly that we can't pull out of them? I don't just mean obsession, although Dad definitely exhibited some OCD, I mean some kind of, well, I've spent years trying to figure out how to describe Dad.......high intelligence, but grudge-holding in the extreme, yet, he also had a fun side and even sensitive side to him, all the while managing to be violent to his wife and daughter while I was growing up.

I guess it's the negative side of being unable to have flexibility?
Just trying to write this is wearing me out. It's like being sandwiched in between a family that refuses to admit/discuss their own autistic or autistic-like "stuff"....passing off for as normal as possible, then complaining about other people; and, a society that refuses to admit/discuss their own contribution to exacerbating those of us on the spectrum.

I'm sorry, "exacerbating" is a huge word, but, it came to mind and I looked it up on dictionary.com: "1. to increase the severity, bitterness, or violence of (disease, ill feeling, etc.); aggravate.
2. to embitter the feelings of (a person); irritate; exasperate."
Yup, that's the word I want.

You wrote:
What I mean is, in many social situations I am likely to make others feel bad unnecessarily if I'm not careful. This unfortunate tendency I see as a major dark aspect to Asperger's.

I am so sick and tired of being careful of trying not to hurt others. "Normal" people hurt me all the time and don't seem to give one care about it. My own cousin told me that people walk all over me because they know they can, and that society sees this as a weakness. And, a former associate pastor nicknamed me "Marshmallow" . Yes, this is where some of my bitterness comes in. This marshmallow feels like she's just about burnt to a crisp. (figuratively speaking as in toasting marshmallows)

Sorry. Well, I'll send this anyway. Thanks for responding.

Comment:

Thanks to Everyone who read and responded. I guess my post was too "nice", so, I'm going to be more blunt:
What do you do when you find yourself holding the "normal/NT/society" in contempt? When you have to force yourself not to loathe them?

In my particular case, when I realize that my violent, grudge-holding, etc. Dad was right in many things, and that, though I've spent decades trying to fit in, trying to fight against Dad's conclusions, I find myself coming to some of the same conclusions?

And, maybe it's because I'm female, but, I'm so worn out fighting against the contempt/loathing that I don't have much energy left for the good things in my life. (Yes, I have a good counselor, but, I thought some perspective here might help, maybe even give me something to talk to him about. Actually, it already has, because now I've put it into more concise, blunt wording, God Forgive Me.)

Does anyone know if this is maybe a stage those of us who have learned about Asperger's/autism in our mid-life have to go through? If so, how do we get through it without becoming so bitter we isolate ourselves from everyone? Yeah, I'm terrified of ending up like my Dad....I see it in myself a lot.
Hey

I think this is a really worthwhile discussion, and while it brings up some negative things, memories, and feelings, it's reality, and I truly don't think you're alone.

No, definitely not alone. This really hit home for me. I see it my son and and myself too. My son is a diagnosed aspie and I am seeing the same things in myself. Even though I not diagnosed I can definitely say I am not an NT because I never fit in anywhere.

I think I have built up a lot of negativeness over the years because of social rejection. People never explain why they didn't include my in their circles and this left my puzzled and bitter.But the good news is that in seeing my sons life unfold I am ableunravel the mysteries that haunted me all my lifer about my ownnature.

It's a curse and blessing to raise an aspie because it's hard but there is so much to learn. I find myself depressed about our family situation often yet somehow I am relieved to know there is really nothing I did wrong. I am just me and he is just him. Now I am learning to drop the negativeness about the world and learn to enjoy the experience that God had given me.I have learned that life is often governed by my reactions to it.

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Sept.07

This strikes a chord with me, Dave. I'm 56, and so grew up "perfectlynormal" as far as I knew--just shy and introverted, people said of me. Ipicked up all the "normal" ways of living and interacting- -I thought--because to society I just had a few personality quirks, and so Ilived a "normal" life among the NTs. I had girlfriends, long live-inrelationships, and finally got married. I thought I knew what love was, andcould tell when I was in love, although it always puzzled me why it oftenjust shut off--for good. On to the next girlfriend.

My wife, however, being a woman, wanted me to change lots of things about mypersonality. She couldn't understand why, despite all her best efforts, Inever did change. I was "normal", but only MY kind of normal I couldn't be anyone else's kind of normal, because I was stuck with what I'd absorbed from people around me. When I moved away from the group of friends I'd been with since high school, I suddenly discovered I didn't know how to make newfriends, or move an acquaintance relationship to a friendship. I called lots of people lots of times inviting them to do things, and they usually accepted, but they never called me to do anything with them. Once my accepting support network was no longer there, I began to realize I wasn't so normal after all. I didn't find out about Asperger's until I was almost 50, living with a dead marriage, a daughter who thought I didn't care for her, and absolutely no new friends in 20 years.

I'm told I'm pretty high functioning, and I guess I am in that I can banter with people at work, and I've always held a job and paid the mortgage. I've learned, though, how large the chasm between "high functioning" and "normal"can be.

Comment:

A couple of ways of coping that help me, at least when I remember to do them:

Often when folks react negatively to something I do it isn't really about me - they're already in a bad mood and ready to go off, and I just happened to "wander onto the firing range". They could just as easily have gotten upset at someone else who did or said the same thing I happened to. While we spectrum folks are the ones purported to be so self-absorbed all the time, my own suspicion is that NT folks spend plenty of time on automatic pilot - or at least semiautomatic pilot - cruising along doing whatever they please without having very high quality of awareness about what is going on around them. When this reverie - or funk, if they're all wrapped up in regret about the past, worry about the present, or catastrophic fantasizing about the future - is interrupted, their response can be something that boils down to, "How dare you interrupt what I'm doing!" It's my obligation - and also my opportunity - to myself to keep in mind that this reaction is the responsibility of the person doing the reacting. I can't "make them angry"; if they choose to respond with anger that's their choice.

Which brings me to the other coping strategy: choice of my patterns of thought. In an effort to understand what was going on around me and keep up with the constant flux, I started talking to myself - not verbally, but internally. I kept this running narration going as to what was happening, so that I would know what to do. Unfortunately, this narration uses shortcuts sometimes, such as making assumptions about others' motives and jumping to conclusions under the guise of "predicting" . This process is pretty much standard equipment - without some internal representation of "the world out there" people might not be able to interact with it at all - but I need to be aware that mineisn't likely to be 100% accurate. In turn, this means I'm probably not understanding the entire picture of what I'm seeing, *and* that part of what I'm sure I *do* understand isn't the way I'm certain that it is.

Great. What do I do now? Well, throwing up my hands and saying, "Screw it!" won't help things get any better, and I won't feel any better in the long run. Venting my frustration only helps for a little while, and if nothing else changes it's only a matter of time before the frustration builds right back up again. But if/when I'm able to treat situations as opportunities to learn and understand more, then I'm much less likely to get swept up in my own feelings of resentment, insecurity, fear, and so forth. It isn't easy to unlearn some of the habits like jumping to conclusions - I have ongoing professional help with this - but I can still try doing it, to see if my quality-of-life gets any better. Those habits can take my thinking quite a distance down one particular path, and I end up thinking and feeling, "Oh, no, not *this* again." But there are other choices. If I can keep from being propelled right past where those paths branch off, then I can take one of them instead of the same old thing over and over, and what results can be different - and better - that what I've been putting up with for so long.

Hope this is of some use

Comment

My wife wanted to change me too. Soon after we got married I realized I had a choice to make. Did I want to make my wife happy or did I want to stick with how I'd done things all my life? I decided my preference was to do what made her happy, so whenever she wants me to change something I try to make the change. And that's made the relationship much smoother than if I'd stuck with my earlier ways.

Comment:

I can identify with this kind of experience.

I've been aware that I'm Aspie for the last three years, and with hindsight I realize that most of my family were on the spectrum too, including both my parents. I'm the only one in the family who's aware of my AS.

I could write many pages about this, but to keep to the main points... my family was so dysfunctional, it's unbelievable (e.g. my mother was my father's mistress, she never accepted that this situation could hurt my father's wife and their children, and my father used to lie to his wife about where he spent his days, she only found out about my existence when I was about six years old...)

My parents' inability to empathize with me made my life very difficult as a child, and up to my twenties (I'm 36 now). I believe that this problem affects many children of Asperger parents. I always felt afraid and confused, and trapped.

Now I'm completely cut off from the rest of my family. I find it way too hard to relate to them, and I've reached the point where I'm no longer willing to sacrifice my enjoyment of life for an unfulfilling relationship with my family.

Comment:

There are some things in life that are downright horrible. You can waste your energy hating them, or learn to ignore them. Hate only helps if you can actually use that hate to affect change. Most of the time, though, hate turns to something worse. The KKK tried it, the Spanish Inquisition tried it, and back and back and back to the dawn of mankind and beyond.

I was driving one day about 20 years ago, and someone driving in front of me was doing a lot of stupid things. Changing lanes, changing speed, not looking... I said in anger and frustration, "she's just trying to pi** me off." My passenger and fiancée at the time, XXXX, said, "and you're letting her." That was an epiphany. Happiness is a decision, not a condition. XXXX lived with her parents at the time, and they had on her bedroom wall a photograph of one of her aunts. The photo was taken about 3 years after her husband had died and was proof that she had succeeded in her stated goal: "I'll never smile again."

Happiness is a decision.
NT's are just different. In some ways better, in some ways worse. On the balance, I'd sure rather be me than one of them. Most of my NT friends understand that, but just can't imagine what it's like. As a rule, NT's expect everyone to be just like them until proven otherwise. We tend to expect everyone to be different until proven otherwise.

Holding a grudge never helps, and it never hurts anyone but you. As someone else advised when a friend asked how to get rid of the weeds in his lawn: "Grow grass." The grass will drive out the weeds for you. Find something good - music, movies, something wonderful about your life - and cling to it. Let it drive out the weeds.
It worked for me.

The Dark side con't... Sept.07

The "darker side" certainly exists. I can remember back in 1999 when I was working for Nortel Networks that I was convinced I was incompetent at my job, and my boss was going to find out soon and fire me, and I wasn't every going to get a job again, and that my family would be better off if I just went up to the eighth floor and jumped out a window.

I can sure relate to that. I had one advantage, though: I could just run the numbers and see that I didn't have nearly enough insurance to make it pay. That, and I know how much my wife and daughter love me and the pain that such losses cause is far and away beyond anything that any financial gain could heal.

One other point is that, even though I felt this way I also felt that other people were just as incompetent in other ways because they were so limited in their thinking. I came to call this my "superiority complex." (Yes, that's spelled correctly)

I came to realize that those who defined my job were the worst of all, and the reason I was never good enough was that I was in the wrong job. Not that I couldn't do it, I just couldn't do it in the limited way they wanted me to. I'm told I take a Systems Engineering approach to software design, and that means that I just don't work well in limited roles. I need the space and authority to redesign the whole thing when I see that it's wrong. When I can prove it's wrong and still can't change it because that authority resides in others and they won't let me fix it the right way, I get miserable fast.

Scope and context are everything.
That was before medication. The medication my doctors have given me has done a very good job in getting rid of that kind of depression.
I'm glad that worked for you. For me, all I had to do was find the kind of work I love in an environment that lets me thrive. Of course, I had to figure out what that was first.

Comment:

Whatever I've been raised in is "how the world is", period. It's funny you should mention that. There's a lot of truth in it, beyond what you think. I heard an interview once with a guy who grew up at Love Canal.

(For those unfamiliar, Love Canal was a subdivision built on top of a "reclaimed" toxic waste dump. When the chemicals, many of them lighter than water, began to leech up through the soil, people began dying of cancers and other problems. Not only is Love Canal the first Superfund site, it's the reason there is a superfund.)

So anyway, this guy was saying that "whatever you grew up with is normal." However surreal it may seem now, it was "normal" to him to throw one rock at another and have them explode, and to ride his bike through mud puddles that would eat the paint off it.

Also, the Catholic Church has long held that if you "give us your kids for the first five years we'll have them forever." And even if I have difficulty with social understanding and behavior, it's still plausible, maybe inevitable, that I would absorb the emotional milieu/environment around me. (I feel strong internal responses to others' feelings, even if I have no idea what had caused them to feel that way.) So I wind up learning an emotional worldview just like I learn the names of objects and people. I find myself imitating behavior. I do not understand, and thinking in patterns that are so ingrained it's hard to even see them as patterns - they're "just how things are".

When I look around at the world in general, things may not appear real great either... it can seem like zillions of people are stuck in patterns of thought and behavior that just don't work, or stuck in constantly seeking entertainment/ distraction/ stimulation to keep from thinking about how unsatisfying life seems to them. Yuck.

That's the real problem, isn't it? Once we become so ingrained in something it's no longer evident how it functions. That's true of nearly all people, and why so little political "debate" is anything more than shouting the party line at each other.

The problem, it seems to me, is that "no one" bothers to think about WHY they think a certain way, or to restructure their beliefs when they find them to be in conflict with either reality or themselves. This is often the result of people wanting the world to be simpler than it is. "The universe is governed by the complex interaction of three forces: matter, energy, and enlightened self-interest. "

The basic forces and properties that govern the universe are few. The ways in which they interact are infinite. You can study particle physics and derive chaos theory. You can study chaos and derive evolution, sociology, economics and astrophysics. Simple pieces, but you'll never be able to predict the future with any degree of accuracy and precision.

The Moody
Blues had a song in their 1972 album "Seventh Sojourn" titled, "Lost in a Lost World." What good is it to see clearly or think deeply if everything that's around seems to suck? Why bother even trying to interact with that mess? Because it's there, and that's what society is made of. Sad, but true.

But my perception/evaluate on is subjective, not objective... it's influenced/colored by my own patterns of thought. If I expect things to be dysfunctional, then by golly that's what I'll see pretty much everywhere I look.

BINGO! When you look only for evil, evil is all you will find. So look for everything. Look for joy, sadness, love, hate, greed, generosity, and all of that; but look mostly for joy and beauty.

Life seems to live up - or down - to my expectations of it. Everything won't become wonderful if I take a fresh look at it, but little pockets of opportunity may start showing up. I've come to treasure ordinary interactions with sales clerks and the like, where things go smoothly and pleasantly. Most people would barely notice such things, but I choose to treat them as little successes.

I love those moments. Such people are rarely treated to genuine interaction. They see hundreds of people each day, and meet perhaps one. I love bringing a little humor to their days:
"Would you like you milk in a bag," they ask. I reply, "no thanks, I'll drink it here," or "no, I think just a straw will do."

"Have a nice day," they say. I pause for a moment, obviously thinking, and say, "great idea! I think I'll try that," or just scowl and say, "oh, alright. If you insist." Then I flash them a big smile as they stare at me in shock.

Thus any given day might have a bunch of these little successes, and I can feel good at night looking back on them. Of course they're not profound, but they are a chance for me to touch the edges of connectedness without having to immerse myself in it. I get to be me and still interact; I get to be me without feeling alienated. Not a bad deal :-) Not a bad deal at all.

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Comment:

Brilliant. Absolutely dead-on. You've said a lot of things very well. Wish I could have done it.
A couple of ways of coping with NTBS (if I may coin an acronym from two two-letter ones that most of us know) that help me, at least when I remember to do them:

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Often when folks react negatively to something I do it isn't really about me - they're already in a bad mood and ready to go off, and I just happened to "wander onto the firing range". They could just as easily have gotten upset at someone else who did or said the same thing I happened to. While we spectrum folks are the ones purported to be so self-absorbed all the time, my own suspicion is that NT folks spend plenty of time on automatic pilot - or at least semiautomatic pilot - cruising along doing whatever they please without having very high quality of awareness about what is going on around them.

 .

When this reverie - or funk, if they're all wrapped up in regret about the past, worry about the present, or catastrophic fantasizing about the future - is interrupted, their response can be something that boils down to. "How dare you interrupt what I'm doing!" It's my obligation - and also my opportunity - to myself to keep in mind that this reaction is the responsibility of the person doing the reacting. I can't "make them angry"; if they choose to respond with anger that's their choice.
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Which brings me to the other coping strategy: choice of my patterns of thought. In an effort to understand what was going on around me and keep up with the constant flux, I started talking to myself - not verbally, but internally. I kept this running narration going as to what was happening, so that I would know what to do. Unfortunately, this narration uses shortcuts sometimes, such as making assumptions about others' motives and jumping to conclusions under the guise of "predicting" . This process is pretty much standard equipment - without some internal representation of "the world out there" people might not be able to interact with it at all - but I need to be aware that mine isn't likely to be 100% accurate. In turn, this means I'm probably not understanding the entire picture of what I'm seeing, *and* that part of what I'm sure I *do* understand isn't the way I'm certain that it is.

.

Great. What do I do now? Well, throwing up my hands and saying "Screw it!" won't help things get any better, and I won't feel any better in the long run. Venting my frustration only helps for a little while, and if nothing else changes it's only a matter of time before the frustration builds right back up again. But if/when I'm able to treat situations as opportunities to learn and understand more, then I'm much less likely to get swept up in my own feelings of resentment, insecurity, fear, and so forth. It isn't easy to unlearn some of the habits like jumping to conclusions - I have ongoing professional help with this - but I can still try doing it, to see if my quality-of-life gets any better. Those habits can take my thinking quite a distance down one particular path, and I end up thinking and feeling, "Oh, no, not *this* again."

But there are other choices. If I can keep from being propelled right past where those paths branch off, then I can take one of them instead of the same old thing over and over, and what results can be different - and better - that what I've been putting up with for so long. > Hope this is of some use

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Comment:

Thanks to Everyone who read and responded.> I guess my post was too "nice", so, I'm going to be more blunt: What do you do when you find yourself holding the "normal/NT/society" in contempt? When you have to force yourself not to loathe them?
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In my particular case, when I realize that my violent, grudge- holding, etc. Dad was right in many things, and that, though I've spent decades trying to fit in, trying to fight against Dad's conclusions, I find myself coming to some of the same conclusions?
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And, maybe it's because I'm female, but, I'm so worn out fighting against the contempt/loathing that I don't have much energy left for the good things in my life. (Yes, I have a good counselor, but, I thought some perspective here might help, maybe even give me something to talk to him about. Actually, it already has, because now I've put it into more concise, blunt wording, God Forgive Me.)

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Does anyone know if this is maybe a stage those of us who have learned about Asperger's/autism in our mid-life have to go through? If so, how do we get through it without becoming so bitter we isolate ourselves from everyone? Yeah, I'm terrified of ending up like my Dad....I see it in myself a lot. Thanks.

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Comment:

And it is the same in life - find something good about the "weeds" veryone has both good and bad.

That's so true. I have been telling my son that all his life. Otherwise, we be hating the world right about now.

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Hi all, have been here from the beginning but have never written, any hoots my son was dx when he was 11, he's 19 now. We have gone through our ups and downs (still going) but I have always tried to look at the positive side of things because otherwise I would have just broken down and that would have been no good for my son. So I teach him never to give up and to look at things on the bright side because I know we could easily go to the "dark side".

My question is to xxx I went on your site (very interesting) www.wordsaremyworld .com and searched the first thing that had AS and was directed to NLD. Can you tell me what the difference is between the two? Because they seem so similiar to one another that I'm pretty confused.

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Comment

To answer your question
My question is to xxx I went on your site (very interesting) and searched the first thing that had AS and was directed to NLD. Can you tell me what the difference is between the two? Because they seem so similiar to one another that I'm pretty confused.

They ARE very similar. That is why i was able to write a book about BOTH. NLD does not generally include the stimming or perservarative interests like AS does. NLDers tend to have more porblems with visual processing - or at least i do. I find that often autistics and Aspies

are visual thinkers (e.g. Temple Grandin, "Thinking in Pictures"). For me to understand a concept it has to be in words. Words - language - are the key to my world. Another difference is that NLDers often talk and read early. Autistics - even Aspies - often have a delay in language development. I talked early, logically, in full sentences (not baby talk) - but i relate tothe world through words so everything was a total barrage of questions. I didn't explore the world the way other toddlers do...

As an adult, again, i cannot learn by watching. I need instructions, in words. Sometimes it is hard to remember a long list of oral instructions so then it is better if they're written down.

But i share many of the AS traits like difficulty reading body language / facial expressions, literalness (less now that i'm older), fine and gross motor difficulties, difficulty seeing the big picture, etc.  I hope this helps.

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Comment

Actually, you are wrong about some of your points regarding the differences between NVLD and AS. None of the current diagnostic criteria state that one *has* to have an expressive speech delay for an AS diagnosis, not the DSM-IV or Gilberg. Therefore, there may actually be NO definitive difference, except that NVLD may be a sub-type of AS or a "milder" form. Also, some people, like myself fall in between your definitions. I was speaking in complete sentences at 1.5 years and reading at around 2.5 years. However, I have stimmed (spinning and rocking as a child, rocking as an adult...) my whole life and have fairly significant sensory problems. Also, I've been professionally diagnosed as AS by more than one person, though I came up with it first. I'm also primarily a visual thinker who is more articulate with written than spoken communication. I learn concepts via schematics better than through written sequential instructions and can only hold maybe 2-3 verbal instructions in my brain at a time.

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Comment

I was very discouraged to see how quickly this thread deteriorated into a "positive thinking" thread. I would expect that on an NT board, but didn't expect it here. I've tried convincing myself thatI was wrong to feel this way, and I may be, but, I think I have some insight into why/how some folks can get so very isolationist, rage-filled, etc.

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I get so wound up inside (like a spring) that I can't do much creative work. The goofy thing is, if I wrote horror stories or painted "dark" paintings, even wrote some creepy music/songs, it would be considered "socially acceptable" in some circles (perhaps not here in Oklahoma), and I might even make a little money at it.......but TALK about how I really feel, about the struggle I'm going through? I can forget that.And THAT in itself simply wears me out.

You can talk to _me_ about how you really feel. I think it's important for people on the autistic spectrum to be able to talk about _anything_ and have other people listen. When you talk about self- destructiveness s it reminds me of my own thoughts on suicide. I used to think suicide was irrational and looked down on people who tried it. Now I think its irrationality or rationality is irrelevant. It's possible for someone to get in so much pain that suicide seems the only alternative. Our consciences should compel us to hear what these people have to say no matter how dark it sounds.

Comment
Someone told me today that there is a strength in facing our darkness, even if it's difficult, and, that suppressing that part of ourselves can wear us down.

I know it's because I'm terrified of becoming the grudge holding isolationist Dad was. Maybe I should stop being so scared and just accept that there probably is some of that in myself, then go from there, because, I'm NOT him, and, I AM discussing things, or at least blundering through.

Maybe it's ok to be worn out a bit if a person can wade through, I suppose the "trick" is to know when you've stumbled in to water too deep for you and then have the courage to ask for help back out. Dad didn't ask for help. Mm..I'd better get some sleep, thinking too much again. Thanks.

Comment

This question is useful for me to consider: do I have freedom to think what I want to or not?

If I don't - if I'm trapped in whatever reality/delusion/ fantasy that has taken up residence in my consciousness - there are a number of consequences. Among them are feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, impotent anger/rage, isolation/alienation, and generally feeling pissed off at the world.

Been there, done that. Try living with active alcoholism on top of undiagnosed autism for most of seventeen years and see what happens. Or ask either of my first two wives, or any number of other people who came into contact with me. Or read "Cautionary Tale" at www.davespicer. org and see if any of that sounds/feels familiar.

But if I do have some freedom of thought and my thinking changes, then reality changes. That's because my mental model of "how the world works and what life is like" is not some cast-in-stone monolith, it is *actively maintained* by an unending stream of choices I make in my everyday life. These choices can be self-reinforcing, as when "everything sucks" during periods of depression. But lo and behold when I start making different choices I start getting different results, literally as a consequence. There may be no way to dig myself out without outside help; consultation with therapists has been part of my life going back to before my autism diagnosis in 1994, and some type of medication has been involved nearly the whole time too, generally antidepressants. A couple of weeks ago I decided (with my therapist's okay) to discontinue the medication I had been on, to see what things would be like without it. So far, so good.

There is this huge body of discussion/argument around psychoactive meds, with some labeling their use Orwellian, others calling them godsends, still others shunning them as copouts. I consider them useful tools which need to be used deliberately and carefully, if at all. Here's a multiple-choice listing of how I can proceed, or not:
1. The way I've always felt is The Way Things Really Are(TM), and it'd be delusionally pointless to try to medicate myself into some phony sense of happiness.
2. I'd be surrendering my autonomy/identity if I let anything change me - I have no idea what my life would be like if things changed, and I'm afraid of the loss of control.
3. Nobody really understands how I feel, so all their talk is basically bullsh*t anyway. Why bother even listening?
4. Meds are for wimps/losers/ whatever.
5. It couldn't be worse than what I've been going through already, so all right, I'll try it.
6. Oooh - shiny! I'll take two, please :-)

All right, that last one is kind of facetious, but what got me started was #5. I was so @*&^#$ *tired* of everything sucking and nothing changing that when an alternative was offered to me I didn't have any fight left. (This state can have its "dark side" too - cults tend to attract/recruit vulnerable people who are easier to bring on board.) But if what's being offered is a way to learn to think more productively for myself and gain more autonomy, then maybe I didn't have a whole lot to lose by trying it. If it didn't work, I could always take my misery back...

For me, this is the opposite of "feel-good psychobabble" - it's a lot of hard work which is both rewarding and liberating. It's a way for me to be both autistic and generally (not constantly) happy. Beats the crap out of how things were for so many years before.

Comment

Is there NOTHING good in your life that you can choose to obsess over? If not, then I can surely see how you would be bitter.

Now, what exactly do you mean when you say "confront" the dark side? You want to understand, in every detail, the cause and nature of it? If you try that, it's going to get stronger, not weaker. Animal neurology on Earth is built to reinforce what gets done the most. That's how habits form. If you focus on the bad feelings, you'll reinforce them.

That said, some us have the very rare ability to examine our feelings without feeling them. IF you can do that, then you can explore their history and find their triggers. Generally, though, negative/positive outlooks are matters of habit and neurochemical predisposition. From what you've written about your history, it sounds as though you have been trained by your experiences with your father to replicate his experience and response patterns.

At some point you have to stop and say, "f**k it, I start with ME." (Quote from "Postcards from the Edge")

We are acknowledging the monster, we just find that, by some miracle of the structure of neural networks, ignoring it (or more importantly putting all of our mental energy into other things) really does destroy it. It takes time, and there will be relapses. The monster was born years and years and years ago, and it has been carefully nurtured and fed and has grown strong. It will not give up without a fight. You cannot beat it by its own rules, you cannot talk it down or outsmart it. You have to starve it out.

You do need to be able to understand and identify the monster, but that is highly specific and is really quite beyond the scope of an open forum. It's certainly beyond the scope of your original post. You asked a general question and received general answers. Endgame answers. How do you contain your individual monster? That's an individual problem and you need individual assistance.

Hope that helps to explain what I was trying to say.

Hi,
First of all, I read all the posts in this thread, and, I want to thank everyone who responded, as well as those who read and didn't respond. However, I gave myself some time to think about the posts, and, I'm in a fairly good mood right now, so I hope that what I write is not too awful.

I was very discouraged to see how quickly this thread deteriorated into a "positive thinking" thread. I would expect that on an NT board, but didn't expect it here. I've tried convincing myself that I was wrong to feel this way, and I may be, but, I think I have some insight into why/how some folks can get so very isolationist, rage-filled, etc.

It would seem that very few want to confront the dark side of what we are feeling, even if they are struggling with it themselves. For those of us who have trouble getting this stuff out of ourselves to
communicate it in the first place, imagine what it must be like to go through all of that struggle, only to be told that you need to be more positive, count your blessings, look at the bright side, etc.

Clam up, turn your back, withdraw, forget even trying any more. Yes, I can definitely see how that can happen.

It probably isn't too much of a leap to then want to become destructive, although, with me I think it would be self-destruction, not destruction of others. Still, I can see how a person of whatever label can get to the desperation and "nothing to lose" stage. I've been close to that myself many times. All of those positive things don't help much. And, my gut feeling is that in my family genes we are somehow hardwired to self-destruct, or, at the very least to become isolationists. How much of that a person can fight and change, I don't know.

And, of course, we aren't going to discuss it openly, oh no, that would be acknowledging the Dread Monster. sigh.. So, are there any "answers", "tricks"? I honestly don't know. Lately, for myself, I've been distracting myself by playing computer mahjong, watching old comedies and/or cartoons, reading, and sewing.

I get so wound up inside (like a spring) that I can't do much creative work. The goofy thing is, if I wrote horror stories or painted "dark" paintings, even wrote some creepy music/songs, it would be considered "socially acceptable" in some circles (perhaps not here in Oklahoma), and I might even make a little money at it.......but TALK about how I really feel, about the struggle I'm going through? I can forget that.

And THAT in itself simply wears me out. Ok, all for now. Apologies to anyone I offended.

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Someone told me today that there is a strength in facing our darkness, even if it's difficult, and, that suppressing that part of ourselves can wear us down.
I agree 100%.

I know it's because I'm terrified of becoming the grudge holding isolationist Dad was. Maybe I should stop being so scared and just accept that there probably is some of that in myself, then go from there, because, I'm NOT him, and, I AM discussing things, or at least blundering through. You're right; you are discussing things, and that makes all the difference in the world.

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Success! -Maybe it's ok to be worn out a bit if a person can wade through, I > suppose the "trick" is to know when you've stumbled in to water too > deep for you and then have the courage to ask for help back out. Dad didn't ask for help. BINGO! It's clear now - in your own mind - that you're not him and you are not predestined to repeat his mistakes.

I know it's because I'm terrified of becoming the grudge holding isolationist Dad was. Maybe I should stop being so scared and just accept that there probably is some of that in myself, then go from there, because, I'm NOT him, and, I AM discussing things, or at least blundering through.

You fear to become something, you learn to recognize it, and you learn to avoid it. All you need is something to do, something to fill your attention during the avoidance - preferably something that encourages you to "get out there." Like talking about it and him with other people you trust.

If you can talk about what he did - specifically - that you're afraid of, that might be the mode of "confrontation" you need. Keeping it in a context of his mistakes and consequences may make it easier to decipher without beating yourself up over the ways in which you have become similar. I know that helped in my own case.

Then, at the same time, you talk about (explore, discover) what you'd like to do differently and how you go about getting there and doing that. That's how you "grow grass." In this case, just talking about it is growing grass, isn't it? Much of the problem is isolation, so just talking about it handles both confrontation and remediation.

As for holding grudges, well that's harder. You really do have to decide that one. Are you going to hold a grudge against people who have good intentions and just don't follow through (mediocrtiy) , people who offer to help knowing they won't ("kind" liars), or people who really are out to hurt you (bad and evil)?

Personally, I used to begrudge all of those because I saw no difference in them. One day, in an epiphany, I realized that there were great differences in the reasons why people let me down. Now I pity people their mediocrity, separate myself from all liars, and hold up my defenses against bad and evil people. I found that holding a grudge hurt me and the people close to me, and had no effect at all on the people I begrudged.

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In any case, you sound like you've got a bit of a handle on it just by talking to us. Sorry I didn't mention that sooner, but I had thought that it was clear from your first posting and didn't think it needed repeating. Oops. Hope some of this helps. Mm..I'd better get some sleep, thinking too much again. Thanks.

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I was thinking as I was getting out of my car the other day about how I would like, just once, to be able to let go of my moral compass and just be an ass and do to others what they have done to me. Just be mean and petty and not give a hoot.

Yes, these days I feel like withdrawing, going away by myself where I never > have to deal with other people ever a gain.I am 50 and I am just so damn tired.

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Exactly. I'm 46. This week, I wished I could totally rip out my "dependable" self. Because of what you shared, I'll go ahead with stating this in case you (or others here) can identify: In the eyes of many I encounter. How On Earth I can simultaneously be a social misfit AND a kind,reliable, dependable, etc. ad nauseam, "semi" human is beyond me!

If you don't understand that, it's ok. If you do understand, I'm so sorry to know you've experienced the same thing. GOT to get off the computer for awhile!

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It would seem that very few want to confront the dark side of what we are feeling, even if they are struggling with it themselves. For those of us who have trouble getting this stuff out of ourselves to communicate it in the first place, imagine what it must be like to go through all of that struggle, only to be told that you need to be more positive, count your blessings, look at the bright side, etc. I am just now getting to this thread. I want to say that I can relate to it all. I have always been an optimist. Always doing the right thing. Being careful not to hurt others no matter how many times others screwed *me*.

These days it is all catching up to me. I am 50 and the poo is still hitting the fan more than ever and I am TIRED of it. I am tired of looking on the "bright side". Tired of feeling like I have to do the right thing when others seem to not give a damn about doing the right thing themselves.

Tired of feeling like I am swimming upstream all the time. Tired of being rejected for being "different". I was thinking as I was getting out of my car the other day about how I would like, just once, to be able to let go of my moral compass and just be an ass and do to others what they have done to me. Just be mean and petty and not give a hoot.

Yes, these days I feel like withdrawing, going away by myself where I never have to deal with other people ever again. I am 50 and I am just so damn tired.Take care

Be thankful you have your creativity to fall back on. I have orhave had many of the family problems you >describe, especially with my wife, and I have nothing to fall back on except "stim" stuff and alcohol to numb everything out. It sounds like you'll be a survivor.

Response About working with my creativity: It's a struggle.I say that about a lot of things, don't I? No wonder I feel exhausted most of the time.

Anyway, alcohol and drugs haven't been for me, probably not because I'm "good".probably because I'm so confounded sensitive to most everything that even a tad of something sends me "overboard".

What do you like to do? Do you like to write, work with your hands, music, math, reading? What things do you enjoy? Yesterday, I couldn't focus, so I went for a bike ride down to the river and took photos of.......... vine knots....... seriously. ......even The Hubby said a few of the pics were "cool". I took some photos of other
things too.

Before I ever heard of Andy Goldsworthy (makes stuff out of natural objects and exhibits and/or photographs them), I had made some images out of leaves and photographed them. I'm hoping to do that again this Fall. My Point is that there may be something you think is too bizarre that you really like to do, and I encourage you to do it. Assuming it is "healthy" and not going to hurt anyone or break any major laws, of course.

It's kind of that "making my own little world" thing. As in, if most Humans think I'm too odd, well, what the heck, I'll build something out of ........ or write my own fantasy world, or, whatever it is that YOU need to do to give yourself a reason to keep going.

Giving form to what you live with inside your head. I believe they call that "art".

Go ahead and try something. I'm guessing you can't make anything worse than some stuff that's already out there.

Seriously, if you just want to, just an example, line up sticks in rows, make patterns out of them, go ahead ......people like quilters make geometric patterns all the time (not me....no good at lining things up that perfectly).

I know women are kind of the ones in this country who do needle arts, but, in other cultures, men do too, or are the primary ones.

Don't know why I wrote all that.    Oh well, just being Miss Overly Helpful.

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My Comment: Sorry if some of these comments are mixed or doubled up, but got so involved in reading them. It seems so many of us aspies after growing up and being continually put down, told whatever we seem to do is wrong and having to put up with so much negativity over the years and social rejection, alienation. It really is no surprise some of us end up alittle frustrated, angry, confused, lost for a while, or just want to back away from society in general - stay in our own safe worlds. It's about time the professionals really listen, and give us the understanding and support we all deserve!

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“One of the hardest things I have found is that maybe I need

help in some aspects of my life, but not wanting others to

enter into my world makes that extremely difficult”.

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