Aunt Agony 240309

Originally posted by NEWater

Asperger's Syndrome is considered to be a part of autism. But unlike typical autism where the cases are intellectually-impaired, I'm emotionally- and socially-retarded. I experience tremendous difficulties in daily life from interacting with others, to assimilating successfully into society and suffer for it.

Ever since I've been diagnosed six months ago, I think I've improved markedly in terms of (or attempting to) reading the body language, linguistic inflections etc. of other people in my present work environment, which is the SAF.

Over the past year I've been continuously singled out and bullied for allegedly either deliberate disrespect for my superiors or carrying out my tasks wrongly. While I have indeed been attempting to explain my condition to my commanders lately, they haven't been able to understand, just thought I was retarded or trying to be funny and gain sympathy. But it isn't surprising to me. SAF isn't well-known for attracting or retaining talented and intelligent people.

All along, however, I've been continuously rejected by people and have quite desensitized to getting blown off. But recently, I've been trying in earnest to make myself better with people, attempting to learn of empathy and trying to do things with others, in the social context even though I clearly do not enjoy those activities, but I still end up with the same result.

While I understand that in this day and age, this working world places a high emphasis on teamwork as a catalyst to success, it's outright difficult for me. I think I'm able to sort things out logically at work and try to sort things out as effectively as possible while working as a team, but when it comes down to the day-to-day social back and forths of everyday life, it's a continuous and never-ending struggle for me. No matter how much I try, it's difficult to get people to like me. While I don't think anyone near me distinctly dislikes me and try to actively antagonize me, it's just depressingly disappointing that be it with effort put in or not, I still get the same result. So, why do I bother?

Work and social life with my fellow males aside, I haven't felt any real love for a woman/girl in about 7 years. The female friends that I have tend to bore me to death. The ones I'm interested in are either 2-3 continents away, or think it laughable to be associated with chaps like me.

So, it brings me to question my present interest in majoring in journalism, which requires me to interact and talk with many people. While I have a voracious interest in current affairs, history, philosophy, politics and the like, and writing about it, the future job prospects scare me. I will really have to search people out for interviews etc., and, blah.

I don't know. I like to be alone. In fact, I prefer being alone than to be in a room with someone else. But I know that I have to be with other people if I want to advance in this society.

Death, in comparison, is lonely, isn't it? It seems more appealing. This isn't some random, emo, angsty thought, but something that I've been contemplating for a good, long while. I understand that a lot of us tend to shun from thinking of it, but as an emotionally-impaired individual who is still, unfortunately human, I am still a social animal, and am being tortured for it.


AS (Asperger's Syndrome) most notable signs is the deficit in reading non-verbals: every time you fail to recognize non-verbals cues, it inevitably create some form of a social mess and rejection occurs naturally. When you repeat that cycle a few times, (minus the debate about it being genetic), your environment might just end up reinforcing your condition and worsen your situation.

I understand your situation: is like when you encounter some form of social error in responding to a joke and then you learn how this 'manner' can be told as a joke. Later, in other situations, you might have tried to mimic what you just learn and realized that it backfired for some strange reasons and resulted in another social mistake. And you wondered what went wrong because you felt that you said just the same stuff.

Communication comes in two ways, verbal speech (left brain) and non-verbal (right brain). Impairment of one makes communication difficult because we ALWAYS read both at the same time to truly picked up construct and meaning of messages. We don't just speak in words - we all speak in tones, attitude and other non-verbals.

Through your words, obviously, you have no problem in textual communication because that trigger mainly your left brain - which you don't have any issues in the first place.

You probably need to seek some form of specialist - probably some form of behavioral training and coping skills. It should help you to response better in social situation. Don't see it as a therapy - perceive it as skill set you wished to learn and gain adequate mastery eventually.

You have people paying thousands of dollars learning how to 'date'; similarly learning how to be a 'parent'. In this modern era, it's like we are all going for lessons on learning about things that ought to be 'second nature', but the fact is that everyone has their own strength and weakness. You must understand that the diversity of life and human beings are such that we are all different in various aspects. Although we can recognize our lacks, but ultimately, how we want to overcome this lack makes that very difference.

You might not be about to resume 100% ability in reading non-verbals, but if you can reach 60-70%, I think it's still good.

Just keep learning.

P.S: For AS, there is a fundamental shift in calling it a matter of 'difference' than terming it as a disorder. There are people who prefer to be alone; some calls it a biological thing, but why not a personal choice?

You have your own dream to pursue - don't let AS remove your courage to work towards it. Dreams are dreams because only those who actively pursue them relentlessly can transform those into reality.

Nobody should be denied the right to their own dreams and the only person who can reject is but yourself.

Cheers