I want to run away and start a new life.
I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but what I really need is to just vent and get this off my chest, and whoever see's this, see's it.
I'm a young person and I suppose I've been, to varying degrees, what they'd call depressed for a long time now. I have had a lot of therapy, and it never helped but I am now on medication. I was also diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome not long ago.
At the moment, I am an introverted person, I have no friends and I don't go to college anymore. So I suppose my life is fairly isolated, but that doesn't bother me at all. I hate college, and the bigger system it is a part of, and I have no time or energy for people who I do not genuinely care about. I don't like pretending and acting for people, it's too tiring and it's not worth it just to be socially accepted on such a surface level. I think people think I'm quite a cold person for reasons like that, but I just think I'm very authentic. I think I see things quite differently from the majority of people as I can't stand TV and the media and the whole 9-5 job, go home and watch TV, spend money and live your life for the future type life and the way society is saddens me sometimes.
The thing is, and the reason I'm making this post, is that I'm sick of the way people look at me now, especially after my diagnosis. I'm trying to move forward, but I feel like the box people have over time put me in is really holding me back. Sometimes I just feel like going and doing something really uncharacteristic of me, because I'm tired of being seen as a depressed "aspie". I just feel like doing something to shock people, to prove that they don't know me as well as they thought, and prove everyone wrong, because I don't think this is the person I want to be. I would like to be able to go and build a whole new life, where nobody knows I have been/am depressed and that I have Aspergers Syndrome, so I can grow without those confines. I don't even know what I'm getting at here, I just needed to write this down. I'm thinking of things I can do, just to break free from it. I don't want these things to be part of my life anymore, but the fact that these things exist in the minds of others, makes it feel more difficult to get over, because I'm not just recovering myself, but their idea of me too, so that I can finally, wholly be a new person.
Hi, I think I know what you're feeling. I was diagnosed with aspergers extremely young and, to be honest, it has only caused me problems. Everyone who knows has always treated me with extra care, like I'm some kind of unpredictable special case who could set off at any moment. Even my parents treat me like a child even though I'm in college now, whenever I get upset about something or feel anything negative it's always just me 'having another one of those aspie meltdowns' and no one will listen to me. It's lead to me being afraid of showing any negative emotion at all and terrified that I can't tell anyone about my diagnosis because they will suddenly treat me differently, like a child. I'm sick of it. No one ever listens to me. I have to these therapy classes where I colour in pictures and write 'what makes me special' and it's just making me more and more depressed. Theres no escape from it, all my life I've been told that I'm 'different' from other kids and that my 'brain is wired differently' and I've always had this gnawing feeling whenever I talk to another person that I don't quite fit in or belong. I spent my entire secondry school life with extreme social anxiety, afraid that people would 'find out that I'm wierd' if they talked to me. I couldn't even answer registers without shaking with fear that people would notice that I said yes slightly differently. I have done nothing but try to explain this to my parents but, no matter how hard it gets, all I ever get is 'yes of course, I understand' a sympathetic hug and another trip to therapy on 'what makes me special'. I hate it. I hate myself. I hate living like this. I hate other people for being so effortlessly normal. I hate my therapist. I hate school. I just want to escape from it all. I'm wrapped up in this blanket that everyone else has put around me and it's suffocating me but no one will listen because all they can see is that I'm safe. All I want, more than anything is to be treated like a normal human being. I just want to get rid of this stupid diagnosis but no one will let me and no one will listen to me say that I'm depressed, have an eating disorder, insomnia and social anxiety because all they can see is my aspergers diagnosis and they think that if they can help me 'manage my emotions' then all those things will disappear.
Hi nukobloko, thanks for the reply! I feel pretty much the exact same way you do. It's good to hear that I'm not the only one who feels like this. When I was first reading up about Asergers Syndrome, all I ever heard was how happy people were to be diagnosed and get the answer they were looking for, but I don't feel that way at all. I feel that my diagnosis was so other people could understand me, and almost dismiss me, but it's had almost no positive impact on me. I actually feel a lot worse now that I'm treated like an "aspie", but I kind of feel like I subconciously act more like an aspie too, so all of my "symptoms" are worse than before diagnosis because they've been acknowledged and are always at the back of my mind. I wonder if you feel as though you have fit yourself more to the aspie stereotype now that other people treat you that way?
I had to throw in my experience with sharing my issues with others. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety at 14 and pure OCD at 30 and as much as I would love to discuss with my family and friends my "issues" I stopped doing it a long time ago.Its very hard for those who don't live with it to understand and I no longer feel like it is my obligation in life to help people understand-me. I have found solitude tho in weekly group meetings. That may be an avenue you want to explore.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I think I will start going to some group meetings for people with Aspergers, though I usually feel an aversion to anything "aspie" related, I like to think of it as very minor quality to me, more like it's in the background. I couldn't be one of those people who goes to the Aspergers groups and does talks and really identifies with it, I feel it would erase who I am too much, and I already fear this new label of Aspergers is doing that. I prefer to use "Aspergers" as a code word in this case, just to perhaps meet like-minded people, as they seem hard to find in other circles! I understand what you said about no longer feeling obligated to help people understand your condition. I, too, often feel as though it is a hopeless endeavour. I don't think that many people are very good at truly seeing life through the eyes of another, and it just becomes a bit frustrating. Though I am torn by this view, mostly because I want to explain myself, without the word "Aspergers" coming up. I guess I just want to be me, and let the mysteries of my personality be just that, rather than symptoms.
