Go away, reality.

This is an old article (2004), but I just stumbled across it today and thought it expressed what a lot of people have gone through very well:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/29/us/finding-out-adults-and-autism-an-answer-but-not-a-cure-for-a-social-disorder.html?src=pm

A lot of older people are still finding out after years of struggling that they have Asperger's syndrome.  A lot of them out there don't know yet.   Much in this article resonated with me--being the 'black sheep' who was apparently just lazy, thinking that if I kept trying I would one day start to 'get it', and then everything would be fine.  I was one of those twenty-somethings who couldn't keep a job and had never had a date and still lived with her bewildered parents.  Extended family made comments to me and to my parents about me getting a job.  But, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, I really had hope that eventually I would 'make it'.  I miss that youthful, hopeful feeling.

One gentleman in the article lost twenty-six jobs in twenty years.  (He's on government assistance now.)  It takes a lot of gumption (and maybe denial) to keep trying for twenty years in the face of that kind of failure.  I should know--I've had quite a few jobs myself, over a span of about fifteen years.  I've recently given up trying to get assistance, after being rejected by agencies public and private over and over again.  I've also looked for work I can do from home from time to time since I was twenty, but without any luck.  Right now I just can't do it any more--it's too depressing.

I used to live inside a little fantasy world where I just kept thinking that if I tried hard enough, one day I would be normal.  It was too frightening to even contemplate coming out.  (I also kept pretending that the repeated bouts of debilitating illness were just temporary.  Which is maybe understandable after three or four bouts--after thirty or forty it takes a real talent for distancing oneself from reality.)  I thought I would graduate high school and then it would be ok.  When that didn't happen, I thought I would get my G.E.D., and then a driver's license, and then it would be ok.  Then I thought I'd find a job I'd be good at.  I thought I'd get married and meet new people.  After all the failed job attempts, I tried to make it ok by going to college.  I joined a couple of churches hoping to make friends.

Then, finally, I found out what was wrong.  I honestly thought it would really be ok then.

It sucks to know that it's never going to happen.  I'm less clueless than I used to be, and I have labels for most of what's wrong with me, but still....it will never be ok. 

In some ways I'm better off, but still--reality sucks.  No wonder I didn't want to come out here.