My Aspergers Depression

Aspergers Living With Depression

Aspie Depression.. to me it feels like a way of life, a sense of how I am.
It is a feeling I have felt for most of my life, probably why I am so pessimistic, neurotic and just overall a spoil sport..

"Hello, how are you?"
"Depressed thanx, and yourself?"

Well.. it is not as simple as that, generally I would not say:
"I am depressed"
The answer would be "good thanx"

No one really wants to hear about how bad it is going with you.
No one really cares how bad it is going
And by telling them.. you are just ruining their mood so you would probably not hear from them again, unless they are one of those that think that they can help, and try to fix you.

Which is nice, I suppose it is nice to get a little attention, but a little, is to much, so "good thanx"
is just a much better alternative.

So the question is why am I depressed?
Well.. I suppose I am not busy enough, or doing something which I find enjoyable enough to not be depressed.
Don't get me wrong, sometimes I will not be depressed at all, because I would be doing, something,
something worth doing, or something which keeps me happy and occupies my mind.

Being with one friend, would be nice, especially if they show interest in listening to me speak about whatever it is that I am speaking about.
Like right now, while typing this, I am enjoying typing this, because you, are reading this, sometime in the future.

Doing anything which occupies my mind, would keep me from not being depressed, but as soon as I get a moment to think, or be alone and think, or do nothing, and think, I would probably over think anything and it would make me depressed.

Thinking is what makes me depressed, being pessimistic, being neurotic..
That is what makes me depressed I suppose.
Having a very fast brain... has got pro's and con's.
It allows me to see the flaws in everything,
and not look at the good parts in it.

It would give me reasons not to do things instead of giving me reasons to actually do things.
Doing things is what makes you happy.
Doing things are what fights depression.
Not doing things also leaves you with regrets
But finding reasons not to do things are nice.

I asked ex if she knows what depression feels like
She had no idea, she said that is the great thing about being optimistic I suppose..
Now that's the thing, optimism fights depression, it is to be positive
Now, I have been depressed for many years, mainly due to not understanding myself
Learning that I am a Aspie did give me some optimism, that is why I can type this Blog now.

But what has always made me optimistic
Is the fact that I know I have her waiting for me, or that I would speak to her later in the day.
It is not that she is waiting for me, it is that I am waiting for her.
I have been waiting for her for almost 7 years
That is a long wait.. But it is a wait worth waiting when you are sure you have found the person that you would like to spend the rest of your life with.

But yes, the waiting also has pro's and con's
It makes me happy and depressed
It makes me happy in the moments when I am with her and speak to her over messaging
It makes me depressed when I know I won't be seeing her for a very long time.
But all in all, I think, by nature, I am just made to be depressed in the first place.

And she is like a antidote to depression.
That is what love can do for you, a reason to live.

Now living for yourself, that is the answer.
Living for yourself, loving yourself and accepting yourself
That is the way to battle depression.
But unfortunately I could not do any of those up until I realised why, I was different.

You can only accept yourself, if you know that you are acceptable.
And if you compare yourself to other people, you need to be similar to them.
I could never understand other people, and could never find acceptance.
So that is a big part to previous depression, and just missing her.

But then also we seem to get depressed when we are under stress or pressure
Or maybe just bored.. boredom leads to thinking, which leads to depression.

Then there are brain chemicals, which also play a big role in depression.
Serotonin and Dopamine... The aspie's best friend
Serotonin levels may lead to influences in mood
Whereas dopamine are associated with feelings of happiness and pleasure

Then there is another brain chemical you may be familiar with
Norepinephrine is something I found very interesting
It is in charge of a few very interesting things namely:
Cognition, vigilance, doubt, hesitation, obsession, fear and a few others

Norepinephrine, Serotonin and Dopamine are closely related in the causes of depression
People with aspergers interpret the world differently to people with stable brain chemistry.
And all people being different and having different chemical makeup
Would react to the world in a very different way than others.

And due to all patients on the spectrum being different
Having different chemical makeups
You really do get a variety of different people
With different Skills & Quirks

How happy you are, would depend on what you do with your time
Your life

You either live to make yourself happy
Or you live to make others happy
Sometimes making others happy is what makes you happy

Like in my case
I live to make others happy
Sadly that makes me happier than anything
The other thing that makes me happy is talking
And have other people listen to me.
But my Theory of Mind is not very well developed
So it is not that easy to share my interests with others
As they are not interested in what interests me.

Also I forget to take into account the fact that they do not share my brain
They do not know what I know so sometimes
I just speak about random crap like a crazy person
Picking up in the middle of a conversation and then losing them before I can possibly get to the point.

The key to fighting depression is to do what makes you happy
To do something, anything.
Anything except sit and think about how shit things are, which you can do nothing about.

Also get a routine
A good routine
A positive routine
If you can live every day like your previous day
Make sure the previous day was worth living :)

Living With Aspergers Syndrome

Living With Asperger Syndrome

Life has never been easy.. I suppose that life is not easy for anyone, but it feels especially difficult for me.

I am now 23 years old, I recently diagnosed myself after a 7 year relationship ended with the lady of my life, my light in the darkness and really, my reason to be alive.

Making someone your reason for being.. is truly not a good idea.

I have never loved myself, as I could never understand myself.

I never knew what was wrong with me and never knew why I was so different to everybody else, 

Of course, everyone is different to everybody else. 

Everybody is unique.. 

But I, have always been a special kind of unique.

A special kind of different.

I have never understood people, or things, or why life is, the way life is.

I have been told: "Stop looking at the big picture and focus on the small picture"

It is easy to say, but not as easy to do.

I would much rather sit in one spot thinking about things than to actually do anything.

I would analyse any situation and instantly see all the possible faults in it, and just end up not doing anything about it, the idea is much greater than the end result.

Then there is also the fear of failure.

All my life, my way, has been the wrong way.

It was wrong, because I would not perceive a situation the same way, as another person.

I would not perceive anything like another, so that would stop me from doing, instead of for me to do.

It has been ingrained into myself that I would always do the wrong thing, even if it came natural to me, it would probably not be the right thing to do.

Growing up, friendships has always been a mystery to me.

I had friends, but friends would come and go, and few friends has really stuck around for my entire lifetime.

The girlfriend, the ex, has been around, and closer to me than anyone else ever has. 

I let her in deeper into myself than anyone has ever been, and I put all my energy into her, and keeping her happy. 

Her happiness has always been the most important thing to me, and spending time with her was the most special thing, the best way of spending my time I could think of.

We are almost 5 years apart in age, 4 years 11 months and 2 weeks to be exact. 

So growing up, she has been my lover and my best friend.

I stuck around for as long as possible, hung around my small town, put my life on hold in order to always have as much time as possible available for her.

We would always spend weekends together, spend all time together that we had free.

Her free time would come from when there was not school, weekend and holidays, and I would make free time to spend with her.

We has a beautiful routine. 

A routine of Life.

But as these things go.. People grow up, people move on, and people move.

The move came when she went to university, and I was still stuck in our home town, 

-waiting for her to return.

I never knew she was a Aspie, I never knew I was a Aspie.

We were two Aspie's in love.

The blind leading the blind.

Neither of us asking the right question, and neither of us saying what needs to be said.

We were just so content on being together and enjoying each others love.

Enjoying each other and enjoying Time.

Time together.

She was a good listener, I enjoyed speaking about what interested me.

I am still a child, keeping myself at her age, and she is more mature, keeping herself at my age.

Funny story... We kinda swapped ages.

I have much more problems than she does. 

We are both "normal"

Yet, we are both very special people who present the world with a side of ourselves which we think the world would like to see.

We both presented each other, with the side of ourselves which we thought each other would like to see.

Our true selves would shine through with each other.

We would see the inner us, and we had the most beautiful love for one another.

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder..

In this case, absence made her open her eyes for what the world really is.

She moved to the city to attend University

I stayed in the small town waiting for her to one day return so we could start our lives together.

But planning... Planning is one of the things I am very bad at.

I did not look ahead to the future to take the steps which needed to be done to secure our future.

I have been the same, for a very very long time.

I have not grown, my love.. is the only thing that grew within me.

I have OCD and ADD

I cannot focus on anything, and I have been thinking of her compulsively for so long.

I have been depressed for a very long time, but she gave me Hope.

Hope is something I do not have much of, not much for myself.

But I could have hope for her.

Belief in her.

I believed that she would be great and I always knew she would be.

And I believed that our love would be able to stand the test of time.

But really.. I am oblivious to anything, until it is pointed out to me.

I can, and have never been able, to see what is right in front of me.

I cannot understand anything, until it is spelled out for me.

I started smoking Cannabis about 7 years ago. 

It was the first time in my life I started feeling normal

It was the first time that I could be with normal people and have a group of friends.

It took away the OCD and the ADD, without me even knowing that I had it at the time.

I self medicated unknowingly and it gave me a fantastic life.

But.. as habits and routine goes..

Marijuana became a habit and part of my routine.

My life slowly started to degrade without me really noticing it at all.

My head started being filled up with delusions and false beliefs.

Prolonged paranoia with a little bit of crazy.

And not really being able to weed out the truth from the false.

I could look at things objectively, but also would only look at things which would support my point of view.

I could not tell what was really right, from what was really wrong.

I cannot learn from my mistakes, as I just continue making the same ones day after day.

I have realised that I hardly have any short term memory.

At the time, I thought it was the weed, but it is much more than that.

The cannabis made me just not really care about anything.

The marijuana just made me enjoy the moment, and enjoy life.

But what gave me strength, hope, and power to face another day.

Was keeping the idea of the girlfriend strong in my mind, always.

I carried her in my mind as a normal person would carry God.

God is something that I have given a lot of thought, and I do not believe in it.

Time and Space, it makes much more sense to me.

But it is a hopeless belief.

But besides Time and Space..

I believed in LOVE.

I never cared for myself, because I could not understand myself.

I could care for myself  because she could love me.

So I could see I was worth loving.

So had some sense of self love.

But it was all only built on her loving me.

Once I realised I also have Asperger Syndrome

I could understand myself

I could start loving myself

Because I could finally accept myself

- For being different, yet normal.

I understand why they say a child needs to be diagnosed at the age of 3.

So that child can grow up, understanding what makes him different.

Understand why he is different

Grow up loving himself.

It is a very shitty thing

Age 23

To only now realise that I have perceived everything up till now

Wrong.

I have really fucked up my life.

I have isolated myself from people

Friends

Society

As I could not understand myself

And stopped trying to understand myself for the last 7 years

And I could just BE.

There is nothing better than just being.

Well, not that I know what is wrong with me.

I have the answer, yet, I am alone and unhappy.

I am lonely once again.

I have my answer, but I do not have love.

I hate myself for letting my life slide to the point that it has.

Being oblivious to everything around me.

Weed was a treatment, with many side effects.

I have started seeing a Psychologist, and now I am on medication.

I am taking SSRI's and AntiPsychotics

It does exactly the same as the weed did before

Except I can now see clearly, everything, life.

I feel much more normal

I have better perception.

I can see how I have always been wrong.

But I can also see that I am a 23 year old child

Living with his parents

Never having had a proper job

In love with his ex girlfriend

Hardly any friends

And not going anywhere fast.

It has been 5 weeks

5 Weeks of depression and a quest to find out what is wrong with me

5 Weeks off weed, cannabis, marijuana.

5 Weeks off smoking

5 Weeks with no interest in anything

I am starting this blog, to occupy my mind a little, to keep me out of bed, to do something productive.

I need to fix my life.

I would love to end my life, but I cannot do that.

In due time, I need to get her back, but I need to fix myself first and get to the point where I am worthy of being taken back.

She is young and have never been on her own and free.

Freedom comes at a price

Love comes at a price

Truth comes at a price

There is two ways of looking at this breakup

Two ways of dealing with it.

To act like a child

Or grow the fuck up.

I am growing the fuck up.

And I will blog in the meantime.

I have always felt everyone knows what I am thinking

I have always felt that no one wants to listen, no one has time.

So I have always kept silent and said nothing.

It is time to speak the fuck up.

As no one can read this unless I type it out

No one can learn unless I spell it out for them.

I wish I was diagnosed with Asperger's as a child.

But it was not diagnosable when I was a child.

I fell through the cracks and my life cracked and shattered.

I fucked up all the chances that I ever had.

Trying to be normal, but being normal, is being yourself.

I have never been myself.

As myself, I am not "normal" in the normal sense of normal.

But finally I can understand why I am the way I am, and move forward with it.

Asperger's is a life.

Asperger's is a life saver.

Asperger's is understanding.

I have a saying: "You cannot know of knowledge, you do not know exists"

I think that is especially true with Aspergers.

As we can live within ourselves, knowing stuff, yet have no idea how to verbalise things.

No idea of how to say: "This is what my problem is"

People take common sense for granted.

Sadly to me "common sense" is a very uncommon thing.

And people don't like stating the obvious.

But then how can we learn?