Dealing With Autism

[Christian]

As the title may suggest, I am on the autism spectrum. I got diagnosed at the age of six and I’m now 19 years old. I feel like autism has had a major impact throughout  my life, but especially recently. I used to go to a special needs school from 2006-2015 and that was easy for me. Everything was a lot more predictable and stable than things are now. Fast forward til now, I am currently in highschool and I have a hard time understanding social cues and making friendships that last longer than six months. 

Every day, I feel intense anxiety and pressure to do well academically and socially. I feel incredibly self-conscious and I believe it always gets in the way. My mind always over-analyzes every little detail and I can’t make high quality decisions that way. I feel like a victim because I understand that the reason why I am self conscious is because I have autism and I care how others percieve me. That is a very bad combination. It’s like hitting a brick wall 100 times that is impossible to overcome. I just want to be normal; to have faith in myself, but how can I trust myself at all when I know how many fucked up decisions I make? How tricky and weird my mind is? 

I wish I could just control my life a little easier, but I have come to understand that change is hard. When you have autism, it is very difficult to make changes in your life. Even very basic ones. Because I have autism, I feel like a victim I feel doomed and like things will never get better EVER. The videos Leo made about how we have no free will and no self has made me question my ability to make any changes to my life.  How can I meditate daily if I am not in control? How can I expect anything at all from myself if I am not the person who is doing the thing I’m expecting? The fact I have zero free will also means that I am not in control of my autism, which is great, but it means that I can’t make changes to my life when I want to. That frustrates me a lot. There are so many things I want to do, but they seem impossible at this point.. 

[Nahm]

@Christian what are the things you want to do?

[Spiral]

I have a friend on the autism spectrum, I do enjoy enjoy her company. But she does sometimes make unorthodox decisions, like she once cut her own hair and now she is studying Human Resources. Both of these are not great ideas in my opinion. 

Althought I would not recommend you tell everyone you're autistic, you can tell them you're not very good at socialising. I would tell teachers and so on in case you intend to study at a more after High school as exam questions are very often difficult to understand what they want you to write. 

Edited November 10, 2017 by Spiral

[Christian]

@Nahm There are many things; I want to understand how to behave in social contexts, I want to be confident in my ability to make wise choices,  I want to develop a meditation habit (daily), I want to stop being extremely self-conscious, I want to stop feeling like a victim, I want to become more extroverted, I want to not let my autism be a limiting belief, I want other people to stop treating me like I'm different.. But all this seems like a fantasy at this point

[Christian]

@Caterpillar How can I stop believing that I am autistic when people always treat me different and I was diagnosed at the age of 6? I went through special education so autism  is so engrained into my psyche...  I never felt normal. A lot of my actions reflect that I have autism as well so why should I believe I do not have autism when reality always points at the fact that I behave like someone who is autistic? 

You see the problem?

[Nahm]

@Christian what happens when you sit to meditate?

[BjarkeT]

59 minutes ago, Christian said:

@Caterpillar How can I stop believing that I am autistic when people always treat me different and I was diagnosed at the age of 6? I went through special education so autism  is so engrained into my psyche...  I never felt normal. A lot of my actions reflect that I have autism as well so why should I believe I do not have autism when reality always points at the fact that I behave like someone who is autistic? 

You see the problem?

maybe these video could help

http://mindfulbydesign.com/not-all-effort-is-created-equal/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZm4B4foybM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l96TZeZGlDg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rey8B-yu5Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTjcsXnxPBQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H0OZRT_Q0A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFrR0cGWnac

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfF7EpHXyDY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_cuVMC7NcI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGw8IoqBt-c&t=328s

btw I have also been diagnosed with autism but I am personally more convinced that its something more similar to what Leo explained in how to permanently solve problems(and that its something you can solve but it take the right effort and hard work) than its something you are born with and just have to live with (which seems like how some people see it as)  

good luck

 

Edited November 10, 2017 by BjarkeT

[Christian]

@Caterpillar I have a belief it might be bad to believe that because the belief does not  reflect reality. Reality tells a completely different story, hope you agree. But, Hey, if delusion is needed, then that’s what’s up... 

Edited November 10, 2017 by Christian
Mistake

[JoJo]

On 11/10/2017 at 2:06 PM, Christian said:

@Nahm There are many things; I want to understand how to behave in social contexts, I want to be confident in my ability to make wise choices,  I want to develop a meditation habit (daily), I want to stop being extremely self-conscious, I want to stop feeling like a victim, I want to become more extroverted, I want to not let my autism be a limiting belief, I want other people to stop treating me like I'm different.. But all this seems like a fantasy at this point

Hi Christian,

My son's autistic so I identify with a lot of what you've said.

The first thing I would say is that many people feel the way that you do and they're not autistic (myself included!)  I think a lot of what you've mentioned is a very typical stage to go through as you grow up (you mention being 19.  I was all over the place at 19!).  Added to which, your environment has changed (from special school to high school) and that, too, can be difficult for anyone to deal with, at any age or stage in life.  We all feel more comfortable when we do the same thing over and over again so personally I don't feel that a lot of what you're experiencing is attributable to being autistic.  I am in no way trying to dismiss any difficulties you experience because of the way you process information (as I say, my son is autistic so I see that first hand every day).  But I think a lot of what you are talking about is very common in many people, particularly of your age.

Do you work well with charts, tick lists, small projects to work on, small details to hone in on?  I'm wondering if you can break down some of the things you want to work on a little bit at a time.

For example - making wise decisions.  I'm 44 and I still don't make wise decisions every time.  Sometimes you have no idea if a decision is wise until a long time after you make it.  Sometimes it could be construed as wise at the time but later on it turns out to be 'wrong'.  But ten years after that something happens because of that 'wrong' decision and it turns out to have been a wonderful decision.  So it's really hard (for anyone) to know at the time whether they're being wise.  I'm wondering if, instead of focusing on whether or not something is a wise choice, you could put together a little tick list so you can reassure yourself you have done what you can with the situation.  For example, have you done some factual research into possible outcomes?  Do you have a trusted friend or relative you can talk things through with to get their perspective?  If not, is there someone you could contact professionally - a counsellor or doctor, for example.  Have you looked at the worst case scenario (which for a lot of decisions isn't that bad).  If it happens can you cope with the outcome?  I'm just wondering if putting together a little tool kit that you can work through each time you need to decide something might help you build your confidence in your own abilities and help you to trust yourself a little bit more.  And then I wonder if you can do something similar with each of the things you mention?

I don't know if that makes sense?  Hopefully it does - it's hard to know when you type whether it's coming across the way you want   But I'd be happy to go through some suggestions with you if you wanted to.

[Nahm]

On 11/10/2017 at 9:12 AM, Nahm said:

@Christian what happens when you sit to meditate?

 

[Joseph Maynor]

In what ways are you different from other people?

[Leo Gura]

On 10/27/2017 at 1:37 PM, Christian said:

I wish I could just control my life a little easier, but I have come to understand that change is hard. When you have autism, it is very difficult to make changes in your life. Even very basic ones. Because I have autism, I feel like a victim I feel doomed and like things will never get better EVER. The videos Leo made about how we have no free will and no self has made me question my ability to make any changes to my life.  How can I meditate daily if I am not in control? How can I expect anything at all from myself if I am not the person who is doing the thing I’m expecting? The fact I have zero free will also means that I am not in control of my autism, which is great, but it means that I can’t make changes to my life when I want to. That frustrates me a lot. There are so many things I want to do, but they seem impossible at this point.. 

A) Change is hard for everyone, regardless.

B) You're misusing a very advanced teaching which you do not have any direct experience of. As far as you're concerned, you have free will because you're still playing the game of controlling life, and you don't even have an idea of what no-self means. You just took on a silly belief. That is not no-self, and that is not no-free-will. You actually believe you are in control of life, so stop pretending otherwise.

If you ever truly discover what no-free-will means, that will be the happiest day of your life. Until then, do the more ordinary self-help -type work and learn how to function in society. You are trying to fly before you've learned crawl. You need a few years of just very ordinary self-help before you start barking up the tree of nonduality.

If you're worried about your Autism, start buying books about it and doing your research. There have been hundreds of books written about every disorder known to man, especially Autism. Study people who have successfully overcome it. Practice what they did.

C) Many people feel self-conscious, including myself. That is not necessarily Autism. Be careful with lumping all your issues under one label. Unless you've been doing personal development for a decade or more, you will have all sorts of emotional, neurotic issues -- everyone does. That's where the work begins.

D) Everyone's mind is tricky. Don't paint yourself out to be some unique hard case. Most of the stuff you've described is totally normal human neurosis which can be overcome with years of personal development work.

E) Stop comparing yourself to others so much. Most people who you think are "happy" and "normal" are anything but. Judging people by outward appearances is extremely deceiving.

Focus on doing the inner work: exploring your own psyche, exploring what is reality.

Don't treat this like a prison sentence. Personal development is supposed to be interesting and exciting. We are talking about you designing your own life, and then living it. What could be cooler than that?

[Extreme Z7]

Ever heard of Temple Gradin? Autistic woman. Successfully got a PhD in Animal Sciences and accomplished her life purpose of inventing humane animal chutes. She might be an outlier, sure. But it shows possibility.