let me start by saying i recently learned of my autism late in life, so i’ve had no awareness of some of my behaviors as autistic until recently.
it’s often said that people with autism have a strong personal sense of right and wrong. neurotypicals may label it as stubborn but i see it as principled. obviously, nts can have an equal sense of right and wrong, but it does appear to be uniquely within autism that it can present as a detriment. for example, i will often sabotage myself if it means i’ll be forced to do something i find reprehensible or objectionable, like i’d rather risk homelessness than take a job in health insurance if i was unemployed.
how has this affected you throughout your life?
for me it has been both a benefit and a massive hindrance. over time i have learned ways to recontextualize certain situations and circumstances, but there are areas i am simply unwilling to compromise on.
I literally didn’t know that and it explains a lot about me.
It’s so relatable to me.
To be honest this strong sense o justice is killing me. There’s no place for good people on our society, let’s not talk about exceptions here, the modern world won’t let you do something good and make a living out of it.
Everywhere I see I can only see greed, people after money, companies using people, everything working hard to satisfy our greed and need for convenience. While there are so many lives out there needing basic needs, we’re exploiting animals to keep the humans living a overwhelmingly good life just to satisfy this endless need for dopamine.
I’m literally lost, 26 yo male and I live with my parents. I worked for 8 months in a software company and it was the worst time on my life. In a certain day they gave me a task to build some shit to calculate profits, something that highlights people that will be more acceptable to do business with and shit like that and I just panicked, I froze and my brain could only think “What the hell am I doing with my life? Why am I doing this? Why am I helping a company treat other people like cattle?”, then I quit in the very same day.
Ok, you might say it’s not a big deal this specific case, it was for me. I felt used, exploited.
The modern world is making me crazy, I’m needing medicines and going to therapy once a week, and I still can’t handle it and get my shit together. Greed and selfishness everywhere you look at. Nobody wants genuinely take care of others.
Before you say “why don’t you go volunteer or something”, dude just tell me where and how and I go, I don’t even need to be paid I just want basic food and somewhere to sleep, I don’t want TV, I don’t want games, I don’t want movies, I don’t want internet, I just want to feel that my actions will result in a better world for everybody, not only humans. But I live in a very small town in another country (not the great US), and opportunities here are limited.
Now I’m lost, I spent part of the money I got from all these 8 months buying trekking equipment, I think I’ll just vanish from society, I can’t stand people anymore, I’ll try to live away from all this, near savage places, but also not too far from civilization and water (rivers etc…), I’m really just tired of all this bullshit. I’ll try to live with minimum viable to keep me alive. When I need more resources I’ll try to find some manual labor in nearby small towns just to restock, then go back to living on the roads, near nature and things like that. Away from humans.
If our society values just won’t change I don’t want to make part of it.
i can relate a tremendous amount to how you feel. it’s almost identical for me. i received an Accounting degree and am so disillusioned in the business world i fucking hate it. profit seeking companies are the absolute worst and i hated having any role in their success because i felt complicit in continuing the system.
hear me: you aren’t alone. i echo this 100%. i am also in therapy and on increased medication for recent increased worry. i have been in the ER for suicidal ideation and attended both partial hospitalization programs and intensive outpatient programs. i am doing better for unrelated reasons but the crushing weight of the world still keeps me awake at night. in fact, i am in legal trouble for the first time in my goddamn life because of decisions i made thinking i may need to flee my state. not only have i gone crazy i have risked my own freedom. capitalism and fascism is literally destroying my life and the ability to function.
Man that’s very relatable, a few days ago I had to double my medication because I was almost doing it, I was about to kill myself, I was nearly ready to do it.
But hear me, just this post you made had helped me a lot, thank you for that seriously. I got autism diagnose a few months ago and every day I learn more about me, I didn’t think this could be related to autism at all.
Idk if it makes you feel better but surely gave me a new perspective that I didn’t see not even close.
Maybe I can work this out with my therapist.
I just feel like any way to get out of this hole implies that I need to make part of the modern society that only reward profit and not good actions, it’s like if it doesn’t worth to get better just to get exploited by the system.
But thank you seriously.
you’re very welcome and i must thank you as well. as i said, i recently learned of my autism as well… didn’t know so much of my experiences could be related to it, like this. you being able to connect to me and also finding it comforting is giving me my own comfort. it makes me feel like it isn’t just me… it isn’t just something fundamentally wrong with me like i’ve always believed of myself. this has an explanation and it is valid. i can stop blaming myself lol.
thank you.