• 0 Posts
  • 11 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 12th, 2023

help-circle


  • You’re asking others to provide you with a social life.

    I do believe that you’re trying your best, but you’re not entitled to have others want to hang out with you. If they wanted to, then you’re right and you did your part. But what if they don’t want to? Do they have to change themselves just for you to have a social life?

    I’m not gonna lie, you’re entitled attitude here makes me feel like you are not pleasant to be around. I may be misreading you, but I’m getting major incel vibes. Here’s the thing: you trying to make friends doesn’t mean they have to reciprocrate.

    You are not entitled to have otherslike you or want to hang out with you. Your desire for a social and romantic life is valid and understandable, but that is on your side. The world does not have to care about it, as hard as it sounds.

    For what it’s worth, it took me until my mid-thirties to actually find a social circle. More than 3/4 of my life I struggled just as you. Stop expecting from the world to bend over backwards for you, work on your attitudes and on accepting that even though you gave it your best shot these people may not be friend material. If that happwns, move on.

    Don’t try to hang out with people because you want to make friends. Hang out with people because you want to do something interesting. Shift your focus from making friends to simply enjoying the time. I don’t know what your interests are, but you can join a movie club if you area movie nerd, you can try geocaching if that tickles your fancy, go running… whatever activity you enjoy. Once the pressure on yourself is gone from “I have to make friends” chances are you will be much more relaxed and approachable.

    People are not a tool to get a social life. A social life happens when you do things you enjoy and you find people who share that passion on the way.



  • Not the person you asked, but I always felt guilty for “claiming” a diagnosis, long after it was official. What if the doc was wrong? What if I’m just too lazy and need to get my shit together? Surely I’m just looking for excuses, because that’s what had been drilled into my head for over 30 years: I can’t be that exhausted, I’m just trying to get out of doing what I’m supposed to.

    It’s a weird thing to use the word imposter syndrome on a diagnosis, but that’s exactly what it felt like. I don’t deserve a valid “excuse”. I am conning everyone into cutting me some slack when I’m really just lazy. Took me years of therapy - and, honestly, a job where they tell me I’m doing a lot and supporting my team, even though I still feel like I don’t do anything. The brainwashing is strong when you’re late-diagnosed :(


  • I’m grateful for my adult diagnosis (at age 35) because all of a sudden things made sense. I wasn’t being lazy - people liked to call me that, because on a good day with a topic that interests me I will outperform most people. The logical conclusion was if I can do it once, i can do it all the time, and when my performance is subpar it must be because I’m lazy.

    The diagnosis has become my shield and armor. I’m not lazy, my brain just refuses to engage on things that do not interest me. There’s no way I’ll ever get economics, and it’s not because I’m lazy.

    It helped me be kind to myself and adjust my plans and choices to my nourology. I may be shitty at economics and in being tactful with people, but I’m a great softwaretester, because I do care about people and want to help avoid making people cranky with dumb mistakes in software. The helpless rage I get from a piece of malfunctioning software is something I want to minimize.

    Instead of struggling I enjoy my work now, and having a diagnosis allows me to communicate to people what to expect. I can’t read between the lines - if you want me to do A, tell me so. Don’t mention to me that B and C need someone that needs doing, because I may or may not get you want me to do that - but I sure as hell won’t get that you also want me to do A, even if it is a prerequisite.

    I’m able to say that I work better with a dark, quiet place, so please don’t seat me next to the person who has meetings all day. I can probably work without these accomodations, but I’ll be miserable and my work quality will be poor.

    Coming back to your question: you don’t need a diagnosis per se. I know people that I suspect are autistic but they would probably feel worse knowing it. But what I think you should do is read up on autism like crazy. For your kid, but also for yourself. Read accounts from autistic people, look for autistic spaces. There’s plenty of organizations that care for profit and not for actually helping autistic people.

    What you will gain is insight into how autistics manage life, what helps them, and youecaneuse that knowledge to help your kid and maybe even find ways to improve your environment. Even if you feel well-adjusted, maybe understanding why something works for you and how youecan make it better can help.

    The benefit in the diagnosis for me was understanding myself and the ability to adjust my environment to my needs. For me, the diagnosis is incredibly helpful, but for you and your unique situation, it may not. I heard from people in other places that an official diagnosis has negative legal effects on them. Go research, take away what you need, and once you digested the idea and feel you understand more about it ask yourself again if a diagnosis could benefit you.

    You’ve lived so long without, a year or two probably won’t make a difference. If anything, hopefully more doctors are aware of autism and able to successfully diagnose you.


  • Not officially diagnosed with ADD (on a waitlist though) but autistic, and I second that. I constantly feel like I’m too lazy and yet I got my current job through an internship. It was supposed to last three months and I got an of#er three weeks in, because they were so impressed with my willingness to perform.

    I was very bewildered. I still have to remind myself of that when I feel like I’m not getting shit done because my mind refuses to cooperate. What I can convince myself of by now is that those moments are the productivity normal for most people and that even when I’m like that my productivity is high enough - especially because that is usually the moment when I look into things that are not the absolute core of my job.

    I’m a test automation engineer, but people explicitly want me to not just automate, but also care for quality topics as a whole, so reading relevant blogs and security news and feeding that back into the team is part of my job.

    Still often feel guilty about that, but my boss repeatedly told me I’m absolutely overachieving and fulfilling the job more than he hoped for.

    For me, there’s two takeaways:

    1. you probably have higher standards for yourself that most people, and the moments where your brain cooperates you’re like a racecar compared to a truck, and
    2. find a niche that interests you is of utmost importance. I was once at an info event for SAP and they said that autistic people are intrinsically motivated and it’s almost impossible to get us motivated with things like more money. It’s definitely true for me, and for my few ADHD friends, though I’m not sure if that is in general true. Accepting this has allowed me to make peace with myself and to take a much healthier approach to jobs than before - “I can work any job, I don’t need my dream job” when I was desperate for a job was the most toxic thing I could do to myself.


  • I’m insulted how little effort the author put into supporting his thesis.

    “Streber” in German is a common insult if you’re good in school, and it often meant social death in class. Sure, geek and nerd have become commonplace and are used as German words now, but that’s also because if you are one your English is good enough and it’s just easier to use the short word from another language that pretty much all geeks and nerds use than to use the German one.

    It has actually not really the negative connotation that the English word has, it feels more like a name for a subculture, like goth.



  • That’s the official version, but at least when I talk about some average dude it’s way too long and artificial, I don’t think the name Mustermann actually exists.

    When I think of the most common name to use in casual conversation, I’d probably go for Müller (maybe Peter? Though the first name is probably heavily generation-dependent).

    In older publication you may alse find references to “der deutsche Michel” (the german Michel, short for Michael) as a somewhat condescending reference to the average citizen who is very hesitant to adopt new concepts and tech and not always able or willing to understand complex concepts. Often used to remark that a product/idea will not have a chance on the market because “der deutsche Michel” doesn’t see the pointor would never pick it up.

    Haven’t seen that in a while though, I guess Germans have become more open to new stuff :)