I can't find something positive of having Aspergers

A few months ago I found out that I have Asperger's Syndrome. I have 23 years, I had a very sad childhood, my father always abused my mom verbally, he never loved me, the people who were supposed to love me and take care of me either abused me physically or verbally. My high school years were totally a hell, I was a victim of bullying, my few love relationships has been all a total failure. I tried to get up and move on with my life but always I fall in this sadness and loneliness. I can not find anything positive about having Asperger Syndrome? because every area of my life is a total failure. I do not care if I do not finish college, or if I do not get anything else in life I have given up all my dreams, all I want in life is to be a mother and raise a beautiful family. and be a good mother to my children. but every day I see this more and more away and difficult.
dating and finding a partner is so confusing to me. when this nightmare is going to end?

I'm sorry that you are feeling low. Here's a list of positives that I found the website listed below.

http://help4aspergers.com/pb/wp_4a31..._4a3112c8.html

1. Focus and diligence – The Asperger ability to focus on tasks for a long period of time without needing supervision or incentive is legendary.
2. Internal motivation – as opposed to being motivated by praise, money, bills or acceptance. This ensures a job done with conscience, with personal pride.
3. Independent, unique thinking – people with AS tend to spend a lot of time alone and will likely have developed their own unique thoughts as opposed to a ‘herd’ mentality.
4. Higher fluid intelligence – scientists in Japan have recently discovered that AS children have a higher fluid intelligence than non-autistic children. Fluid intelligence is "the ability to find meaning in confusion and solve new problems. It is the ability to draw inferences and understand the relationships of various concepts, independent of acquired knowledge.” (Wikipedia 2009) Experts say that those with AS have a higher than average general IQ as well.
   
5. Visual, three-dimensional thinking – some with AS are very visual in their thought processes, which lends itself to countless useful and creative applications.
6. Attention to detail – sometimes with painstaking perfection.
7. Honesty – the value of being able to say “the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.”
8. Logic over emotion – although people with AS are very emotional at times, we spend so much time ‘computing’ in our minds that we get quite good at it. We can be very logical in our approach to problem-solving.

Thanks

I wanted to add this:

We are loyal friends.
We are sensitive.
We are caring and have LOTS of empathy.

There are two ladies in my Asperger's group that have children so it is very possible for you to have your own one day.

Number 8 definitely applies to me and I consider it one of the greatest benefits.

That does sound very sad. I'm sorry you went through it.

However, I don't think those experiences have much to do with Aspergers - other than maybe adding to your trouble now in forming relationships. It sounds like you might also experience depression and/or some other negative effects from the trauma though. That seems like more of the source of your bad feelings, rather than Aspergers.

I certainly understand your self-pity. When you want to get out of it I suggest doing a "gratitude list" in order to shift the focus to what you have. Something like this.......

Thank you for my life
Thank you for my health
Thank you for my home
Thank you for food
Thank you for the people who have loved and helped me

(((molly2012))) my brother had aspergers. I loved, adored him very much. I liked that he was so gentle and kind and smart and he
never lied- ever. I always wanted to be just like my big brother. He was a genius and a wonderful , exeptional person . I'm sorry to hear that you were abused. My brother, sister and I were also. Please keep posting, and know the abuse wasn't your fault. You are
beautiful and lovable. May angels surround you.

hi,
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What does this acute febrile illness have to do with Asperger's?

LOL, I wonder that too.

My son has Asperger's. He is 11 and was diagnosed when he was very young (like 5? 6?) and we've been very open with him about it. He sees a lot of the positives - he's super smart, he's super focused - and he gets that there are negatives too - mainly with social stuff - but he has found good friends and is a happy kid.

I wonder if a lot of what you are feeling is a result of abuse, rather than the difficulties of Aspergers? I dont' have Aspergers, but I have definitely felt the hopelessness and fear that comes from a lifetime of abuse. Therapy has helped with that.

Sending lots of hugs and positive thoughts to you.

I understand how you feel Molly2012. I suffered from child abuse too. I was also bullied in school on tmr of that. It is especially depressing when you find out that you are autistic. I too have recently discovered that i have Autism too. It is a good thing you are already 23, an adult and able to make your own decisions, unlike me, I can't get out of my situation as i am still a kid. Try to look at the positive sides of having aspergers. Maybe it will be helpful for you to go for therapy with people experienced with Autism. Wish you the best of luck.

Yeah. I think a lot of that is coming from having been abused as a kid.

When your parents mistreat you, they tell you over and over again that you're worthless and not good enough and [insert insult here]. Eventually you start to memorize those things and they play back in your mind, even if you consciously know they're not true. It's just that you've been told them so often you're afraid they are true...

So you have to kind of re-teach yourself with more realistic statements. I highly recommend reading up on autism self-advocacy and disability rights in general; there are an awful lot of people out there who are sick and tired of being considered inferior and incapable because they have some diagnosis or other, and they have a lot of useful things to say. When those little recordings in your brain start playing, you can come right back at them and challenge them. Like if you tell yourself you're worthless when you messed up on something, you can correct that to just the fact: That you messed up on something. Or when somebody comes at you with "OMG you're such a poor pitiful tragedy", you can come back at them with "Screw you; I ain't no tragedy." That kind of thing. (Yeah, you can swear at them if you like when they get patronizing like that. It's cathartic.)

You don't have to justify your existence. You don't have to prove your worth. You are, by default, worth quite a lot. After all, you're human; we're quite possibly the most complex structures in the universe, capable of understanding the fact of our own existence and deducing facts about things light-years away just by looking at a ray of light from a star. Humans are valuable just because they're humans.

I don't know if I'll ever win out against those recordings in my own brain, but I'm making progress. Maybe I'll have to challenge them my whole life, but each time it gets easier. It's a matter of perspective, I guess--learning what the world is really like, instead of believing what an abusive parent told you about it.

Yea, it is the thought cycle. Their words replay over and over again like a broken record, affecting the way we think. It is especially bad when the abuse happens at a tender age (3 to 5) when children are learning about the outside world.

Hi, I am the mother of a 31 year old with Asperberger's and life is really difficult for him. He too is always sad, but you have to focus on the good things that you can think of. I personally think of all the people around the world who don't even have a piece of bread or drink of clean water to give their child. They live in inhumane conditions. I look around at what I have, it may not be much, but I wouldn't trade places for anything. Right there you can start. Have a glass of water and think about all those around the world who may NEVER have that. Things like that help me. My son has Asperger's and I have Bipolar Disorder so I do deal with one of these disorders and am not coming from a place of non-experience. Please, find the good things in your life. One each day should be a good start

Sweetheart, the most useful thing I've found to be and do is educate myself.
1) who am I and how do I work?
2) who is "out there somewhere" that needs support that I can give
3) how can I further any education I am capable of to be able to help others better somewhere down the road.

I spent my life - and had a nasty, dark reminder yesterday - thinking I was worth nothing and of no value. I was constantly thinking I'd done something wrong... that many things that happened I was going to get in truoble for. Sometimes it was my own guilty conscience at not doing something I should have done, or maybe I had done something wrong... the point is, I made it too big and painted myself more "bad" than I was, but it affected everything.

I don't want to get wordy... We are who we are, and the most I can figure, the purpose in it is to have true empathy to help others - not just pat them on the head with some useless and unhelpful socially-correct term.

Hang in there! You're not alone.
One of my best weekends was spent on you-tube learning about other aspies and what they think, how they are. It was encouraging, and helped me choose to focus on a mental health combined with criminal justice career.

So many people stuck: either can't solve their problems and end up in trouble, or already "in the system" with no way out.

I want to help others, I just have to be patient and "get educated" first.
In the mean time, I "hug" people online with words, and it's been interesting meeting others who are like me.

I like the "being smart" part, I'm OK with "being different", I choose only one or two special people to relate to instead of needing to be friends with everyone I meet, I try not to get too clingy with the special ones, and focus on my beautiful and unconditionally-loving dog to help on the bad days.

I figure if I deal with my own problems - mostly meaning not letting my own negative life affect my attitude - someday there may be someone who understands me and I can relate to. Only time can tell, I'm sorry to say.

The depression days are pretty crummy, but I do what I can to keep my mind-set focused on the good in my life (mostly school right now). It's hard, but I try to face only one problem at a time, made the decision for this moment, ask people I trust if I'm doing OK (because I'm not a good judge of that), then take the next step.

Once a very lovely lady said to me "be very very kind to yourself - this is the hardest thing you will ever do in your life" and I try to remind myself of that every day, because just living my life every day is difficult.

I love you because I can hear myself in your struggles.
Please be kind to yourself, take one breath, and decide what needs to be done right now. Find one good thought, and hold on tight.

My 11 year old Aperger son is having a very hard time making decisions it could be in a store and not being able to say what he wants to school when asked by teacher if he would like to go out for a walk ,its heart wrenching and just the other day I said (not proud of myself) "you have to say what you want or dont want " his reply was MUM I can make decisions in my head but why do we have voices :-( anybody any advice on decision making as i'm at my witts end and its worse he is getting and soon to start Secondary school .Thanks for reading this and I admire you all so much

If this is what you want from life, I don't see why you shouldn't have it.

I'm aspergic and I'm a good father.

"The way we talk to our children becomes their inner voice" Peggy Omara.

If you were abused as a child, and told all these things, you eventually "become" those things to yourself. It takes a lot to break that pattern of thinking and begin to trust yourself, and even love yourself. But it is possible.