Treatment is an option. Sure, there's no cure for Asperger's, autism, epilepsy, bipolar, schizophrenia, and other CNS disorders. But there are treatments, and they can go a hell of a long way towards making life not only bearable, but actually enjoyable!
I was finally properly diagnosed as an epileptic with partial-complex seizures at age thirty, and finally got on medication that actually addressed the condition at that time. Since then--and it's been longer, tonyz, than you've been posting on UF--I have had one seizure, and that was traumatically induced (advise to the wise: keeping one's thumb out of the blade of a table-saw is generally preferrable to the alternative). There are medications out there, and they do help.
First, though, you have to decide that you want the treatment. We each are the only ones that can turn the horrors of our lives into something worthwhile; no-one else can do it for us.
Everyone here will tell you it can be done, and a lot of us speak directly from experience. And most of us will be more than happy to try to help you find the reasons why your life is worth exerting the effort to establish and hold that kind of control. But you're the one who has to make the choice.
Maybe, tony, you need some time to catch your breath, to come to terms with this new knowledge. Hey, that's cool; I don't think any of the rest of us were terribly happy the days shortly after we got handed our labels, either. It throws a body for a loop; it really makes one feel like an outsider, like some kind of wierd, sick, freak-show exhibit.
But, I can introduce you to some real freak-show exhibits who have turned their oddities into lifestyles, who have capitalized on the misfortunes that blind chance dealt them.
If you're looking for a reason, for an answer to the question, "Why me?" then stop. There isn't one. There's no more reason why you, or I, or oot, got the finger from Fate than there is reason for a raindrop to splash you on top of the head. It just happened; it's the genetic hand that random chance dealt to us. I'm sorry, and it sucks, but that's just the way it is.
What you do with it, though, is up to you. There are options, and you might not even be able to see them, right now. That's what oot's telling you. Others who've been there, though, can see them, and will be happy to share them with you. Just look at this thread, and you'll see that much.
I'm not asking you to hope, guy; I'm asking you to do something. Hope is for people who expect everything to work out all right; we've got reason to know better. I'm telling you that you have options, and that you can exert control over your life. This condition makes no difference; you were already doing so even before you learned about the Asperger's. It takes a lot of effort, and, some days, it can be literally heart-breaking to keep digging for that effort. But you've already been there, guy.
Stop looking for hope; start looking at what you've already done.
And do it, again. Choose to live how you want to live. |
