beatit

I'm not sad because I miss being able to play my Game Gear all day anymore. I'm sad because even though I've come far, I constantly second guess myself. I very rarely feel like I can have deep, meaningful interactions with people.

I remember back in high school, I deleted my Myspace, because only like 3 people wanted to be on my buddy list. And one of them was Tom Anderson.

Now, I "know" a lot of people. Whether you measure it through Twitter followers, Facebook friends, or whatever the hell they call connections on LinkedIn, people are connected to me. I'm actually getting to the point where people even sidle up to me at conferences, trying to curry favor - to network. Everything's coming up Millhouse!

But lately, I feel an intense loneliness that I never felt when I was "abnormal".

But what exactly constitutes "beating" Autism? Is this actually desirable?

I was diagnosed with Asperger's in the mid-90s. I wrote about the experience anonymously for Boing Boing at one point[1].

But the TL;DR is that having lived in both "worlds", the experience of being "cured" was not worth it. The emotional costs were much too high - I just traded ASD for PTSD. I used to be a happy kid with few friends who tinkered with computers. Now I'm a very social guy who will shake your hand, look you in the eye, ask all the right questions to make you feel special. And I'll be miserable the whole time.

[1] http://boingboing.net/2013/01/05/pedagogyofthedepressed.html