Yet another thinking out loud thread. Feel free to do something more important, like defrosting your frost free refrigerator. During the last couple of days, I've been looking through old yearbooks for a college where I attended for a year when I was about 19. These are on-line--more accurately, scanned copies are on line, and available for viewing at an everyday low cost of $0. I bet everyone who paid $40 for a print copy back then is positively thrilled by this development. My year's yearbook looks especially nice on-line: they got the lighting just right as they photographed the cave wall paintings that served as our year book. :lol: I have a practical motive for this yearbook viewing binge: research for a writing project I'm planning on doing this month. But practical motive aside, I am shaking my head as I ponder how strong my denial of my sexual orientation must have been. As I page through, I cannot help but note that there were plenty of good looking guys at that college during the year I was there. I was surrounded by these guys once. For five days a week most weeks. I was surely the gay guy then I am now. Actually, the situation would presumably have been worse: at age 19, I presumably had more more hormones flooding my veins than would be the case in tired, worn out 44.3 year old wreck I am today. One would think I'd have had attractions, and ones that could not be so nicely explained by "being envious of bodies better than mine!" Or other such crap. Was my denial so incredibly strong? Or was it partly other factors? For whatever reason, that period was the worst period of depression I've had my entire life. Indeed, I remember one incident when one day it occurred to me that I could easily hang myself in one building, by attaching rope to my neck and the second floor balcony by the stairs, and jumping over the rail... I was also quite isolated from other students: zero friends, and the one attempt at befriending someone else was a :***: disaster. Who can say for sure why I didn't recognize that I was gay then? After all, only one person witnessed all that I did: me. And while I'm still alive, I am a different person now than I was then. My perception of that year might be considerably different now than would have been the case then. Still, I wonder...
You considered Aspergers? Many here are on that spectrum. There needs to be no impairment. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...011/the-pain-isolation-asperger-s-and-suicide
Not everyone is fortunate enough to figure out his/her sexuality so young... Around here, people seem to feel old coming out at 21, but it takes some of us many more years...
I am about the same age as the OP. The stigma against being gay was very strong in the late 1980s to early 1990s. Also, physical intimacy carried a much greater risk of being deadly due to the lack of modern HIV treatments (which have lowered the risk of transmission as well as extended the lives of people living with HIV). As such, I also isolated myself during my teens and early 20s. It seemed safer to bury myself in a job and schoolwork and justify it to myself that I needed to "invest in my future" rather than enjoying the here-and-now. As for Asperger's / the autism spectrum: I think this condition is "over-diagnosed" due to this article: Wired 9.12: The Geek Syndrome Because I was a nerdy and socially isolated person (especially before age 23 when I admitted to myself that I am gay), I did some research on Asperger's. There is an on-line quiz that you can take to determine whether your thought processes are neuro-typical or autism-spectrum: Aspie Quiz.
In general, or during the period I was at Undisclosed University? I have waffled back and forth on this... It helps to explain difficulty of making friends. Although there can be other issues. As my father so kindly put it: "he is a social misfit." Another issue: I live in an area where it's hard to make social connections. ("Seattle Freeze.") (Undisclosed University is located in this area.) Asperger's definitely could have been an issue with some problems when I was at Undisclosed University. That era also had some other issues. I was at Undisclosed University a matter of months after my father's divorce from my mother became final. My mother did not take the divorce well, and so there was that to deal with. As part of that, my mother wanted me to maintain Top Secret Silence at school; both my parents knew people at Undisclosed University. Indeed, one professor I had in spring knew both of them, and, in fact, had had my mother for two classes the year before.
That is definitely true. Indeed, one memory I have of that year was an editorial in the student newspaper that discussed homophobia. I remember it all these years later, and how it made it clear the problems gay people have. Reading that then would have given me a good reason to deny reality. And I remember how scary HIV was, too. It frankly really scared me--probably even to an irrational degree. By the time I was at Undisclosed University, we had the idea of safe sex. Indeed, condom availability was one thing that had been discussed. It was controversial--make them easily available VS. if you want sex, you should be responsible enough to go to the nearest drug store and buy condoms. What is sort of sad is that some of the issues that make me totally unmarketable now were not as much of an issue then. Had the era been different, I might at least have had a crack at a chance to have some hands on study of anatomy with a classmate one fine evening...
To clarify: condom availability had been discussed at Undisclosed University. I'm sure this discussion took place at other institutions. Indeed I recall that another area university's student newspaper included a condom inside one week's issue about that time.
Doubt it was aspergers frankly. I was attracted to my friends in college.... Strongly attracted. I loved several in hindsight still do as I know them but not (as much..) in the physical way I used to. I moved countries for one... I wanted to be 'friends' with him so much. Being gay was not however an option and unthinkable. I was looking for the right girl. The Effect from that kind of repression/cognitive dissonance and denying your natural personality is what made you so isolated. How were you meant to interact with people if you're entire personality was constructed? I did it to, some experience.
Mine was no picnic. It got better, and I'm not using that "motto," because that motto didn't exist when I was going through college. Several factors got better. I wouldn't want to relive that period for anything, so I understand where you're coming from. But you got through it ... and you can look it philosophically and productively. I don't know if people can shrug off such an experience (mostly composed of a lot of internal processing and thoughts). I still struggle with it. One thing that helped as I've gotten older is debunking a myth: I thought that some people in the college setting must have had it all together. I later found out that is not true. Their lives may be completely out of whack for a myriad of completely different reasons. That has helped a lot. ---------- Post added 7th May 2015 at 10:44 PM ---------- Asperger's exists, but people are too ready to make that assessment without proper training. We can't even make assessments based on any on-line test. People just tell other people, "Oh, you have OCD ... or you have Asperger's." They don't know. Mental health professionals also misdiagnose. A lot of conditions and syndromes exist in a co-morbid state, with a lot of overlap. Their jobs are not easy. As for HIV, I thought the main issue was all the hysteria and lack of information. Now that people know it has to directly get into the bloodstream and it takes more vigorous sexual acts which tear mucous membranes, they're not as apt to worry about whether sharing a meal, kissing, or even oral sex will transmit it. People in the health care industry were very scared at one point. News about needle stick transmissions among nurses and lab workers freaked people out. People are a lot more relaxed about the topic today. They're so relaxed that they've had to run an ad campaign: "It's Still Here."
I know that feeling! I'm not sure I've got the productive part down, but philosophical sometimes... And, clearly, I still struggle. And that was, indeed, a myth I bought into. I can't say for sure, but I suspect I might have thought I was alone in facing dysfunction. Ironically, that guy who was the failed attempt at making a friend I mentioned above had serious dysfunction. He had lousy attendance in the two classes we had in common; he was more interested in the social life in his dorm, which probably trended more towards being a party dorm. Years later, I wondered about him, and while in the neighborhood, I went through the yearbooks in the library, and it appeared he never graduated from that university. But at the time...I couldn't recognize his dysfunction. Perhaps I was too wrapped up in my own problems. Perhaps I was too in awe of factors in his life (e.g. the BMW he drove).
I think that we need to avoid using diagnosis on the forum. The information provided by members is too limited to be diagnostically useful or needed. What I do notice as common on the forum is a tendency to reflect on past events, memories, and feelings. What I have found more useful is to focus on where I want to be and how to get there. You don't always need to understand the past to move forward and I think that I progressed far more when I changed my approach from considering what had happened to what could happen.
I agree with this. ---------- Post added 14th May 2015 at 03:52 PM ---------- This isn't so easy. We need to work through it somehow. Even with professional help. I had a therapist who didn't want to work with my past, bringing it as needed. We lasted 12 sessions. He told me he couldn't help me. He wasn't my cup of tea and I think the feeling was mutual. (There's more to it). If the past is weighing someone down, they need help addressing it. I do agree that we all need to move forward and that the past can't be changed. However, it can hurt. We shouldn't lose sight of that.
Diagnosis is seriously limited by a forum like this. That said, sometimes a comment like Skiff's can have value as suggesting a possibility that might not have been considered before. ---------- Post added 14th May 2015 at 04:33 PM ---------- I probably am one of the ones most guilty of ruminating on the past. And, at times, I also have thought that it's possibly best to forget the past, and focus on the future, and what could happen... But... As Tightrope points out, some are hugely weighed down by past events. Past this, past events explain how and why we got here, which might have value. Also the past may have patterns of behavior that will continue repeating infinitely in the present and future unless seen and changed. For example, as I've commented in other threads, one huge struggle I've faced is simply making friends. Look into the future, and having one local friend is something that "could happen." (Although I'm pessimistic enough to say that the chances are as good of me winning Mega Millions even though I never buy tickets.) But looking at past could reveal cycles where I've sabotaged myself again and again.
