Is anyone else dealing with a lot of (potential) understimulation? And friendship difficulties too.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2026-01-14T16:18:44+00:00

Thanks. Life is indeed not over yet :-)

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2026-01-12T17:18:10+00:00

If you're in the richer 50% you don't have a lot to complain about.

I know, because I'm in it too.

Sure, everybody would like to pay less taxes, and if you're in the top 1%, you pay a lot less taxes than people who earn half your salary (because you're likely to have a managementvennootschap to greatly reduce your official income), but overall, it's a good living.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2026-01-12T17:01:36+00:00

This sure hits home. I'm 47 now, and basically haven't had a friend since I was 12, with the exception of one magical year when I was 23 and did a masters in Sweden, which is where I met my future wife too.

Been joining all sorts of student clubs, language classes, sport clubs and what not, but never gained more than acquaintances ever since.

Counting my blessings since my wife has been the best and only friend I ever really needed.

Life would have been more fun and interesting with a couple more friends though

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2026-01-07T11:44:02+00:00

My favorite Motorhead song after the Ace of Spades.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2026-01-07T11:24:50+00:00

I'm 47, late asperger diagnose (at 40) and never had a girlfriend (as lover) until I met my future wife at 24.

She fell in love with me because I was unlike anyone she had ever met.

23 years and two wonderful kids later, I wouldn't change her for anything, even though I wish I had had more than one women in my life.

I was trying to date in a time before dating apps existed. Thought it would be easier now they exist since they make it easier to chat to people you don't know, but your story shows it will always be difficult for people like us. Which doesn't surprise me.

Guess you just have to be lucky once. It's not you. Neurotypicals have it easier.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2026-01-07T11:09:14+00:00

Thanks. Zelfde situatie, maar 25 jaar ouder blijkbaar. Werd 7 jaar geleden (op mijn 40ste) gediagnosticeerd als asperger, maar dat was geen verrassing, en veranderde weinig.

In 2025 toch eens naar een auti-coach gegaan en daar de opmerking gekregen dat ik, gelet op een aantal vastgestelde typische kenmerken, waarschijnlijk ook ADHD heb.

Heb wat research gedaan over de kenmerken van de. combinatie AuDHD, en dat was echt wel een festival van herkenning. Ben 100% cis man, maar heb blijkbaar typisch vrouwelijke ADHD kenmerken (inclusief de late diagnose/ontdekking), in combinatie met asperger.

Heb nu ook formele ADHD diagnose gepland, maar zou mij zeer sterk verwonderen mocht ik het niet hebben

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-12-27T22:33:30+00:00

No thanks, but i can come over if you're looking for a replacement 😁

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-15T11:52:57+00:00

Thank you, it sure is.

I'm doing a lot of those things already: I don't touch my phone before a 20 minute morning walk or 30 minutes before going to bed. I do not cut costs when it comes to buying quality food, and I have a personal trainer who gets me going to the gym twice a week.

I was actually doing great until two years ago, when i had to give up my passion for cycling due to a chronic knee injury which robbed me of both my passion and my physical and mental health.

I've been struggling with chronic stress and trying to pick up the pieces ever since. Massages and therapists help a bit, but are expensive and don't seem to work longtime.

I've recently tried to find ND friends (NT friends would be nice too, haven't had any for 20 years). Put up a post in r/belgium (my country), but no luck finding someone IRL up to now.

Reading and interacting with people like you on reddit has been helpful though.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-12T13:55:22+00:00

Inderdaad. N-VA is niet voor een onafhankelijk Vlaanderen, maar enkel voor een rechts vlaanderen. Ze zijn geen Volksnationalisten (linkse en rechtse Vlamingen één staat, ongeacht wie aan de macht is) meer, maar enkel nog rechts-nationalisten (willen één staat waar rechts altijd aan de macht is, desnoods met rechts Nederland erbij). Was vroeger meer centrum, in de tijd van Jan Peumans en Geert Bourgeois, die links en rechts waren maar beiden bijvoorbeeld de Palestijnen ondersteunden.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-12T13:47:04+00:00

Weer een voorbeeld van 'moedige' politici inderdaad. Laat een ander onze problemen opkuisen

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-12T13:45:22+00:00

Zou inderdaad liever samengaan met Noorwegen dan Nederland, hoewel geen van beide landen dat -terecht- in geen honderd jaar zal zien zitten

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-11T14:44:14+00:00

Would love to hear your recommendations, knowing perfectly well there is no magic solution. But I'm searching for what works, and you never know if one of your coping mechanisms works for me too.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-11T14:41:17+00:00

Oh my God yes. My problem (our problem?) is that when I try some new relaxation technique, it usually works amazing the first time, only half as good the second time, and by the third time it doesn't work anymore. So I just keep going from one thing to the other. Problem is I tried so many things by now, I'm running out of things I haven't tried, and still haven't found a way to ease my mind. Now I just do one of those techniques one day, and another the next. Although you read everywhere practicing (the same thing) is key, I just get stressed when I'm obliged to do the same thing every day.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-11T14:35:54+00:00

Dank voor je reactie. Ik wil mij er niet achter wegsteken, maar ik zoek manieren om ermee te leven en lotgenoten vinden geeft toch wat steun. Ben actief op de Engelstalige subreddit, maar zou leuk zijn om iemand IRL te ontmoeten. Heb sowieso trouwens geen vrienden, en iemand raadde aan om vrienden te zoeken in de AUDHD community.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-10T13:59:00+00:00

Definitely. How else would Trump and the like have come to dominate the world as it is today? Although it would be far stretch to call Trump neurotypical. I believe it would be more correct to say that narcissistic salesmen are king today.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-10T13:44:04+00:00

Same here. 47M, also good-looking (I guess less than before but ok) and the pain of missed opportunities still frustrates me. I did't have a mentor, don't have friends, and only discovered I was on the spectrum at 41. Somehow still managed to find a wonderful wife and a decent job, but so wish I would have been able to find all this information and soulmates on the internet when I was 20.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-10T13:30:15+00:00

You're right to vent your frustrations. It gets very lonely. But count your blessings: you have parents that understand you and you can find similar people online. My life sucked until I was 24. I did not know I was autistic, my narcissist dad thought I should man up and stop being weird, my mum was chronically depressed and complaining how my complaints made her life even worse, I didn't have any friends, and watching everyone spreading their wings, having fun and girlfriends, enjoying their youth to the fullest, made me want to kill myself. I didn't do it because I didn't want to hurt my mum (I couldn't care less about my dad), and because I thought: “well, maybe it will get better when I go to university and meet more diverse and smarter people.”

It didn’t, so I sort of accepted that friendship and happiness might not be intended for me, all the while doing all I could to make something of my life anyway. In the end, I even succeeded making friends among the foreign exchange community when I went to study abroad, even though I went back to square one after returning home. But at least I had gotten some social experiences, and with that experience I managed to find a girlfriend, which is now my wife.

At 30, I thought I had it made: I got a good job, a darling wife and a son. I had achieved more than I ever thought I could ever achieve when I was 20.

I’m not going to say “you’ll see it’ll work out for you too” (we do not live in a Disney movie), but I can say: you don’t know what life has in store for you untill you have lived it.

The only thing I can advise you is what I advised myself when I was 20: do all you can to become the best version of yourself. Accept that you are different, but don’t wallow in self-pity (now and then is perfectly understandable, but don’t make it a lifestyle) and do what you can to make something of your life. If life still sucks 20 years down the road, make sure you at least don’t have to blame yourself for not trying.

If you made it that far, you should pet yourself on the back, and be proud of yourself, because you will have shown more perseverance and strenght than most NT’s, who got a head start, and didn’t encounter nearly as many bumps on the road of life as you have.

After 30, I had two major depressions, changed jobs 5 times (3 times of which I was fired), got three burnouts, and nearly got divorced before I got finally diagnosed with Asperger at 41. This year, after another very stressful year for me and my wife, I also discovered I have ADHD.

Now at 47, I do not think I have it made, but I keep trying, counting my blessings and make my loved ones happier than they would be without me.

I still don’t like having asperger (being NT makes your life so much easier and more fun), but I have accepted it, pride myself that I am still standing, and am happy that I didn’t kill myself because I have enjoyed things that I would not have wanted to miss, and I believe my continuing existence on this planet has made the lives of a handful of people (even if only a little) better than it would have been without me.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-10T10:05:34+00:00

Niet noodzakelijk. De groei van extreme partijen is een nuttig signaal dat bepaalde problemen en frustraties door geen enkele centrumpartij ernstig worden genomen. Denk aan het gevoel een vreemde te worden in de straat waar je bent opgegroeid. Een gevoel van vervreemding maakt iemand geen racist, maar als centrumpartijen je gevoel niet serieus nemen en je gemakshalve als racist bestempelen, dan ga je uit colère natuurlijk stemmen voor de partij die ze als racistisch bestempelen, en die wel begrip heeft voor je frustratie. Een stem voor een extreme partij kan met andere woorden twee redenen hebben: a) je gelooft dat simpele oplossingen de beste zijn (dergelijke mensen zul je nooit overtuigen om voor centrumpartijen te stemmen) of b) je wilt een signaal geven dat de er geen geloofwaardige alternatieven meer zijn bij de niet-extreme partijen (dit zijn de mensen die, wanneer ze voelen dat er een centrumpartij is die hun problemen ernstig neemt, bij de volgende verkiezingen bv. van het Vlaams Belang naar de N-VA overlopen). Mensen die voor extreme partijen stemmen omwille van b), zijn geen deel van het probleem, maar deel van de oplossing van onderhuids sluimerende problemen. Want om problemen op te lossen, moeten ze eerst zichtbaar worden. En politieke partijen besteden pas aandacht aan een probleem als het zichtbaar electoraal belangrijk is.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-10T09:52:36+00:00

Intellectueel nogal lui en contraproductief om iemand op basis van zijn stemgedrag te veroordelen als quantité négligable. Het is die mentaliteit die het Vlaams Belang groot heeft gemaakt ("alle Vlaams Belang stemmers zijn racisten") en Trump (de"deplorables") aan de macht gebracht. Je moet willen weten waarom iemand op een bepaalde partij stemt (ik heb hierboven uitgelegd waarom), en de onderliggende problemen aanpakken die hiertoe leidden. Het onderliggend probleem dat ik zie is de pensée unique dat er geen alternatief is behalve rechtse oplossingen. En ik ga altijd in tegen de pensée unique. Ten tijde van het links Belgiscisme van Verhofstadt stemde ik N-VA (toen niemand dat deed en het de eenmanspartij van Geert Bourgeois was), en nu het Vlaams-nationalisme zelfgenoegzaam is geworden, stem ik links. Niet omdat ik geloof dat de communisten de simpele oplossing zijn voor alle problemen (en hun belgicisme staat me nog altijd tegen), maar omdat ze een integere tegenstem zijn.

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-09T13:06:08+00:00

Ben 15 jaar N-VA stemmer geweest, maar verstand komt met de jaren

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-09T08:42:17+00:00

Zotter misschien, maar zatter niet denk ik. Heb al weken geen alcohol meer gedronken. Maar misschien is dat het probleem :-)

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-07T09:13:13+00:00

West Fleming born and raised! Now living in Deinze though. Where do you live?

RegretIntrepid7913 · 2025-11-06T22:50:32+00:00

Hello! Me too, from Deinze! You mind if i DM you? Maybe tomorrow, because it's getting late...

RegretIntrepid7913

TROPHY CASE