Left the University.

[Inator]

Hello. My threads use to be so long not everyone likes reading, so I'll try going straight to the point.

Before even knowing about the Asperger's syndrome, I always thought I needed to "act" to others just to keep things with my person under control. For years I have hidden my odd behaviors from my parents, and so far they haven't found anything too "weird".
All my life I wanted to work on videogames, and got started with computer program and the visual animation during my last years of elementary school, but I always paid a lot of attention to the Windows 3.1 manual and the details of visual things on TV. I always had a rage at those games that played very slow on computers despite very simplistic graphics, I always thought modern programmers never really gave a f*ck at the hardware, abusing it without control, so I write a lot of program for the retro console Sega Genesis, in Assembly language.

I already hated the bullying in the town by people my age and adults, and worser inside school, so for many years I only gave my minimum effort to pass with half-ranked scores, only the minimum necessary, while trying to develop my own videogames at home, or sometimes animation, 3D, visual effects. I like visual works, and as self-defense, I tried to make school the least important to me.

I'm a perfectionist, all I want is to make a very artistic and detailed videogame, take care of every possible detail from it, and feel proud of my programmed engine. Hopefully be a technical and artistical achievement.

Nervous, during my first months of Computer Engineering at University, I kept on forcing my personality beyond belief, just to feel accepted. Got some success the hard way, didn't have much issue with the studies itself, but I was doing so much mental effort with my social behavior, that I got highly tired and overall bad from one day to another. My social behavior began to decay, and most of my classmates tried to avoid me the most possible, including visual contact even! Thanks to this I even failed on many group-based homeworks where I never got called, thus killing all my scores. However, what put way worse, was the kind of mentality they taught. I found it to be an Imagination killer, and so wrong at times, with hardware-abusing ideas like "Use recursivity because it's easier to write and work with regardless taking more RAM and CPU cycles for each loop compared to a simpler "cycle" ", etc. All this defeated my willingness to keep, as I felt more broken inside each day.

During the end of past year, I had 1 or 2 weeks left to release my game according to my given deadline, but I had only a 60% done of it, it was full of glitches and DBSuper-looking rushed animations, and I was full of exams to solve and bad scores. After a deep thought, I decided to break my last straw by skipping a critical exam, to try give my game a proper release.
I am REALLY not satisfect with the final version of my game, I find it have a huge lot of issues, even though I see it topping most rankings in these homebrew/indie webpages.
Meanwhile, I'm out of the university since many months, and none of my parents have idea about it.
Every day I say to go, I take the bus, walk some hours alone on the city, then come back. I think I can't tell them, they are so harsh, close-minded and used to be very violent at me for any mistake years ago, and so far everything looks my fault! I feel like the stupidiest guy on earth, as it seems I have left Univ just for merely feeling like a stupid smartass. WHat will they think if they get to know? that I'm a total mad! but it will just hurt a lot to a few, specially my mom.


Ye, I know, most of you can think "JUST SAY THE TRUTH!!!", but how do I explain it in the softest and most understandable way possible?
After all, much money has been spent, and I don't want to look like the bad guy as always. I'm TIREED of being the bad guy, but nobody wants to help, but only critize. Just why can't I stop making mistakes! I'd like to be perfect

What approach should I take? Debts shouldn't be an issue, I have a safe job for around November or beginnings of December, so I will be able pay everything. But I don't think it will work to calm the fumes enough. What do you suggest?
I think I want to die.

 

[Tanya]

I think it's time you left home

 

[Inator]

Just that money will not be enough that quickly just before anything happens

 

[Judge]

If I would have known what I know now I would have skipped college altogether and gone straight to a vocational school.

 

[HappyHermit]

Inator, I am so sorry to read about your situation.

I also think you need to get out of your parents' house as soon as possible. In order to do this, I would encourage you to explore any legal means possible, including a good hard look at what benefits you may be entitled to. Re benefits, please don't take hearsay at face-value and really look them up. Many countries, counties and cities have detailed information, often including application forms, available online.

I also hear you on exhausting yourself on the social aspect so much that your work suffers - even though the work isn't actually the problem. You could look at what alternatives there are for you in distance learning. However, distance learning will cost you - depending on where you are, not more than regular uni, though. And since your parents don't sound like the supportive sort, I would consider this second priority after moving out.

Finally, on uni killing creativity in its rigid approach - this is something you may come up against time and again in any formal studies, no matter how passionate you are about the subject. How you deal with it depends on the situation. Sometimes you just have to do things their way in order to pass the class or exam. And then work on your way privately. Sometimes, you can convince them to let you do things your way. Whichever it is, it is important to keep doing things your way when you're working on your own private or freelance projects. Everything else is a passion killer.

It's important to note, though, that this rigidity you've found at uni in sticking to the way they do things and think about things mirrors the work world quite closely. It might be useful to find a way to detach in such instances and just get the work done. And, if you want to, later improve the thing you were forced to do so suboptimally on your own time. At uni, especially, you could then take your improved work back to your former lecturers and explain to them why you think this now works better. You might even convince them! But the best way to do that, if they're not budging, is to do things like you're instructed to, keep thinking freely, and then later return with an improved result after you've completed the class/exam. I know that our work feels personal, but we often we don't have complete control over it. In contrast, what's in our head belongs to you only, and they can't take that away from you no matter how rigidly they make you conform to their perhaps subpar 'way things are done'.

But I think your first problem is moving out and living independently.