I'm 31 years old and I live in Sarasota, Florida. I'm from Akron, Ohio. I was formally diagnosed by the Cleveland Clinic when I was 24 but it had been mentioned by someone informally in my teens. I have a college degree and a master's in philosophy, which I do not use professionally. I wanted to be come an academic, but that did not work out, because of complications from the economy, my health, and probably from my Asperger's and some of the social difficulties it's created. I work in a small insurance agency, where I just started a month ago. It's going really well. I'm learning the job quickly and I'm also studying to get my CPCU, the highest professional designation in insurance.
In addition to Asperger's, I've had something of a rough go of it physically. In my life, I've had 4 surgeries on my ears, 2 surgeries on my left arm, and 4 surgeries on my low back. I have chronic pain in my low back. I also get migraines from time to time. Psychologically, I also deal with depression and ADHD. I suppose my acne is rather trifling compared to all of that, but it is annoying.
Asperger's really explained my social difficulties growing up, my obsessive interests, it really brought everything together. I was just totally out of it socially. I had no concept of what was going on until maybe my last year of high school. It was like I wasn't tuned into the right radio station. I couldn't have even told you who the most popular people in school were, or anything like, and I didn't go to a large school. I couldn't grasp the rules, the gossip, I didn't get the game, any of what was going on. I was bullied pretty severely, like a lot of you. I was urinated on at summer day camp once, which I suppose was the worst of it.
Now that I'm older and understand myself, I've learned to tune in to the world a little more. I can deal with individuals and small groups. I can narrow down the possibilities of what people are feeling to a handful of possibilities, and sometimes I guess right. Sometimes I can't narrow it down more than 3-5 possibilities, and I mistake tired for thoughtful, things like that.
Dating is hard for me, like it is for a lot of Aspies. I'm not good at the initial stages of social contact, small talk, meeting people. I'm good at the deeper stuff. I'm very affectionate and attentive, and I do the relationship stuff well. But I'm fairly atrocious at getting to a relationship. And my interests don't lend themselves to meeting women.
My interests, by the way: politics/current events (I keep a digital subscription to the NY Times), gaming, sci-fi/fantasy, comics/graphic novels (particularly X-Men), philosophy (especially moral/political philosophy), anime, film,and vintage pro wrestling.
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26 Dec 2011, 10:18 am
