G'day From WA. (as in Western Australia)

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Hello everyone,

I came upon this site after reading a page on Wikipedia about Asperger's Syndrome.
I have not been officially diagnosed but my psychiatrist is very certain I have it and the symptoms I am reading are spot on. I have known this since 2001.

After 6 years of being aware of my condition, I am surprised to learn only recently that it is significantly more widespread then I imagined. I certainly didn’t believe there would be enough to warrant such an active and well-populated website such as this.
It’s almost as if we could start our own county!

Anyway as previously mentioned I learned of my condition back in 2001 (when I was 19).
You see I was originally diagnosed with ADD by a specialist paediatrician back when I was 13, and when I decide to go to college at age 19, I needed to adjust my dosage. Well because I was now over 18 I was too old to see a paediatrician and needed to see a psychiatrist if I wanted to change dosage requirements and so forth.

Even though my ADD treatments and anti-depressants had tuned my life around for the better, I still felt something wasn’t quite right. Despite no-longer being walled by a low self-esteem or anxiety, I still felt I didn’t fit in with people in general.
So when I saw the psychiatrist I took the opportunity to get my concerns off my chest.
Hence AS was the most likely prognosis. But to have it officially proved requires not just a psychiatrist, but a speech pathologist and (I think) a neurologist. Either way it required at least 3 very high ranking specialists to be in the same room at the same time.
Something that might be very difficult to plan and expensive to organise.
I don’t know, but my psych reckons it’s not all that necessary in my case.

At the time, I had a girlfriend I was in a serious relationship with.
She was doing her honours in Microbiology at the very elite University of Western Australia, and she couldn’t stand to see me (a guy of high intellect) digging ditches in the “Work for the Dole” program. So she pushed me to go to college
The problem was she had absolutely no idea what failure was like and did not understand why other people had trouble with passing exams, studying, ect. She had a thick file of glowing report cards and certificates going all the way back to pre-school, and she felt (rather coldly) that there should be no easy way into University.
If you couldn’t manage the insane workload of high school TEE subjects then too bad.
I remember her disgust when I suggested I should apply for a concession from the Curriculum Council for extra time on exams due to my ADD.
She also loathed the second chance options such as mature age entry or spring boarding in with a qualification from a technical collage such as TAFE.
Nether option was open to me at the time so I had no choice but to take up the TEE again (after bumming it up in year 11).

Eventually she found out that I was visiting the psyche more often then necessary for a simple prescription change and she demanded to know what was going on.
Well as trust is one of the most important things in a relationship I told her the Doc thought I might have Asperger’s Syndrome.
Well that was a mistake.
To anyone unfamiliar with the term (or its meaning), it can sound deathly serious and tragic. Hence she cried right there in front of me.
I may as well have said I had a condition wherein small chunks of my brain would leak though my nose like a wet cake, and within 3 years I’d be a vegetable. Her reaction would have at least been fitting.

It’s a shame we can’t rename the condition. Give it a name you could declare with pride.
“Bigis-Dickis Syndrome” --> Its Latin for "better then you" pal!

How about:
“Groovey-Funkin-Lovemachine Fever”

I could come up with this stuff all day you know, so I’ll spare everyone the absurd festival of arbitration.

Well anyway things didn’t work out with this girlfriend I had and after almost 18 months together we went our separate ways. She was my first break-up so for a few months I was floating around the house like a chronically depressed Dalek with a flat-tyre.

What really annoys me though is when we were together; I felt that I was an excellent boyfriend, so naturally when she seriously wanted to break-up, I thought finding someone else would be easy. Nope!
The apparent punishment for my complacency was having to go though 2-3 years of lonely bachelorhood before I ever had anything that even resembled an intimate relationship, and even then that only lasted 3 months. Since then (yet another 2-3 year period of lonely bachelorhood) nothing.

As expected the barriers to my success have most likely been related to my inadvertent ignoring of the many subtle but crucial signals inherent in non-verbal communication.
When I read about this “Hidden Curriculum” (be it from this site or elsewhere) I cannot help but get completely annoyed at its unnecessary complexity and seemingly arbitrary system of rules.
Basically it either makes no sense at all, or to make sense of it requires a penetrating and in-depth “Why” analysis of each underlying property within the system to the point that you lose scope.
Ok so maybe what I just said made no sense either, but whatever the case, it’s a great big mound of spaghetti to me.

A problem I have now is that I’ve grown to become so frustrated with socialising that I simply withdraw from taking to anyone at work unless I have something to say or they do.
I do not understand the concept of talking for the sake of talking, and watching an NT guy happily chirp away in a conversation (that you know must bore the hell out of him) is not food for confidence. Especially when your last dabble in the verbal exchange went down about as smoothly as Egyptian whisky with all the subtlety of a tap-dancing elephant.
Overall my precision in verbal exchange could be likened to a tap-dancing elephant drunk on Egyptian whiskey (That’s pretty imprecise).

How does a logical mind learn to accept an illogical system without being bogged down by ones own cynical criticisms and eventually giving up after much grumbling?
If there is an answer I will probably find it here on this website.

I would like to take this opportunity to commend those involved with the creation of this site and all those who have contributed to it by posting their two cents on whatever topic is running in the forums or elsewhere.
<Geez. I bet that sounded like the congratulatory comment you find on the first page of your new VCR’s manual. >
But anyway, your combined knowledge has created a base of information that even someone who lives in the most remote capital city on earth can access.
Well done.

Welcome to WrongPlanet

G'Day mate and welcome to Wrong Planet!

Godfrey Daniel, yet another Ozzie!

Sorry, I'm just a boofhead from the States, but there are a lot of Ozzies here if you want to look for them.

Love your car.

I hope you find good information, inspiration, companionship and comfort here. Normally, I'd also hope you find some good humor here as well, but you might actually be contributing some, too.

Go for it, Agent80s.

From what you've posted you've already had a long journey, with some difficulties and frustrations along the way.

But, please remember, if the going gets tough, you are not alone. It may be hard to believe, but if you explore this site, you will find threads and individuals where you feel comfortable and in touch with people who accept and appreciate you.

So, explore.

Welcome to WP from an inhabitant of the Northern Hemisphere!

Gidday mate!

There is often discussions on relationships here. There are also NT/Aspie relationships and that is discussed too. I think you will learn lots on WP.

Welcome!

Welcome to WP!

Tim

Hey welcome to wrongplanet! I'm sorry about your relationship problems, when I told my NT boyfriend that I had HFA, he basically did what your girlfriend did(except he didn't cry) act like it was a serious disease. He didn't know anything about it, but I guess you right, the words sound bad like a disease sorta bad. Anyways I had to explain him more about autism, now hes actually a member on this site, and tries to help out to find out more about autism. I even had him sit down last night and watch rain man with me. He liked it, he was like if we get an autistic child, I hope we get a savant like him, I was like "wow". I'm sure your find another wonderful gal, and when you do, just try to explain to her more about autism, and that its not a disease and I'm sure she will learn to love you with the autism apart of your life too.

Hello, and welcome!

Welcome to WP! I am sitting right here with a girl who grew up near Perth (my brother's wife). Myself, I'm from WA.... as in Washington state.

I am sorry to hear of the troubles you've had with your old girlfriend regarding your presumed AS. It seems that many of us have had difficulty when attempting to tell our loved ones about our condition. I found that nobody I told was quite so excited about it as I was, but then, I'd always appeared reasonably normal to them. They aren't the ones who have had to live through life with the same feelings of otherliness that we have experienced, so to them a discovery or diagnosis is not a relief but a shock to be resisted.

In all honesty, it doesn't seem like this girl was all that respectful or kind toward you anyhow, so I'd count it as a lesson learned rather than any great loss... sorry for the bluntness.

Hope to see you posting more!

Hello, Agent80s...

It sounds like you have had a hard time with relationships (I mean girlfriends). I have not had a boyfriend so i've never had to tell them that I have AS before. But when I told one of my close cousins, who is the same age as me (16) he acted like I was dying lol . He tried researching for cures for AS and was trying to "teach me to be sociable" at one point. But now, he has accepted it which is great. And I'm sure one day you will find a girl who will accept you for who you are.

Oh yea...Welcome to WP

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Thankyou all.
Although it is regrettable that my relationship didn’t work out, it doesn’t really bother me much now because it was such a long time ago. After all, I still have the memories.

Currently my greatest priority in life is this car in my Avatar pic.
C4 Corvettes might be common as muck in the USA, but over here, they are quite rare.
My state is one of the few that allow left-hand-drive vehicles on the road (provided they are 15 years or older).

P.S
Sorry, for my late reply but for some reason I couldn’t seem to access the forums for a day or two.

Hi and welcome Agent80 and fellow Aussie