Hi! New member - experienced epiphany

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Hey everyone! I've been lurking here since my son started getting tested at 16 months, about a year ago. Since then he has been unofficially diagnosed (he is too young for official diagnosis) as showing 'red flags' of being on the spectrum. I have come to terms with it, though I still go through periods of guilt and self-blame. Through my research I have decided that I most likely have Asperger's, and when it finally clicked in my brain, I had an amazing experience of looking back on my life and realizing that everything makes so much more sense.

At first I wasn't sure, because soooo much of the information out there was geared towards male manifestation, and once I figured out that females display symptoms differently, the light bulb lit up. Now I understand why I never felt like I belonged here (wrong planet, indeed!), why it was so difficult for me to just live and function in society. I was hyperlexic (read a sentence aloud from my Mother's book at 2 1/2, inciting heart failure - lol), very shy, terrified of bright lights and loud noises. I spent most of my childhood locked in my bedroom, reading. Bullied in middle school, skipped most of h.s. but managed to graduate and even get a college degree, though it took 8 years and was VERY challenging. Anyway, I now have a word for what I previously thought was just my incompetence, and it is very freeing.

My son is in therapy and doing great - we are very lucky to live where my university has a leading researcher helming a ground-breaking study for early intervention. I hope to utilize their knowledge to get an official diagnosis soon. His therapy is to help with eye gaze and sharing, to help with social skills and hopefully ease school and play interactions - there is no repression of stimming behaviors or any of that malarky. I am very excited to finally join the discussions here - some of the smartest and most interesting people on the web here!

I was an official member for exactly 30 seconds and got a spambot message - I thought that was pretty funny.

To WrongPlanet!! !

I too just joined. I'm also a women with aspergers. I was just recently diagnosed, we do generally show different symptoms. I believe aspergers is something to be proud of. Also its great you have a good person to help your son, so many people are unreliable in the autism universe. Im sure he will be just fine, you never had to blame yourself. Autism/aspergers (depending on the severity of course) is more of a gift than a curse.

Hi! How do you feel about your diagnosis? I agree that AS is a gift - I just wish I had KNOWN so that I could have perhaps chosen jobs that were better suited to my nature, and not been so hard on myself re: struggling with daily living. I have a dx of ADD (non-attentive type) and find that my biggest struggles are with organization and time management/awareness. I often find that my concept of time is skewed. Thanks for the reply! It feels good to have dialogue with like-minded people.

Thank you! I like that you are the Welcome Wagon.

I feel pretty good about it. I mean its who I am. I recognize I also have some challenges in the work space and especially with organization but with effort and good directive it can be managed. As for attention stimulus is a big thing for me. I need to always be doing somthing, its terrible if I'm just standing around at work all day. On the flip side though If I get too into what Im doing(thats never the case for work : P) it can overstimulate me and I may have a slight anxiety build up. In what way is time skewed for you? I find just in general that time goes slowly for me.