Hey there

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Hey, how's it goin'?
Not sure where to start, so I'll just let the babbleflood begin and you can stop reading when I've started boring you.
I have not been diagnosed with AS. Personally, I think, if anything, I'm borderline. I tend to dislike self-diagnosis as an offshoot of several courses in Psychology. "No, James, you're not a sociopath. And Bill, you're not schizophrenic. And Todd... well, you're just stupid; sorry."
I have, however, been diagnosed as Bipolar Type 2 (more depressive than manic) by two or more psych's and was summed up as Borderline Pervasive Personality Disorder by the Army when I was younger.
For the most part, I could care less about my various dianoses as I feel they fail to quantify that-which-is-me to any real degree. Sure, they can tell someone about aspects of my personality, but describing the leaf does not describe the tree in its entirety. More to the point, I refuse to accept someone elses' label for me. I'll make my own "brand", thank you very much.
To the best of my recollection, I've always had what my wife refers to as a laserlike focus on a given topic, which I'll then research to the point of near-Masters-thesis, take it even further, then it's off to the next topic. There are some that have managed to stay with me (cars and the racing thereof, military aviation past and present, etc).
People who've just met me (unless I have Charm turned on) tend to seem to think (I say 'seem to' since the only way to be sure is open up their cranium) I'm an arrogant prick, but people with whom I'm comfortable usually can't get me to shut up. Usually about 3D, racing... anything really.
One of the best things to've ever happened to me is my wife. Little stuff like "When you see their eyes glaze over, that means you've lost their interest." Now, granted, I'm not utterly clueless but it'd never really occurred to me that not everyone is interested in the exact mechanics of building a 3D model of something. I mean, they DID ask. What I hadn't clued into was that it was just polite social BS.
Um... blah blah blah. Point being, ran across this site a few days ago in connection with something totally unrelated, started reading and I have to say, this is one of maybe 2 fora I've seen in 10 years of being on the net that actually has people who seem to be somewhat like me. More to the point, the general level of intellect (not to mention spelling and grammar) here could make 98% of the other fora online blush.
I'm going to shut up now, otherwise I'll have posted my life story and, frankly, I'm not THAT interesting. Somewhat, yes; that much, no.
Anyhow, hi to all, etc etc, insert niceties here.

Welcome, bro! I remember when I was first diagnosed with AS three years ago at the age of thriteen. I mis-interpreted the name and thought it was called Efburgeson's Syndrome, and instead of Aspie's it was Effie's! I stumbled across this site about a month ago, registered three days ago, and I'm still to lose interest (here's hoping I don't)! I used to go on to no end about games, and my friends would say "Uuh, Tim, I don't think my Mum even knows what a Playstation IS."

Welcome to WP!

Tim

Thanks and thanks.

Actually, the very first time I'd heard of Aspergers', I wound up laughing my ass off simply because I thought they'd said 'ass-burgers'. Gave me some very amusing mental images.
I'd known I was bipolar and just... not quite right... for the longest time but after I'd done a wikisurf on something unrelated and came across the Aspergers entry (and then other non-wiki reading) I started to wonder. Hit this forum, started lurking and going through the archives and the vast majority of the threads hit me like: Holy crap, that sounds like me.... whoah, that one almost sounds like I wrote it... wow, you too? I thought I was the only one who did that.. and so on.
Was talking with my wife about all this and when we got to the 'blurting out inappropriate things during conversations' she just stopped dead in her tracks. And stayed that way for the rest of the laundry list (so to speak).
I'm leery of self-diagnosis, but every test I've ever taken seems to indicate it.
Kinda wierd, but it feels as thought I've found my "tribe" in a way.

I know. It's always fun to refer to non-AS's as NT's. It's like how we keep calling Extra-Terrestials aliens. It's so odd and fun it's almost ridiculing!

Hi and welcome to WP.

I am AS and ADHD and am female

Hey there

The thing that (to be entirely honest) kinda freaks the crap out of me is that I've now gone through about 35% of the forum archives and just about any one of you could have written my life story. Change the names, dates n places. Hell, my wife was reading over my shoulder last night on Butch Coolidge's intro and remarked that, change the details, and it could've been something I'd written or vice versa, down, in some instances, to the phrasing.
I think I'm gonna have to go easy on this place so I don't burn through it too fast and then burn out n move on.
Spent so long trying to moderate my tendency to go up to total strangers and just babble incessantly; so long trying to tone down forum posts that come off sounding like some grammar nazi lives up my ass when all I really meant to say was that I agreed with the poster overall but they missed a few points; but more the point, I had this mix of euphoria and... relief at finally Figuring It Out. After... gawd, I'm what, 35 now... diagnosed with PDD of one sort or another when I was 17, and even before then there were the therapists and "counselors" trying to figure out what was "wrong" with me... the suicide attempts (19 of them) and then the eventual diagnosis of Bipolar II (which really didn't totally feel right and still doesn't) and the 20-something years spent wondering exactly why the hell I do some of the bizarre (not to mention apparently stupid) stuff I do when I'm so freakin' smart. Had I not met my wife when I did, I suspect I quite likely would have just retreated into my shell and just not bothered any more.
On the one hand, I just want to break down and hug you all and babble about having found my home, but, on the other hand, that's kinda pathetic and if this goes like most of my other Interests/projects/etc I'll have probably forgotten about this place in a year or so (which is kinda sad, now that I think about it).
I think I'm gonna shut up before I embarass myself any further

19 attempts? Reminds me of a French Executioner I read about (don't ask, I was skimming a book). Apparently he was so bad with his job that it once took him 37 hacks with his axe to get the job done!

I don't think I'll ever forget this place, mainly due to the fact that there's a lot of people with a worse case of AS than me, and had such a rougher time with their lives. It almost makes me cry reading many of the stories of hardship and lonlieness, when my life was fairly quiet and non-violent (except for that time I knocked my head against the side of the door).

EDIT: Changed the first remark to the one about the French Executioner, the original one was a bit rude.

welcome to WP!