Hi all,
I'm new to this forum, actually forums on general but I think I have the basic idea down. Just 5 days ago I was diagnosed with ASD, this was 6 days after my 33rd birthday. I've always been aware that I'm not quite the same as others; I've had a handful of other diagnoses thrown at me but none ever really stuck. I was stumbling through my last semester of grad school and my symptoms kept getting in my way but I thought I was just having a rough time dealing with a death in my family. I chose the username abedwinger because watching community is actually what led me to stop avoiding diagnosis. I was not doing my school work one day wnd got an email offer for a free trial of Hulu for 2 months so I signed up. The first show I watched was community and as I do whenever I discover something that I like, I dove in. I bingewatched ad nauseum and looked up every bit of trivia I could find; while looking up whether or not the community liked the portrayal of Abed Nadir as someone on the spectrum I came across articles & videos indicating that the creator of the show (Dan Harmon) had found out that he was on the spectrum himself. While the articles only provided part of his story, several links to online assessments were included. I followed the one which seemed the most legitimate. After I got a score that suggested that I ought to be tested by a professional, I looked up more tests. I have a degree in psychology and I know that I could fall prey to "psych 101 syndrome" so I looked up tests for executive function impairment, facial expression recognition, social anxiety and so on. Each test, blog post, book, video, etc. suggested that I get tested so I searched for someone qualified to assess me. After a fairy intense search, I found someone who was qualified but out of my price range. I was looking for help with job placement at the time and right as I was wondering where I'd get the money to pay for testing the job placement service offered to provide me with any diagnostic services necessary to determine if I was eligible for further assistance. 2 weeks later I sat through a series of tests and 5 days ago I was told that I'm not broken after all, I'm just wired differently.
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I have a degree in human as a second language.
02 Aug 2015, 2:55 pm
