thankyou everyone who welcomes me.
someone said to me i should say more than i did in my first post.
so i will say that i am a person who was diagnosed at 6 months with autism.
at 2 years, my diagnosis was refined to HFA.
i was a very unresponsive baby and did not gaze at my parent's eyes, but preferred to look at things like flies or fans spinning (to the exclusion of interaction with anyone).
when adults tried to hold me when i was a baby, i often fell through their arms, and on to the floor.
i do not have that "mirroring" neuronal ability that normal people do, so i could not brace my infantile musculature in a waythat corresponded to the way that they were holding me.
that was my parents first worry.
they thought i may have a "brain complaint" as they had 3 other girls, and they knew i was not like any babies they had ever seen.
so they took me to a doctor, and i was given tests that consisted of things like if i watched a puppet show or not.
i never watch things i can not understand, and i apparently did not ever follow with my eyes, the story line of most things that NT babies were fascinated by.
i always looked at things like the carpet weave pattern, or where the power outlets were in the room where the "show" was happening.
i know this because i was told. i do not remember from age 1-2.
when people pointed at something, i looked at their finger rather than where they were pointing to.
then during the years from 3-11, i played always on my own, and i always resented if anyone else wanted to join in.
they did not understand my scenario i was imagining while i was playing, and i always just went cold and dead on kids who tried to participate in my private games.
then at 12 i was sent to an adolescent unit. (i also have ODD which is unresolved.).
i had an excellent doctor there, and she was interested in autism and was researching what she called "highest functioning autism". she told me she considered me to be asperger syndrome, but that she could not diagnose me yet because it is not a dsm approved diagnosis.
that was 1984.
then, in 1994-1995, i lost my license (due to speeding).
then i got caught driving whilst disqualified.
my lawyer noted my psychiatric history, and wanted me to be confirmed as "asperger syndrome", so that he could use it in his case.
so i was confirmed as asperger syndrome (and ODD (again)), and i then told the lawyer that i did not want it used in the case.
it took 12 weeks of consultation, and many interviews with my parents as to what i was like as a child, and also it required reading other earlier doctors accounts of me.
i had many "empathy" tests.
like for example, there was a picture of a burning barn i had to write a narrative to.
there was a boy about 16 talking to a man about 60 in front of the burning barn.
i had to write what the boy was saying.
he was saying nothing.
he was just a drawing, and and drawings can not talk.
but i was told that i should imagine what a boy might say to an old man in that situation.
i thought he may say "there is a barn burning over there".
when i was asked to be more imaginative, i said he may be saying that pine trees are not good wood to build a barn from due to their higher combustibility.
that answer was not what they were looking for so i failed on being able to identify with expressions in an abstract way.
whatever, i am just saying that i am probably more deeply autistic than most people here, so please do not take offense at however i bump into peoples sensitivities while i am here .
.
16 Aug 2008, 5:20 am
