AS and Eating Disorders. AS acceptance and self loathing.

Post Reply New Topic

So I finished the rest of my diagnostic assessment for Asperger's. I'll be receiving the papers soon. Another copy is being sent to my ED specialist, since the two issues overlap in more ways than one.

1. The first aspect being that of the 'special interest' or obsession common in people with Autistic spectrum conditions. My cycles of restriction/compulsive exercising and binging and purging fit the bill in intensity, focus and lack of control.

2. My perception of my own body was always put down to BDD or something similar. The AS Psychologist mentioned that it might be something to do with sensory processing. My view of my body doesn't hint at delusion, but I might literally be seeing it differently than it is in reality. She also bases this on the fact that my view of my body can shift dramatically from overweight to average to thin.

This is really... Bleh. It makes sense, but it's just... Scary.

I think the hoonymoon period with the AS is over. I'm just weirded out now and feeling somewhat like a freak all over again.

Yes, it answers alot of questions for me. I have someone who understands my difficulties and reassures me that she'll get me on my feet, my family pretty much have a manual on how to work around around me and have learnt a bunch of stuff that I didn't even notice in my self (positive and negative).

Even so... That bit's passed by. Now I'm in some sort of grieving process for the normaility I'll never know. I'm always going to experince higher levels of anxiety, obsessions and be prone to depression. I'm always going to be an asocial logic rather than an intuitive people person. Reaching out and interacting with other is always going to be uncomfortable, terrifying and awkward for me. I'm always going to suffer 'analysis to paralysis' and black and white thinking. I'm never going to understand what makes people tick - Understand why they enjoy parties and therefore never experience that joy of interacting with other people for the sake of it. I'm going to have problems reading peoples non-verbal communication, facial expressions and emotions. This horrible freaking monotone which makes me sound uninterested and a stupid, clumsy, gangly gait. I'm going to go on and on talking over people like a dick, because I can't tell that they're bored of my monologues on s**t nobody cares about. I'm also going to do s**t on the IQ test I'm taking. I'm going to have sweet f**k all then.

Yeah, now I'm just a little upset about having an atypical genotype. Abnormal neurological wiring. I might have to attempt a lobotomy on myself.

I'm sorry, I have nowhere else to rant...

It's quite all right to rant, and this is a safe place for it.

But you're only as stuck as you let yourself be. Think of it this way, our brains are wired very differently then NTs. But that doesn't mean we can't learn to enjoy parties, or dress fashionably, or practice a different gait. It's like NTs instinctively know how to play a musical instrument you've never run across. Doesn't mean you can't learn. You need a friend, or close acquaintance (perhaps a therapist) and they help you practice some behaviors until you become comfortable with them. Myself, I don't much care for going to restaurants, but I do for The Missus. I concentrate on our conversation, and prefer to be seated as far away from the crowd as possible. It's still noisy and distracting, and the food is never quite the way I'd prefer, but I still manage to enjoy the moment.

Nothingunusual,

I know that I'm more than twice your age but I can resonate with a lot of what you say and I'm always interested in reading your posts. Please remember how geographically close I am to you.

I wouldn't say it get's easier to be 'abnormal'. But you do get used to it.

I immerse myself in nerdiness, although I think I'm a bit rough round the edges to ever be fully accepted by the 'nerdish' cliques either. Which I blame on a hangover from my teens/early twenties when I (literally) had beaten into me the ability to project a 'macho' image, well.... Let's say more 'macho than I actually am. I think the only people it ever actually fools these days are the more gentle souls.

Tends to leave one a kind of piggy-in-the-middle, neither flesh nor fowl.

I'm really past caring. I've convinced myself that the only things I actually need in life are the actual essentials of human survival, the only time that slips a little is when I have brief periods of near normality which inevitably slip away as my various....ummmm... peculiarities, come to light. Those times can be very tough indeed and midnight swimming has crossed my mind on occasion.

Someday.... I'll get it right. We all will. Just takes us a little longer than most.