Another Asperger's question...

Post Reply New Topic

i'm pursuing a dx mainly because though on the surface my life seems fine, it isn't. many issues that i have always attributed to depression (and, therefore i must have depressed at the age of 5) i think now i can attribute to AS or ADD.

so a) i don't want to go around saying i have something, if in fact i don't. b) i want to make sure it might not be something else. c) when i go to my 20th high school reunion i can tell all those idiots and make them feel bad about how they treated me. (well, not really, but i can sort of apologize for/explain some things that i did that were hurtful to others that i didn't realize or knew any better at the time.)

but mainly i do need therapy for some of these things. i'm a SAHM right now, so my current bosses aren't planning on firing me any time soon. but i'd like to start a business or, if i can't pull that off, i'd need to get a job once my youngest is in kindy. and i know that in my current state i couldn't really hold a job for long. and i'd be absolutely miserable even if i did manage to fake my way through it.

as for not understanding why people would want to have AS. we don't want to have it, but if we do, it's useful to put a label on it. it's a way of understanding yourself as well as possibly having others understand you. and because if you just tell people your preferences and needs and such so that you can work and function, they assume they are just that, preferences, like you could do things the way everyone else does if you chose to. thus the arogant, uppity, snobby labels we all get. with the label you can tell them that no, you CAN'T do it the way everyone else does, i NEED to do it this way.

since many of us are very smart and perfectly capable people who want to be productive, it would be nice if we were allowed to do so.

Most people don't believe I have any problem with social skills, but up until I was about 17 I had very few. No one told me that I had NLD when I was growing up; I didn't find out until I was in my early 20's. My parents knew because of a diagnostic test done when I was around 3 but didn't know about the problems with social skills and reciprocity.

It's good to know that there's a neurological explanation for the way I function, and it would have come in quite handy to know during high school.

It's not uncommon to have people tell you that it's impossible for you to have an ASD if you've made it this long with no diagnosis; you've likely learned to pass.

It's normal that your family doesn't think there is anything "wrong" with you. They think that you are you, and thats it. Everything you do, everything you say is you.
Which in many ways is true, but it isn't.

Some people just don't understand why a Diagnosis is necessary, or even why finding Asperger Syndrome is necessary. They see it as an excuse, or that life is life, and you deal with it the best you can. They just don't understand.

It is good to hear that your husband and family haven't responded to your suggestions of AS negatively. It puts a lot more pressure on the discovery to the point where it can make everything worse.

Everyone has doubts and even doubts themselves every now and then, by golly I have a referral to an Autism Specialist to book an appointment to and I keep procrastinating about whether to do it or not. But you just know in your heart of hearts whether it is you, and it will become more apparent the more you look into it, as well as the more you realise it within yourself.

As people have said it is a spectrum disorder so not everyone is affected the same, and in adulthood we have developed coping mechanisms that are so ingrained that it is even difficult to tell ourselves what is a coping mechanism and what is innate.

I guess one thing we have going for us is persistence. Once you have found AS it is very difficult to let it go. Some choose to get a diagnosis, some choose not to.

The way I explain it to my wife is:
"A psychologist knows more about the human mind than I do. They have been studying a large portion of their life to attain a status of being able to treat people's mental quirks and foibles. You can say i'm normal all you want, but I don't feel normal. I haven't for most of my life, to a point where it is distinct and Asperger Syndrome clarifies a lot of the things I have struggled with in my life, and the only way to confirm if I have it is by seeing a professional.
Its about self-understanding and the pursuit of this can only make me a better person"

Unfortunately, my wife hates AS and hates my search for a conclusion, so that speech doesn't go too well, but if it helps you then thats gotta be good right?

Several people have said to my mother that I must have AS over autism, a couple of psychos have said the same to me (two at Attwood's); my uncle who is a childhood psychologist said I don't have AS for he doesn't believe in it, so I have autism to him (this isn't saying much). Laypeople and some not so lay seem to be instantly accepting of AS in my case (I'm sure they say to themselves, 'That explains it!'), most don't think I have autism (except those who've lived with me, of course).

I identify with Rain Man, Simon, and Roland more than...James.

Tbam you had as-symthoms as a kid?

My parents think I had AS symptoms as a child - from what they have read and seen (in Mozart and the Whale). They said I was always organising things and if i was disrupted or someone came to share I would get very upset. That I spent a lot of time by myself and kept to myself emotionally all the way through childhood and into adulthood.

I have a terrible memory and don't remember much of my life before the age of 10 or so at all.
Though one thing AS has given me (in addition to so much more) is that i'm starting to remember more about my childhood, because I need to know how i've always been.

For example, It reminded me how fascinated I was with ceiling fans and how in school assembly I would focus on the blades of the fan and try and be able to track an indidvidual fan blade as it spun round, even though it was going fast and to any normal person it would appear as a blur.

It helped me remember that it did take me a long time to understand left and right as a child, that I was quite obsessive with my interests.

I even was caught hacking the school computers at one time in early high school (around 12 years ago - now). I was so engrossed in what I was doing I failed to notice the deputy principal behind me, or that people were actually trying to warn me. I got in heaps of trouble, because the school was going to hire a computer technician to come out and fix it, haha.

My parents are probably the only semi-supportive people in my life about AS. Though I don't live with them so it doesn't make anything much easier - especially when my wife and doctors are so against me having AS. My GP is easer to prescribe me anti-depressants, and my wife just thinks there is nothing wrong with me. That i'm me, and that's it, nothing wrong.

Though, back on topic. For the OP, the psychiatrist should know the right questions to ask your parents in order to get an idea of how you were as a child. They shouldn't ask questions like "So, did you ever notice anything wrong with your daughter when she was a child" as that doesn't really help anything.

But, I am still waiting to get to that stage, so I can't really comment on how things go. But I hope that my psychologist speaks to my parents as I think they will be able to fill in the gaps that noone else sees and I can't remember.