Diagnosed when older? The process of accepting the dx?

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I don't know how helpful this will be, but I would find it impossible to function at all if I couldn't be honest about the AS with someone who could give me some perspective. I would beat myself up for my errors, just as you are doing, because I'm so conditioned to believing that it's lack of effort that is the problem.

Is there no one in your life you can discuss this with and get some help on how to navigate the politics of things?

The only strategy I've come upon so far at work is to keep my mouth shut a lot of the time. It's extremely difficult sometimes, because I've got all these words in my head, but I'm feeling less anxious knowing that I just look like serene, quiet Neshama, doing my work, instead of some hyperlexic hurricane or socially awkward weirdo. There are times at work where I can let go some, but I usually err on the side of caution these days. I come home less drained as well.

Of course, I'm dealing with a whole different culture and context than you are, so I don't know how much this would work for you.

I have found, at least for me, and I am certain others feel the same way, that writing for WP.net and telling my story, as well as reading other's insights here constitutes the best therapy I could have ever asked for.

we are not restrained by the mental agility nor the "internet savvyness' of those who don't have the intellectual curiosity to even begin to understand our AS, let alone wish to deal with it if they did know. I have had the rare honor to speak personally to Dr. Tony Attwood, and even though the contact was brief, we shared important information about how suicide and death by neglect has probably taken a majority of those AS that lived into adulthood. If I ever get any better than this, it will be alright because I had this moment, already.

Merle

Absolutely. I see all kinds of people here on WP. Some who only know massive rejection, some who hardly know what being rejected is, some who've always had at least one good, stable friendship, some who've never experienced what friendship is, some who are high functioning enough that they have a companion and kids, etc. Ultimately, we're all different in our potential, so it's hard to say "this is what life is like for an ASDer". I happen to have an extreme problem with social subtext, but I do realize this is not the case for everyone here. And as someone mentioned on another thread, having been abused by the parents for one's symptoms or not makes a whole difference in how you adjusted to society later on.

nr, I'm just like you at work nowadays, exactly. They think I'm this quiet, shy simpleton who never has anything to add to the conversation. If only they knew... But it's safer this way.

In regard to telling someone about my self-diagnosis, I don't know anyone who is both concerned with my welfare enough to care and keep it confidential, and can be persuaded that it's not just a question of trying harder. Maybe if one person one day looked at me and said "I believe you that it's not about trying harder" it'd be easier for me to accept myself. And maybe not...

Another issue that makes it hard for me to accept my NLD is that the kind of social blunders I make are not often similar to those discussed on these forums. So when I'm called in by my boss, for example, I don't connect it to my NLD because I'm very unsure if anyone on WP would make such a social blunder. Mostly people here talk about not looking another in the eye enough, or talking too much, or saying "yes, it makes you look fat". But the kind of VERY sophisticated, complex social situations I face every day are never discussed on WP and I don't know what other people here would do in those situations. I have this idea that others here would know how to act appropriately in those situations, which leaves me alone and weird even among my kind here. Do you ever get this (irrational?) fear?

(sorry for writing so much, I don't often write so much on a thread, but this is the topic I'm dealing with right now, and when I posted about it last week there were very few answers)

I wonder what kinds of social blunders you're talking about Greentea... I make loads myself (wrote about a few here) but I guess it's all part of the package.

I like what you wrote in the OP millie, I've had a similar experience (although I still have some irrational belief that one day everything will suddenly start making sense ;p).

Sure. I've had many times in my life where I'm an oddball even in a group of oddballs. I feel it less so on WP because of the presence of more people my (our) age, which helps.

I would like to hear more about the complexity of the social situations in which you find yourself. It may be that people don't talk about very complex situations on WP because they don't have the words, or feel like it would be too complicated to explain, or can't figure it out sufficiently to describe it. I'm not sure I would be very good in a really complex social situation either because of the overload. I'd be spending all my time parsing and be left with no ability to respond. In fact, I tend to just shut down my brain in those kinds of situations because I need maybe a few weeks and some books and a lot of sleep before I could even begin to figure them out. And at that point, I wouldn't care anymore.

I like things to be simple in life. My food is simple, my needs are simple, my clothes are simple. I hate when it gets complicated for no good reason. It makes sense to me that the human brain is complex and that astrophysics is complex and that many things I'm interested in are complex, but social situations? Why should they be complex? It makes no sense to my Aspie brain.

anna-banana, I make the kind of social comment "mistakes" you mention in that thread too. But the kind I'm referring to here is more like taking the wrong course of action in complex situations (complex in the sense of being composed by various parameters and various people involved, each one with their own personal interests and amount of power in the group).

nr, I too am discouraged from sharing these complex issues on the forums because they're so complicated to explain satisfactorily so others will understand. But I'll try to give an example (at the risk of going off-topic here, sorry):

Last week my boss, my supervisor and I got a desperate request for help from a colleague of mine, due to her being overloaded with work. It was late, my boss and my supervisor had gone home already without answering this woman yes or no. She needed the work done that same day. I thought hard about it, took into account all the parameters involved, and the people involved (she, her boss, my boss, my supervisor, myself, her boss's boss, my precarious situation at work, the past demands from my supervisor that I help this colleague, the late hour, etc. etc. etc.) and I wrote this colleague that I'd be helping her out. This morning when I got to the office, my boss yelled at me because she had seen the email exchange just now and she wanted to tell my colleague she's not allowed to ask me to do her work, but I had ruined it for my boss by answering the email before my boss did, and offering my help before seeing what my boss's decision would be. My social blunder: it never crossed my mind that an offer of help from me means I have enough time on my hands to help, so my boss saying "NO" makes her look selfish now.

Last edited by Greentea on 14 Dec 2008, 4:57 pm, edited 2 times in total.

This sounds very similar to my own experience.

I already knew, got it confirmed, was relieved then later, felt utterly defeated and empty. I just didn't know what to do next or even if I wanted to do anything next.

Its like being a child and having to eat your cabbage, you eat the nice bits on your plate, then gulp down a mouthful of that huge mountain of cabbage with some water, then you eat some nice stuff, then more of the horrid stuff, then eventually there is no more cabbage left and it has been dealth with.

Then, when you are grown up, you love cabbage

Greentea, I think your boss was completely unreasonable. I have been in a similar situation, and the next morning, my boss thanked me for the thought, but said that I needn't take on someone else's work and that he would straighten the situation out. In fact, he saw that as his JOB. I don't see that you made a social blunder at all. If anything, it sounds like you were trying to go the extra mile.

As for your boss looking selfish now...That may be how she is interpreting the situation, but I don't see it that way and have never had a boss that did see it that way. When my boss had to tell people to lay off me and do their own work, it was simply out of fairness to me. I tended to get my work done fairly quickly, and so people often tried to offload their stuff on me. I'd take it on, my boss would find out about it, and the work would get redistributed. End of story.

It sounds like the situation you're in is dysfunctional, and you're not the source of the dysfunction. It's very difficult to figure out what to do in a dysfunctional situation with any kind of consistency because people are just being irrational. I really don't think you're the problem here, Greentea.

Millie,
As my formal assessment concludes a month from today, your question is timely and interesting. Complementing the question of "why pursue a diagnostic assessment at this age" question is that of "if it 'comes back positive', then what?" (not to mention "what if it 'comes back negative'?").

So all I can do at this stage is speculate. Many people in a similar situation - diagnosed recently in their 40s or later - describe an initial stage somewhere between relief and elation, followed by somewhat of a "crash". What follows then is usually all over the map.

Having already emerged from a different lifelong oppression of my authentic self, I am quite familiar with the sequence of stages of initial excitement, the "OK, now what? blahs", followed by the longer, difficult but ultimately necessary and liberating task of integrating useful skills learned during a lifetime of hiding into my authentic self to produce an ever-changing "end product" that refuses to compromise my core identity to appease the outside world, yet still will accomodate reasonable people (unreasonable people get nothing, zip, nada, ništa) by being aware of how I am different and giving them the time and space needed to understand and accept the difference in the event it becomes evident to them. From talking to several others, "coming out autistic" is for the most part a strikingly similar process to pretty much any other variety of "coming out"; only the names and details change.

Last edited by melissa17b on 14 Dec 2008, 7:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ANEMONE SAID: Also, I seem to be lower functioning than others on this thread in that I have spent most of my adult life on welfare or in poverty. I kind-of knew that I wouldn't be able to hold down a normal job and support myself ahead of time, too, though I resisted that one for a long while because of the super high price of being unemployed.



thanks anemone. good to hear your experience.
For the record, I have spent the bulk of my life on welfare too actually. I have never held down a normal job and by a stroke of luck and also obsessiveness, have, in the past few years, been able to turn my special interest into a career of sorts. there is no way I can work in an office or with other people. I have attempted it briefly - but i cannot cope with the worry i experience and the foot in mouth comments i make! And i cannot fit into the strictures imposd by an external routine when my affinity with my own and inner routines are all i can actually cope with living by.

I might add, over the past couple of months the bottom has dropped out of the art scene and i cannot sell much work. I have just started teaching privately from home - 4 people at a time - once a week - and it is exceedingly difficult for me although the fact it is my special interest makes it bearable. I panic all the day prior about the invasion of people, and i worry the day after about how i behaved and if i said anything inappropriate or callous (which i have been known to do as a teacher.)

Prior to entering 12 step programs ten years ago, i lived my life in boarding houses or was homeless. I also briefly lived in a housing commission or what americans term "the projects," i believe. I do not consider myself high functioning now actually. Although it is a bit better these days than ten years ago. So i have made some progress in social skills and i really acknowledge that to myself. BUt I still prefer my own compnay to anyone else's.

and thanks melissa 17b. I always love reading your posts too. glad the thread is of use and is pertinent and timely.

Overall, most people say they are glad they know once the distress is over and done with.

There was a short time when I wished I didn't know but I would still be living a lifestyle that was causing me a lot of stress if I had never found out, so now the worst is over, I am happier and I know how to manage my life so that I limit the things and situations that cause me too much pain and upset.

ps. i think you are fantastic!

hey Greentea,
don't apologise for long posts. I love reading what you have to say.

For me, it was educational to know that I have AS, but it wasn't emotional. I'm not an unemotional person, but I don't show it as much. So when people talk about having crashes or mood swings, I don't really know what that would be like. I didn't experience that at all. But intellectually, I've thought about it as lot and it explained my intense focus and passion for certain subjects. On the same coin, I know a lot of NTs who have the same focus.

It is STRANGE to be diagnosed with something as an adult that is usually associated with children. I felt like, why didn't anyone figure this out sooner, but when I was in grade school, I was always told I have no learning disabilities and to go back to class. Obviously, there was no knowledge of AS in the United States when I growing up in the 70s and 80s. When I mentored autistic children, I secretly felt I had something in common with them, and the teacher would call upon me to look after them when they got worn out. I never minded being a "buddy". I thought those kids were pretty cool even if I couldn't be a friend in the normal way.

I've accomplished a lot, especially in college, so a diagnosis of AS doesn't obliterate what I've already done.

AS, Ages and Stages topic

Excellent analysis, Sinsboldly. A keeper.

I am still working on some of the stages. sometimes I relapse or take a few steps back. A work in progress.

All my life, I have known I was different. For a long time I thought I was unique to the world. So with my adult diagnosis of Asperger's I now feel like I at least belong to a group of people. So I am not as lonely in that way as I was before.

As to knowing there is no cure---that doesn't bother me. I have always been this way, and I feel like I would have tremendous coping problems if I were to be magically cured. I like the way I think. I love my obsessive narrow interests. I love life. When I am feeling "blue" I can absorb myself into an interest and feel better.