A little bit of background info about my children and what brought me to this place:
My daughter will be 3 in August and up until age 2 she did not speak, did not want to be held, hugged, or consoled, sorted toys, and smacked her head on the ground, etc. I stayed in denial about the fact that she may be ASD until she turned 2 and an overwhelming fear that I may never speak to her overwhelmed me; at which point she started seeing an OT/ST. Now she speaks in sentences and rarely hurts herself, but much like my son now only eats a handful of things. My son is 8, spoke very early, is extremely intelligent, and has always communicated as though he were much older. He will flap his hands sometimes, make absurd noises, and much like my daughter, around age 2 he decided to only eat very few things; to this day he only eats the breading off of chicken nuggets, and we must wash our hands if we touch his food. My son is very content with playing video games or watching TV solo in his room and will only emerge to request food/drink. He is a straight A student but cannot poor a drink, tie his shoes, or go to the bathroom without announcing it and the light must be on. I work in IT at my son's elementary school, and recently his teacher asked me if I ever considered the fact that he may have Asperger's .
All of this above made me wonder how?... How are both of my kids ASD?
I remember as a kid, for years, I would rock...I mean literally slam my back repeatedly against the couch while watching TV or riding in the car. As an adult it is painful for me to sit and watch TV, and when I do, my foot or feet are always shaking. I may be looking at the TV, but chances are I am paying absolutely zero attention to it. As a child, my father worked on the road and my mother worked nights and was in college. This is left my teenage brother to watch (not) me in there absence. I remember roaming the entire city or walking miles through the woods alone starting at around age 7. Throughout my life I would have a friend or 2, but really never had the desire; it was more like " OK some one is in the room with me, I'm content." I was an extremely overweight child which, due to the teasing, only further fed my desire to be an outcast. There were always a few people that were extremely drawn to me and would follow my lead, but again, I did not have the desire for them. My being overweight was probably contributed to me being sexually molested by an older sibling from about age 3 to 12, but at the time I did not know any different so I do not think the rocking was a coping mechanism; being overweight, maybe.
Throughout my teenage years I was overly preoccupied with finding my soul mate; literally I was looking for a wife from about the age of 13. By age 24, after only maybe 2 relationships I met who is now my wife. I learned to be much more social in my 20's by drinking and doing drugs most of the time. I, too, was an overachiever: straight A's and full paid scholarship to a state university, but the burning desire to find a partner was all that I could think about. That 3rd grader in your 6th grade math class, that was me, "Hi!" I even came up with a formula different than the teacher taught that was easier to use. She named it the "grouch formula"; she nicknamed me grouch due to my temperament; I was 9. I got in fights all the time, spoke my mind, and hated authority; none of this mattered because they would not dare expel a straight A student. I was very successful in retail sales, though it pained me internally leading me to drink excessively to cope. I eventually moved into management, and I was payed very well. Around the age of 25 my life drastically changed: I thought I was having a heart attack; enter the very first panic attack. ( I am, and always have been a very anxious person; sides of my neck are always burny tight.)
I battled panic attacks for about the next year, and within the first month I lost that management job because the attacks made me not want to leave the house. A doctor put me on Xanax and Lexapro. The Lexapro made me feel even more crazy, but I found out if I drank beer wit the Xanax that sufficiently numbed me from the anxiety/world and I could float through life. I remained unemployed for several months and then secured a management position at a car dealership that paid very well. This job nearly killed me due to the high pressure and fear-motivating, coke snorting, steroid using owner operator. I held this job for 3 years and by the end of it 5 am started with chugs off the Rum handle, that I had to purchase every other day, so I could swallow a Xanax bar for breakfast-->all this so I could muster up the courage to leave the house. I was extremely successful at this job, and for the most part nobody had a clue that I was drunk and plastered off Xanax the whole time.
Here is how most jobs are for me:
first few months I do a pretty good job of acting--> "Hi. how are you", etc. (eh, so pointless, I really could care less how you are.) Eventually I don't get enough sleep or I have a bad day and somebody gets a taste of who I really am....then another somebody....and another. I spend my days reliving all social interactions in my head over and over again; repeatedly trying to figure out what the other person was thinking or how I was interpreted. Eventually, I outcast myself and become politically inept to climb any sort of ladder, but my employer puts up with me because my work ethic far exceeds any other employee.
I sabotaged myself at this job eventually, and was unemployed for almost 2 years. During this time I got myself off the Xanax and quit drinking all together. It was surprisingly easy. I thought addiction was supposed to be addicting? I decided to do something different so I grabbed some IT certs and finally landed my first IT job. My relationship with my wife is great, although I am often viewed as distant or emotionless to her. She is an extremely extroverted ESFP, and without a doubt NT, while I am INTJ and more than likely an Aspie.
So, back to current day (Trust me, my past is more colorful than a box of crayolas, and I think you can get a picture of who I am at this point.) In my prowess to discover the root of my children;s unique traits I discovered some Aspergers tests and decided to give them a go. I tried to answer the questions as objectively as possible without skewing them. I also took these tests before doing any real research about AS. The first one I took was the extremely long one that gives you the spiderweb looking graph at the end, results:
Aspie score 141, NT score 78. I was like, hmmmm so I am not a psychopathic nutjob after all.
Next I took the AQ and got a 39, I thought this was high, so I retook it and tried to be as truthful and faithful to myself as possible ( I was trying to disprove AS if possible, by thinking I must be skewing). The second time I scored a 46! WTF! enough of that test. hmmmm eye test, yeah I'll take that and pass it. Again, WTF! Total failure, answered the opposite of correct on almost all of them.
At that point I am like" "Woohooo" this is why I feel like I am meant to do something great, and I am smarter than most, yet I am at the poverty level: I suck at life! I am being sincere, I was thrilled. Finally at the age of 32, Answers! I had my wife take the spider graph test and she scored like 40 for Aspie and 170 NT, lol.
Quick background: father has always rubbed his finger repeatedly on top of the other to the point of wearing holes in his finger nail. Started as a child, with a blanket. Both my kids did this with their blankets. My mom is extremely controlling, has to be right, interrupts people non stop, seems to be never listening, and was verbally abusive when I was young. Her IQ is 170. She has no friends. My dad has no friends. I have people that try to be my friend (my wife forces me to answer the phone from time to time), but really I have no friends. Now my wife has no friends, my son only has friends at school, and my daughter only views other kids as someone to push and take what the have.
So, are you ready? I tell my mom I think I may have AS. Her response: "You do not have Aspergers! You had friends when you were younger!" (even though she previously "diagnosed my daughter with AS)
Fu*k me, smack to the face. Since then we have had several knock down screaming matches, and she still refuses to even consider it. My dad agreed when she was not around, but in front of her he takes her side. POINT IS: she is so damn ASD that she literally told me she is perfect! Yeah, so perfect that she cannot see the forest for the trees, and the trees in this forest are from the Wrong Planet!
So, when I was in college I literally took every damn Psych/Soc course offered trying to figure the seemingly blissfully stupid people out in this world, and my educated self-diagnosis is that I have Aspergers; it is genetic, and my kids got it from me. There is nothing wrong with me or my kids, the rest of the world just needs to shut the fu*k up and learn to think as well as they BS with each other! I mentioned this to the lead instructor in the ASD department at the school and she looked at me and said "You really think I did not peg you with AS the day we met, now go hide in your office?" and winked.
What do you think?
(By the way, I am a member of the grammar police, but I woke up at 3 am and just felt compelled to spill it.)
21 Jun 2013, 6:18 am
