I don't really know what I want to say

Post Reply New Topic

Mostly I want to wave and say HI, I think. I have been feeling very alone lately.

This is going to be verbose...it's my gift...I apologize in advance.

We knew our youngest daughter was different while she was still in the womb. We are no strangers to needing special care, as we've both been diagnosed with PTSD-him from a war injury and me from childhood sexual abuse. We have always parented her differently and she has thrived. One weekend we went away to a seminar on parenting kids from hard places as we were looking into adopting children and I realized that some of the "quirks" we saw in our daughter were likely sensory processing issues. I wondered if we had somehow traumatized her and for the next couple of years that really plagued me.

Last spring a friend had me watch Temple Grandin's vid-The Woman who Thinks Like a Cow. I recognized our girl in the things Temple said. We started to look back and piece things together and realized that she was likely HFA. The final nail in the coffin was when my husband was looking at old pictures one night and said, "she was so much more alert and interactive. Look at her eyes." He hadn't been 100% on board since he hates labels, and that was when we decided that we finally had a name for what we saw in her.

Last summer she was in a program with peers and had a lot of anxiety. The kids her age picked on her and she had a hard time relating. She would slip out unnoticed by the facilitators, despite me telling them she had a habit of eloping. I don't think she would have enjoyed that program at all except that her big sister and her friends took her under their wings and included her during all the social activities. We realized then that we didn't have enough tools in our toolbox to deal with all of this on our own. So in November we took her to see someone (who our ped had actually recommended we go see 3x in the prior year...she saw something we didn't) who diagnosed her PDD-NOS with SID.

Over these 9 months, I was researching Autism ad nauseum, as is my style. I would read these things and think, "man...ASD sure is a lot like PTSD!" Come January she was doing therapy at the local Autism center and started at a local Montessori school. In the midst of having a little bit of time to myself, I decided to focus on her future a bit and began reading the accounts of adult Autistics, since she will one day be one. I found myself more and more described by the pen; blog after blog. I cautiously took an online ASD test and scored a 27, which wasn't really high enough for me to be like, "oh yeah...totally me." I am ever the skeptic, anyway...

Enter my own therapy. I recently began CPT for PTSD and by week 3 noticed that I was probably not responding the way I should be. I brought it up (along with my suspicion that I may be somewhere on the spectrum myself) to my therapist. She agreed I wasn't responding to treatment quite the same way most of her patients do, but described me as "more cognitive than most" and said that she "didn't see it" when I brought up Autism. I can only assume because I am moderately social and VERY good at blending when I have enough spoons to play the game.

After she blew me off, so to speak, I started feeling people I know out for their opinions, trying hard to mask what I was asking, but failing every time. Almost every time I was met with a response like, "no...you're so smart" "no, you're so socially aware" "no, you're so intuitive." Which first of all, really pissed me off, because what exactly were they saying about their assumptions of my daughter!? But secondly, made me seriously wonder why I could relate to all these traits/feelings/experiences and yet be "SO NT."

A little over a week ago a friend (a fellow Autism mommy I met online) sent me a book called "I Think I Might be Autistic." So I started pouring over it and took the quiz at rdos. As you can see from my results below, I scored pretty high on the Aspie side. 170/200...I thought it must be a faulty test so I had close to 20 people I know take the test. My main interest was if people with chronic anxiety would "look" Aspie to the quiz-and therefore my PTSD symptoms would be showing up as Autism traits. But inevitably, my friends who were "quirky" would score high on the Aspie side, whether they struggled with anxiety or not and my friends with high anxiety who weren't "quirky" (for lack of a better way to put this) scored low on the Aspie side. After seeing that and taking the test 3 times (uhh, yeah...a bit perseverative, maybe?) I figured it was probably fairly accurate.

So I forwarded the results on to my therapist and she pulled out the DSM IV (since that's the last one with Aspie dx) and I fit the criteria with a resounding YES over and over again.

On one hand, I feel relieved. It makes *so* much sense. And maybe now we can tailor the therapy to actually help me instead of make me frustrated that I'm wasting my time or making me feel confused. On the other hand, I feel horrid. My husband is upset about this (he's also loving and accepting, but this is rocking his world. He's having a hard time right now) and my mom had a conniption when I tried to get info about my childhood. (In fact, she said, and I quote..."you were never dumb, that wasn't the problem! You were just LAZY. You were stubborn and no one could make you do ANYTHING you didn't WANT to do and that was just the end of it." Gee mom...thanks.

I am almost 32 and I have a family. I have friends who love me and I feel like I'm fairly well adjusted (though the work it takes to "fit in" has become more and more exhausting to the point of wishing I could hide most of the time) so I am stuck with...do I want a dx? Can I even get one? Does it really matter? But I feel like I won't allow myself any grace unless I know "for sure" (as if any medical professional can give that assurance, this line of thinking is practical madness, yet here I am)

Anyway, if you made it this far, you are a saint and I thank you. Hi again from the new girl. And bye

hiya Teha welcome to the club

PTSD is apparently more common in ASD folk. Consider that your PTSD might not be a mistaken diagnosis, but instead ASD perhaps makes you more prone to suffer from PTSD and other mental illnesses.

Had it not been for my strange responses to psychotherapy for PTSD, I might not have been diagnosed with Asperger's at all.
If the PTSD is still a problem, you might want to try EMDR therapy. It sounds stupid, but it really helped reduce the intensity and frequency of flashbacks in my case.

Yeah, you can get a diagnosis as an adult. Tests and procedures might vary depending upon where you live, but as a general rule you'll need to first speak to your family doctor and request a referral to a specialist. I was diagnosed at 32.

Does it matter? Does it matter to you? From your post, it sounds like you have developed pretty good coping mechanisms whether you have ASD or not. In my case I've generally been a little more at peace with myself since the diagnosis, and my friends and family (I think) have benefited from knowing that I have a medical reason for being a miserable sod, and it's not because I hate them.

Anyway, whether you are or you aren't - welcome!

Thanks to both of you! Pobbles, that kinda brings me comfort. I'm grateful to know it's not completely uncommon and to hear of a treatment method that works well. I have been doing Cognitive Processing Therapy, since writing is my strong-suit and I'm just not sure it's going to work out so well. I will talk to the therapist about switching.