Recovering from Life before Diagnosis

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Thanks for the post, Mysty. BPD is not something I've ever read much about, just did a cursory Google after reading your post. It seems like PTSD, like you said, in that it seems to be more a result of trauma than an inborn disorder, though I guess combined with an inborn vulnerability? So it probably describes me, too.

I don't know ... I sure hope this case worker can connect me with a really good shrink. Not having insurance my options are limited.

Yeah, pretty much. In a discussion on this board once there was a suggestion that the inborn vulnerability is something related to AS, but different.

I ran into the diagnosis aged 52 - first self-diagnosis, then GPs and psychologists and finally the full-blown multiple assessment and registration thing. So now I know what's wrong with me, but I can't communicate it very well.

The only reason I went for the official diagnosis was a researcher I had been talking to with an ethics committee that wouldn't let him use unregistered subjects, but then, I'm an aspie. And I already knew there wasn't much to be done about it.

Interestingly, I work in an environment with a culture that entraps autistic workers of one sort or another - not deliberately, of course, but consistently. Few of the autistics, and fewer of their managers, know what's going on but every day is a new opportunity to learn.

Hi to the OP,

I have been dx AS at 36. 16 years ago I was dx Borderline Personality Disorder, Schizoeffective and traits of PTSD. I have been in and out of hospital, medicated and in therapy on and off for years. I have also worked in Executive positions, hospitality and Pathology when I started my science degree. But I burn out, big time. I feel like I have spent my whole life trying to push myself through the eye of a needle. I am tired.

And now have an array of physical health problems (PMDD one of them) and entered perimenopause at the age of 31. The constant stress of life and eternal confusion has taken its toll. My childhood was also quite violent and frightening.

So I concede to my inner AS self and embrace what I am. It has not been easy and I still struggle. So much to relearn. And at the crux of this, learning to love myself. What I know cognitively and what I know subconsciously are in battle all the time and I am truly exhausted. I still don't know how to explain myself very well.

I have a wonderful psychologist and psychiatrist who help me to with processing, script anxiety and help monitor how much time I spend on obsessions and such. The idea of going back to a job with other people makes me want to rip my own skin off. Although I do like the idea of working by myself. Keep trying with your disability payment. And get a psychiatrist if you can to make the assessments. Psychs tend to hold a bit more sway when going for these things it seems. I have been on disability for a year now.

Take care, dear person.......you are not alone.

Mics.

Bless you, Mics. Thanks for telling me your story. I saw a new therapist yesterday, for free, and thought it went much better than any therapist I had when I had insurance. He spent 2 hours with me! And set me up with a 90-minute appointment with a psychiatrist for later this month. I will persevere with SSDI. May I ask, did you have to go all the way to a hearing, or were you approved earlier?

I am in Australia, and if you are in the US of A, I have heard of the nightmares you guys have over there sometimes to do with your Disability payment system. But keep persevering.......most of the time the outcomes are good.

As the AS dx was not evident then, although I do believe my therapists had an inkling but did not share it with me, I was actually listed with a host of physical ailments and dx with Bipolar in hospital. I had a month hospital admission at the end of 2007 and went back to light duties at work but just couldn't cut it. The meds (lithium and antipsychotics did nothing really except make my thyroid worse) where stopped after a year. I went 8 months just trying to live off my fiances salary but not enough. My psych then said he would support me in disability application. He had to prove that would not be able to work for at least 2 years for it to be considered.

DO NOT play down your symptoms for the benefit of "being in control". I have been "in control" my whole life to my detriment. When I had all my psych forms filled out and went to my first case worker appointment/hearing, she looked through my forms and was very kind. I was valiumed out of my brain and had no clue that I had been crying the whole appointment. She just passed me a tissue at the end, and said "You really need a rest don't you?".......and I bawled my freaking eyes out. Just couldn't keep it in anymore. All I kept saying to her is "I just want my life back, I want my job back, I want my degree back, I want myself back......who the hell am I? Why can't I just BE NORMAL!! !" I was very traumatised at the time.

Approved. Get good help. A good caring psych who will be in your corner is a must. Fight to get what you deserve. If you cannot work, you cannot work.

It is now evident that the AS is what has been happening "in the dark" all along. It took me 2 years to be dx with my psychologist.

Get help babe.......you deserve to feel better and THEN deal with life.......

Mics

Thanks, Mics. It's so hard, being super-intelligent that's all people can see. "How can you be disabled? You're brilliant." Yes, but it takes more than a high IQ to actually be able to function in this world. Emotionally, I'm a wreck, and I just CANNOT get a job, it's just more than I can even face. These 2 years of unemployment have been wonderful -- this last year less so, thinking it can't last -- but I can't go back to what I used to have to deal with every day. It wasn't a particularly bad job, on the contrary, I had a private office with a door I could close, I could listen to music, and I was actually given a lot of slack in terms of actual performance. Being smart allowed me to accomplish relatively a lot in my little windows of functionality. Still ... torment, dressing for work, driving for work, seeing people in the halls, expectations of me, having to interact with presumably "normal" people all day long. Dreading demands on me at my least functional, i.e. the PMDD brain fog. Mentally & emotionally exhausting, and chronically so. I am depleted.

I have hopes. I answered an ad for an apartment on a farm, option to trade work for rent. And she's only asking for 5 hours a week! And it would be mentally-healthy work for me, I'd be happy to do 3 times that many hours. I think. Although I haven't actually met her yet, who knows how we'll get on. But 5 hours a week, that I can do, surely. And the therapist I saw yesterday I think really WANTS to understand how I'm impaired, he's not skeptical going in. Next Friday he will help me to fill out the SSDI questionnaire.

traumatized, absolutely. Where do I begin...my brother, textbook aspie, though undiagnosed, should have suffered the worst yet he is fine. He was worshipped by my mother, has a good job, apartment, amazing and intelligent fiance', etc. His worst slip -up was marrying a borderline who mopped the floors with him, that was just his naivete and in general obliviousness to the world. Which he was allowed, growing up. He was allowed to be arrogant, to be oblivious, to mumble, to be a bookworm, praised for his intelligence, etc etc. I grew up a southern baptist and I was supposed to be saccharine sweet and accomodating to everyone. I wasn't. I was pathologized by my mother and father (who called me a 'little b***h' and 'princess' (not in a good way) because I was off in my own world so much) both and still am to this day. I was misdiagnosed as bipolar in my late teens (two unmedicated decades later I am still waiting for my manic phase to hit) and this was perfect for them, final confirmation about their 'crazy' daughter, and a huge reason I am so reticent about getting *any* diagnosis of any kind again, ever. I have had that 'bi-polar' crap thrown in my face for 20 years. But back then any woman off-kilter was shunted into psychiatry, I admit being a bit jealous of younger women who have a diagnosis in childhood or teens.

My adult life was spent trying to be NT and failing utterly. Energy I could have and should have devoted to more education and making money, had I been able to accept that I will never be good at communicating ANYTHING with my facial expressions, body language, or my voice in general and chosen the write jobs for myself (I imagine that is why we are so computer oriented, being that this medium includes none of those). I chose, over and over again, the worst possible jobs for me...it's almost tragic, so much that it makes me want to laugh out loud, looking back. The worst of it is that I felt I failed over and over and over, and now that I know I have this "neuro-diversity" I feel like there is no hope. It sucks. The only thing I do have is my faith (which is a conglomeration of every mythology in existence since that was one of my obsessions for a while) and the conviction that there has to be an ultimate purpose for my life otherwise the universe wouldn't waste the energy. I hope I am not wrong about this.

Thanks for your post, alana. My faith has really pulled me through. When I feel traumatized, stressed, scared, depressed, my prayer is for those who are going through things like this without faith. I did not always have faith, and it's a LOT better this way!

Peter, sorry if I ignored your post, I see I didn't actually respond to it. When you say "entraps" autistic workers, do you mean it attracts them or that it gets them in trouble? I hope you're doing well with it.

Entrapment - a bit like amber and flies.

Not that there's anything deliberate about it, but the decades pass, the go-getters leave, and the residue remains. Relatively, I'm a newcomer - I'll be long past retirement age before anyone starts talking about how long I've been there.