Undiagnosed Aspies, autistics and borderline characters

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I will validate you, Postpaleo.
I have called myself a "slut-in-recovery". It started when I was a teenager and boys started noticing me. It was the first time in my life I was not invisible. I wanted attention, they wanted my body, it worked for all concerned, and continues to work - MS gets sex and I get attention.

I realized, after reading in this forum, that this behavior was due to having AS and not having any friends but wanting them, and not having anything else of value to offer. Once I realized that, I felt a relief, as if my past sluttiness was not something I need feel guilty about.

Even though this forum has many faults, it has more value to me. Occasionally something makes so much sense it's life-changing.

On another note, about "aspie poseurs", I am unclear on the concept. Why would anybody want to be an aspie? Perhaps I am biased because to me it has made my life miserable and I still see very much muckishness ahead.

Another word that sticks in my mind today,from a thread in the "Parenting" forum,is "advocate".Everyone needs advocates,and all the better if we can be advocates for others facing similar challenges.How many of us have had the good fortune to live with people who would honestly take our challenges seriously and help us learn the necessary tools to cope and live well?Too few,I'd bet.I don't say that with pity,either,just knowing the sense of being different and alone can be incredibly nerve-wracking.

I spent well over twenty-five exhausting years learning to "blend" in whatever ways I could manage,and I still floundered far too much.Self-medication didn't work,nor did cognitive-behavioral therapy or SSRIs.I even dismissed my first unofficial "diagnosis" from an autistic worker;I was too close to my blending process to see the opporutunity for relief and understanding.Investigating other possibilities,with an honest attempt at objectivity,can at least be a process of elimination.

Well,thank heavens for the courage of people to share in the public arena what they've experienced.The last year or two of research,especially the exchange of thoughts here,has taken a huge weight off my chest.I can now re-trace to my earliest memories and recognize what was happening all along.Even after it being suggested by two mental-health professionals,and eliminating other clinical possibilities,I'm still reluctant to change my profile from "not sure if I have it or not".What matters,as you've said,is finding ways to live.The personalizing in the other forums here at WP is probably necessary "glue" and levity.

Yeah,I can't imagine why anyone would foster a false AS.Is the skepticism a reactionary stance from officialy diagnosed "AS-pride" and the pedantic DSM-IV school-of-thought?Or youthful chips-on-shoulders?If I'd been diagnosed when I was young,I might've been defensive too.

Interesting comment... and I think you may be on to something here. Especially the part about the DX criteria being written by psychs to apply to those they want as potential patients... Someone who is functioning well won't make them as much money as someone who really needs the help.

Plus, if I was to take up a psych's time just to get a diagnosis (which would likely take more than one session), wouldn't his time be better spent treating someone who really needs it? (Doesn't even have to be AS.)

Now, if I had heard about AS 20-25 years ago, when I really could have used the help, that would have been different.

*nods* good points

Hey you Thanks for the good feeling.

Should also add about my slut recovery. I didn't really ever, I just do it with one now. Kidding aside, maybe. The Wife thought that, that was what it was a long time ago. I just happened to be in a setting where I could get what would be considered a "pro" opinion on it. The Wife was right, I just can't ever let her know. There is a power struggle in this house and I would like to get above her dogs level in the pecking order. Maybe I should be careful what I wish for.

One of my gifts is this. Because I stood out from the crowd so often, I was watching them. Like most would watch TV, I watch people. I got good at it. I used it to my advantage. I was almost forced into it, abused into it and other things just sort of sprouted from it. Archaeology is just one. You'll see more then a couple folks in here with an Anthropology back ground, Archaeology is a subset of the Anthro. Hell, it's still opening up. When my obsessions are into over drive I get into something deeper faster then an advanced college course. With he added benifet of not being locked into others rules, I see things with fresh eyes. I never know where it is I'm actually going to end up, I let it take me and once in a while I get to steer it. It's like they put me in a zoo, hah!!, I just let them think they did. You should see me when I go feed them, you'd like it

See the path is different for each of us, there is no one why that can work for all. We just need to lift ourselves up with the tools we can find here and else where, It doesn't have to be a lot of lifting, milage varys. It gets better after the first step and to be sure, I run straight into a wall some times and have to shake it off. I just remember to take a ladder next time.

It is never that one would want to be an aspie. It's more like, ok this is who I am, now what? Cept I'm not waiting around for anyone to tell me, I want to go see it. And I don't even have to leave my cave. Who knows where this path will lead, I sure don't. But I don't care, for I am Aspie hear me roar. *meow*

You like chickens right? So go be a chicken rancher or raise them for exotic feathers, breed a kind that the world as never seen and you get to do it where you want to. Get paid to do what you love? What could be better?.

Last edited by postpaleo on 07 May 2007, 7:17 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Postie; Thank you for the profound thought processes today. I don't feel much like doing it myself.

Aylissa; I hear you on the teenage promiscuity. I was that way myself!

I am the "profound" one who came up with the validation and advocate thoughts in other threads. It is validating to me just to know that I made a slight difference. Thank you!

Yup that's where my thought process started. Actually there was another that came after you that caught my eye as well. Told you guys I was going to go do some "soul searching". Didn't find a soul but I had some ideas that might be of help. Ok enough out of me I need to watch where this goes.

I am just going to sit and listen tonight if that is OK. Don't forget to eat while you are searching for that soul!

It's the "now what" part that's got me stuck. I'm learning more, especially from all the others here, but I'm still at somewhat of a loss. I'm learning to pay more attention to how I'm feeling, emotionally AND physically. I've found that excessive nervous system stimulation makes me feel physically ill as well as cranky, and I'm trying to watch my sensory diet, so to speak. I am also paying more attention to what I WANT to do as opposed to what I SHOULD do. For 43 years I've spent my whole life doing it as I was supposed to, raising my hand in class, graduating high school, getting a job, paying car insurance, having children, yet there's not a whole lot of history of doing things I enjoyed or chose to do. No wonder I've got apathy, inertia and anhedonia. So now I come here and somebody talks about how fascinated they are by Chinese history, and then I read a book on Tasmania and become fascinated by Tasmanian history, and rather than think I'm a freak or wasting my time, I revel in it! It's good to enjoy something for a change instead of always feeling obligated.

I've been set free in some ways, and thanks postpaleo for pointing that out. I could give some more examples - okay, one more. As regards people. I used to feel obligated to have them around and be gracious and make sure that they were having a good time with me. Meant forced conversation, discomfort and giving up things I liked. Now I've decided no more socializing unless it's positive, and as soon as I'm finished talking with someone I walk away. And I used to analyze all my conversations with people to see if I'd screwed up somewhere, and I no longer do that. I am able to let go of a lot of social anxieties just by being aware that I will never be good at and, most importantly, there is no need at all to be social. I can live in my house and not have any more people in my life than the 5 I've got right now. And knowing that these 5 people will be with me till my funeral, I'm willing to put a lot more effort into those relationships, so they have gotten better.

About advocacy, I missed the original discussion, but I will tell you that I was the beneficiary of an advocate for the first time ever, this last semester. She's the director of the university's disability program, and she understood me well. She got me out of a jam so I could survive the semester. It was fabulous. On that note, I don't know where I got this idea, but I would like to have 3 people or so who I could turn to for help and advice, particularly regarding social or job issues. Like a therapist, a disability counselor, and a good friend with good common sense. I tried to put this together but it was unsuccessful. It is my dream, though, to have a back-up team to keep me from making huge errors.

Giggle. You know me too well. However, I have been given the opportunity to be a cancer research nurse and I've graciously accepted. When we move, the chickens will all be given to good homes.

KimJ I'm so glad you started this post. It's good to see other AS adults who are out in the world. Granted its not easy, but I think there is a secret or maybe just silent group of us out there on the NT playground. Nutbag and I have talked about this alot since we belong to the same autism group (local). It gets frustrating going to the meetings and hearing only all the things autistics and Aspies can't do especially when a certain percentage of the Aspies are agreeing that they can't do it. Then I wonder sometimes was my diagnosis wrong? But I have all the AS symptoms. I just am more independent I guess. It angers me being told what I shouldn't be able to do because I just so happen to be autistic. Its nice to hear when others are living their lives as best they can despite being on the spectrum.

And I read this thread, and another few aspects of my life go "click!"

All my life I knew I was different. It took well into theoretical adulthood to embrace "weird" as a descriptor, rather than an insult. Reading these posts, however, particularly those dealing with validation, highlights the feeling that I got back in 2001, when Newsweek ran their article on Asperger's, and my older sister read it, and her first response was, "So THAT'S what's wrong with Jon!"

I didn't know what the feeling was at the time, nor did I really understand why I took such a strong stand on the subject of "cures" when I first hit that group. But now I do. The feeling is an unfamiliar one, and pleasant - the feeling that there is somewhere I belong, that I'm not the only one this crap happens to. I was fortunate in my choice of parents, in that they both understand (or understood) perseveration on unusual topics - my father was obsessed with historical trivia, my mother can't stop doing crosswords of all things. They didn't mind when I'd spend hours in the library, researching one or another odd topic.

(As an aside, that lust for obscure research may pay unusual benefits for some of us - my brother-in-law is a research pharmacologist, and after reading recently of some of the effects of glutamate deficiency in neural connectivity, and the effects of strychnine as a glutamate antagonist, I asked him if there was any way to find the neural glutamate levels of a living subject. He doesn't know of any, but as soon as he's finished working on a new class of anti-rejection drugs that don't destroy the immune system, he wants to work on breeding rats that display the physical symptoms of autism, so he can do some neural dissections.)

Cool!
Ask him about dopamine and autism. I'm curious if we have deficient dopamine receptors or neural pathways that obstruct it somehow.

Does Jerry Newport go to your meetings? he should be more inspiring than your run of the mill speaker.
I go to support group meetings for parents and it's totally a waste. I keep thinking I'll meet parents that think like I do. But nooooo, it's more about not validating autistic thinking and validating their superstitious voodoo. It really is a barrier to discussing solutions like education, literature and socializing our kids.
I took over a support group back in California and tried to run it more like a social club, but people are really into that Crisis-mode, they want to meet other professionals that will "help" them.

It's akin to GLBT awareness in some places. This gay guy was complaining that he went to the local Gay Men's group and it was very sad. He said they were all very sad and sorry for themselves and just moped. There's a point where you need to move on and find solutions and organize.

NT parents and Aspies can be a very creative bunch. We have to improvise for all the things Society won't do for us.

In my experience from this forum, NT parents and ASpies don't have much common ground.
I won't go into that forum because the first thread I read will always piss me off.
I'm learning not to do things that piss me off.

There are others who go in there and seem to get stuck or have emotional trauma, it would be best I think to stay away.

I don't know, there are a lot of Aspie parents in there. I see them more than the NT parents. Say what you want about NTs (I'll probably agree with most of it) but they're parents too. Society hasn't done very much for Autism and that affects them too. They have to learn how to raise kids they don't understand and for which there is no model. All parents of kids on the Spectrum have to swim upstream, against the tide of medical intervention, education, societal conformity and family pressure. It's huge and it's real.

yeah but ....

I agree with Aylissa, I venture in sometimes and it just makes me angry or sad. I tend to keep out. If they (NT parents) are better at communication and empathy, they (IMHO) can observe the rest of the forum and learn without me going into the dark zone.

but that's an aside, I really wanted to post this:

I feel much the same (not that I had much of an opportunity to be slu*ty - lol). But I have always felt a need to be liked, but never felt liked. I have always had trouble saying "no", I think because I want to be liked. So if anyone asks, can you help me move house, can you loan me this or that, help clean up this or collect money for that charity ....

I end up getting used. I see a great similarity, its just mine was non-sexual.