The Dino-Aspie Cafe (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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I'm 44, and AS is the only thing that explains what I've had to deal with all my life (and am, in some ways, still challenged by). In my childhood, the guidance counsellors at school tried to get me to be like everyone else. This was in the 1960s, when the prevailing wisdom was that being an introvert was some kind of mental aberration that needed to be corrected. But nothing anyone said or did made a bit of difference.

Of course, now I know why...

I do okay for myself -- I own my own home (a condo apartment close to downtown, I can walk to work), a steady job in a large company that has serious career potential (been there only three years, but I see no reason why I can't be there until I retire), and some semblance of a social life (most of it involving other RPG gamers, at least one of whom might also be an undiagnosed Aspergian... though in his case I doubt he's aware of it).

At work, I come across as mildly eccentric, the quiet type; my being a sci-fi geek is well known. But I compensate for my lack of social skills by always being friendly and pleasant and polite, a strategy I've been using only the last dozen years or so. So whereas before I was branded as an antisocial weirdo, now it's "He's a nice guy... a little quiet, but he's always willing to help out if you ask him." (I'm also getting a rep for being a Microsoft Excel guru, people keep asking me for help with Excel at work.)

I have told absolutely no one offline about me having AS. What would be the point? At least with sites like this I can connect with other people who have had some of the same kinds of experiences I did.

Do any of you remember the original Peanuts comic strip (the 1950s-early 60s)? I think that Charlie Brown was an Aspie. He was always the outsider, overly trusting, slightly weird, outcast who never "got" things the way other kids did.

Haha! The Critic was DEFINITELY Aspie. Lisa Simpson, too. And in a weird way, the American Dad Stan, the super-literal uber patriot.

I'm 42 years old and I have nine cats, four housecats and five ferals, plus a dog. I love your screen name.

Thank you! Cats...can't live with 'em, can't live without "em...they sleep on your face.

YowlingCat,

They wake you up by sticking their behinds in your face too. It seems especially common with Siamese.

Hi Yowling Cat.

I am 47 y.o. from the Great Southern Land. I have 2 dogs (also 2 cats share my house ).

Welcome to WP

Dino-Aspie Cafe? I'll have a long macchiato thanks.

No problem. And since it's opening day, you may have your choice of hot, plain or blueberry scones with butter, on the house.

Hi, YowlingCat!

I'm neither over 40 OR feeling creaky, but I seem to do much better socially (ha!) with people who are older than I am; my best friend is 16 years my senior.

I just joined Wrong Planet today, actually... I'm 34 and self-diagnosed for now with an official dx pending. Only discovered Asperger's a few months ago and was actually relieved because so much is now clearer about me and why the heck I act the way I do!

By-the-by... the folk I live with have a "yowling cat" who performs very, very loudly at night; thank God I live in the basement!

Welcome, and have a cup of our special McAspie brew! We loan canes and walkers, even to those less age-challenged. Sign-up sheet on the counter just inside the door.

Thanks for the brew...no thanks for canes and walkers! Had enough of those - and crutches - to last me a couple lifetimes. Heck, I still have the last cane I was using last year! I'll quite willingly donate it to the Cafe; just tell me where to send it!! !

To hell with canes and walkers, I want to sign on for a shotgun ! !!

Just kidding, of course...

I'm 50, and it was a real struggle when I was young. Because I didn't fit in with the crowd, I hung around on the fringe and started drinking and smoking merry-wana at far too early age. Uni was both a blessing and a curse. I excelled at the classes that were my interests, and barely scraped by with mathmatics ! !! I would look at my grades, and think 'how can I be so bloomin' lazy ! !' To this day I have to use a calculator to do me chequebook. I'm married, and we live in a small (1200 sq ft) house that's close to the wild, so we get rabbits and all sorts of birds passing through our front yard. I have a miserable job, but I'm soon to launch a website and see if I turn a few that way. In some ways I envy our younger crowd here, DX's and meds, and all. But in other ways I don't. When you come right down to it, you have to use your strengths, and pardon yourself your weaknesses.

Well, howdy, howdy, howdy!

I'll have a grande skinny mocha no whip, please! And a scone...

I'm Rjaye, 46, and have been a bit "odd" all of my life. I grew up in an alcoholic, blue-collar family who didn't believe there was such a thing as neurological difference of any kind, and kept telling me to snap out of it. I had no social skills, and had odd behaviors, and while the school system kept trying to get my parents to get me some kind of help, see previous sentence.

I was reading before I started school, and while teachers constantly were telling my parents I would rather draw than pay attention, I was an advanced student. They tried to skip me a few grades in order to provide me some kind of challenge, but my mother refused. She wanted me with my own age group.

Socially, I was adrift, not knowing how the hell people got together, made friends, got dates and all of that nonsense, and at the same time, thinking all of the games NTs played were ridiculous, and without reason.

Despite this, I buried myself in academia, and got my degree in Visual Communications, and ended up staying close to home to help my father take care of my mother, who had a terminal illness. I had no career, but I worked, and ended up putting quite a bit of time in at a hospital. When my mother died (when I was 31), I crashed from the stress of work and her illness. By the time I was ready to go back to college, my father had a stroke which left him severely disabled. My own health was mysteriously worsening, but I stayed local and helped to take care of him with his second wife.

I ended up on disability with a combination of severe depression, a Borderline Pers. Disorder dx, and some physical problems.

In the five years since being on SSI, I was re-dx as AS, a severe spinal deformity in my neck that prevents me from doing most jobs (arm becomes paralyzed), my father died, and I am now going back for a doctorate in English, and hope to teach at university and do research.

I was so relieved when I got the AS dx. It explained everything. I am now working on my self-esteem, and am lucky to have a therapist who gets it, and is helping me learn to cope with the abilities I have, instead of pretending. The whole self-acceptance thing--priceless.

So, I live on my own in an apartment (not willing to buy--who knows where I'll end up teaching), no pets, though I really like dogs, read, draw, write, hike, enjoy my friends who accept me for who I am (and who are Aspie-ish as well), and looking for a relationship. I love my four-wheel drive, as it gets me to lovely mountain areas and beaches otherwise unaccessible, and am getting into Patrick O'Brian's books. I am a Buddhist (for 34 years), and collect frogs, only because my friends and family think I do (frogs are cool, being an "indicator" species).

Life is getting good. Yeah.

Much metta, Rjaye

Howdy. yerself! Don't forget the napkins...