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Hello everyone,

I joined last year and had been lurking for awhile before that. No one knows me, but I feel like I know a lot of you. I'm a little shy about introductions, hence why it's taken me so long! That, and I wanted to be sure I did a fair amount of research before making any declarations and such.

I discovered AS/HFA four years ago. I've changed my diagnosis here from "Have Aspergers - Undiagnosed" to "Not sure if I have it or not" a couple of times. It's back to "Have Aspergers - Undiagnosed" after tons of extensive research, that included autism (plus PDD's in general, comorbids, etc) schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and the PD's. It damn near drove me crazy doing that, but here I am, self dx'd with the possibility of ADD or other comorbids.

If there were any doctors in my province (I'm in Atlantic Canada) that dealt with ASDs in adults, I would have taken advantage of such a scenario. As it is, I'm not financially well off enough to take on the expenses that come with travel, etc. I'm 43, so at this point, I'm not sure it would do me any good, other than to give me official validation.

Okay so...my family definitely has a history of what looks like ADHD and bipolar issues, starting with my paternal grandmother (as far as I can tell). Our middle sister strikes me as someone who had untreated ADHD as a child, which then became ODD, to what now appears to be either bipolar or borderline or both. As a consequence, I worry about her, as does other family members. My only brother always struck me as being somewhere on the bipolar spectrum, as he's confessed during lucid times that he's always had these inexplicable "mood swings", and is now going through a divorce in which his wife of 15 years can't deal with his aforementioned "moods". My father...well, I still can't figure him out, but he can be quite narcissistic and cruel one minute and overbearingly affectionate the next. I'm the youngest of four and the only one to look deeply into these disorders, and to try and figure us all out. I started by trying to figure myself out only, but since psychology (especially in regards to autism) is one of my favorite "special interests", I can't seem to stop myself!

My siblings and I were born to members of the "Lost Generation" who were made up of those who's formative years were during the Great Depression, and were too young to fight in WWII. Amongst other things, they are a tough generation that doesn't put a lot of faith in doctors, especially psychiatry. That said, my mom said to me on one occasion when I was a teen that she wondered if I was either schizoid or schizotypal (I seriously doubt schizotypal, but I can see someone thinking "schizoid"). I still have plans to keep trying in regards to getting her to open up about all this, something she's not as eager to do these days, for whatever reason. She constantly let me know her observations about how "odd" a child I was from the beginning, but without coming across as too "negative" about it. Not so for my father and brother, who could be nasty or insensitive about things (particularly towards my stimming, tactile issues, and "shyness"). The only sibling who never made me feel like an outsider was my oldest sister, who has the most in common with me and whom I'm thinking is "BAP". She's the only one who's open to conversations about autism when I get the chance to spend some time with her and we can relate on quite a few things.

Anyway, I've already went on for too long which I had no intention to. Btw, I love WP, it's an awesome little community you guys have here, and I hope to join in on other threads now that I finally did my intro!

Welcome! Nice to meet you.

Welcome to WrongPlanet!

No more lurking for you!!

Nice to meet you!

Welcome to WrongPlanet, and welcome to my time warp.

Welcome to WP

To WrongPlanet!! !

My goodness, what a lot of, of, of stuff you've gone through!

Welcome, greetings, saluatations, bienvieido, bievenue a Wrongplanet!

Welcome aboard the Wrong Planet, fellow-traveler MechAnime.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Thank you everyone for the warm welcome, you're all so kind!

I appreciate that, but I could have had it far worse. I'm grateful to have finally "found myself" after so many years. Ugh...as clique as that sounds, it's true!


Yay!

Thanks again, it's nice meeting you all.

Hello and welcome. I'm assuming by your username that you also like anime? Myself I'm somewhat of a mech genre fan, my favorite in the genre is Code Geass closely followed by Gundam 00 and Eureka Seven. I'm also currently looking for a series called Diebuster, saw a clip of it on an AMV but cant find it. I know they have sub-only DVD's in America, but I dont think it has a dub. Ah well, time to warm up the torrent client...

Hello MechAnime, welcome, enjoy your stay on the Wrong Planet!

I do like anime, but it's not whole reason for my username:

As a young child, I lived in an imaginary world - I still do, just the characters and story lines are different now and I don't fall into it as often, just mostly at nighttime or when I'm alone and not busy with something else. It was very automatic (mech-) when I met another kid. This world was made up of "animated" cats, my animal obsession throughout my childhood and beyond. I'd always go straight into when other kids came around. For example, I'd point at a hole in the ground, and tell them that a "cartoon" cat lived down there, etc, etc. They weren't imaginary friends, as such, and I knew they weren't real. I was just story telling. Unfortunately, I forgot to tell the other kids this part! So yeah, they thought I was quite odd.

As far as these animated cats went, there was a family of them, as well as their friends, some of which were wildcats - the cheetah characters were my favorites. They had big eyes and special powers. So: Mech=automatic + Anime=animation.

Silly, I know. Good luck finding the Diebuster series!

Thanks again for the welcomes!