Hello there, I'm new here

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I found this thread courtesy of the psychologist who has given me my diagnosis of ASD/Aspergers at 28.

I never would have thought I had Aspergers, but I always knew I was pretty weird/different and have an incredibly difficult time making friends. I am fortunate enough to have a long term significant other who is incredibly supportive and understanding, even though he is neurotypical and probably the most well socialized, most universally liked person on the planet.

So yeah... hi!

Hey Sara welcome.

hi, sara. welcome. congrats on your relationship. what sorts of things do you enjoy doing?

Hi Sara. Hopefully your diagnosis has brought some clarity to your life / answered some nagging questions you may have had. I'm new here too so it's interesting to see people my age being freshly diagnosed.

Was it hard for you to locate someone who specializes in adult ASD/Aspie diagnosing? Also what kind of person did you go to - psychologist, psychiatrist, or something else?

I spend a lot of time online doing nothing productive (unfortunately), I work on my social media etc... I've been finding it harder and harder to make myself leave my house as I get older, especially since moving to a new area where I don't have local friends, and of course, making friends can be a real challenge. Otherwise I am a model and I make youtube videos, I had a couple of pretty popular ones and am pretty well known but debating on revealing my identity until I decide if I can work that into my, er, persona? Or whatever. Oooh, mysterious.

I googled and googled and googled until I came across the autism foundation in my area, then found the "diagnosis" section of their site, which has a map, and then narrowed it down to people who don't just treat children. I found a clinical psychologist whose specialty is diagnosing autism disorders. The psychologist said I do have ASD/Aspergers and I am going soon to get the "gold standard" test that I can use for future jobs, etc. Unfortunately I don't have insurance at the moment so that's coming out of pocket, ugh.

My cousin wasn't diagnosed with Aspergers until she was 52- it's been a few years for her I believe, and though I only met her once, we connected via Facebook & it was crazy to hear her story, it was so similar to my own, always feeling alienated, self-medicating with alcohol at times to "fit in", being brutally honest always, etc etc up to including being the only people in our families to ever work in a bar, and using that experience to sort of observe and learn how people work, how to be social-ish. It was after speaking to her and realizing that our grandfather probably also had ASD (an engineer and tinkerer who invented all sorts of little things, but had no social skills) that I decided to seek out a diagnosis myself.

I have a fairly large social media following (and I've realized it's not too hard to figure out who I am by googling my username here but it would be a TON of work to do it the other way around), as I mentioned in my other comment I'm debating talking about my diagnosis, and trying to think of how I can use the platform as a way to raise awareness/help other people understand. I'm still working it all out myself, I guess. I know I'm not as bad off with some people who have Aspergers- I do relate the whole world to myself, and talk about myself a lot, unable to understand easily how other people feel or why they do things, but I do get things like sarcasm that other Aspies struggle with.

Welcome ^^