Page 2 of 2 [ 22 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2

Dillogic
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Nov 2011
Gender: Male
Posts: 9,339

11 Jan 2012, 1:17 am

(Was 25/26.)

I kind of just blended in with the framework. I was always well behaved (shutdowns rather than meltdowns), so I'm sure that had a big thing to do with it. I did well in primary school after a slow start (which was looked into, but since the test came back with a "high IQ", the psycho and whatnot thought I just didn't want to read; I couldn't read/write on time), and in high school, no one bothered doing anything, even though my mother asked them to look into things. I look and sound very normal (no matter the lack of nonverbal stuff), just probably "shy" or something at first glance.

I first realized something was amiss when, after being diagnosed with OCD, and "fixing" a lot of such with CBT, I was still uncomfortable around people and I never achieved a single thing my peers had, which the OCD wasn't affecting. Naturally, I was socially isolated (no friends, even on the 'net), living at home, and not working (I didn't think any of this was odd); I kept on trying to study at college with degrees of failure.

Enter AS.



Verdandi
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 54
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)

11 Jan 2012, 2:52 am

Ddddd wrote:
If you got your diagnosis after your 25th or something like that... Why didn't your parents/school seek help? Or did they but they didn't find what caused the problems? Or did they see no problem at all? What was the moment you decided to get a diagnosis?


My school did try to get help, but my mother blocked that and insisted I was too smart to need help. She got me diagnosed with nearsightedness which I recovered from in under two years - and I don't think I ever actually had it. When she had people telling her I had something going on (and I know on at least one occasion a person told her I was autistic) she'd blow it off and get angry at them for thinking there was something "wrong" with me. At the same time I was barely functioning in mainstream classes and nearly ended up going to a high school that could accommodate my needs before my father nixed that idea. Mostly, I was treated like I was too smart to ever need academic help, and my attempts to get help were generally brushed aside.

I decided to get a diagnosis the moment I was sure that I actually had neurological reasons for all of my problems.



Az29
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

User avatar

Joined: 9 Nov 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 235
Location: Cambs, UK

11 Jan 2012, 4:15 am

I'm just going through the diagnosis process myself. My primary (age 4-10) school noticed many things odd about me, the major one being the fact I would not speak at all. My mother was in complete denial that anything was wrong with me and recorded me doing my celebrity impressions one evening after school and took it in to proove I could speak. Later on when one teacher took her aside and suggested taking me to a psychiatrist my mother again insisted I was fine. That's how she has always been, whenever I did something a little different to other kids she would always reassure me "don't worry about it, not everyone is the same so just be you, don't let anyone ever tell you there is something wrong with you". She would always drum in to me that it was okay to be different and not to pay attention to other people's narrow mindedness.

She always thought I was quite gifted from a young age, apparently I was talking by 6 months, walking by 12 months and out of nappies by 13 months, I refused bottles and dummies (pacifiers) around the same time and I just always seemed very independent and logical, I just had 'quirks'. She probably just assumed I took after my dad, who it turns out has more Aspie traits then I first thought, so I guess if her husband was a little odd, then she probably thought it was perfectly understandable and perhaps 'normal' that the kids would be like/take after their father.



OJani
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2011
Age: 50
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,505
Location: Hungary

11 Jan 2012, 5:44 am

Ddddd wrote:
If you got your diagnosis after your 25th or something like that... Why didn't your parents/school seek help? Or did they but they didn't find what caused the problems? Or did they see no problem at all? What was the moment you decided to get a diagnosis?

I'm 38 and living in an ex-communist European country. That explains a lot. They didn't think I had no problems at all, but they thought I'm only too smart and that's why I couldn't listen at classes and played with whatever at my hand. However, that didn't explain my serious behavioral problems (hitting and being beaten up, disturbing class, at least once almost hit by a car, disobeying), and later my utter isolation. My mother is a teacher and was the principal of the high-school I attended at the time, I guess it saved me quite a bit of bad time. She did protect me when I was in elementary/primary school, too.

I came across AS accidentally a year ago and was DX'd with PDD-NOS recently, still not knowing exactly why. Obviously, figuring out many things about life doesn't change your neurology, but they dx after how you appear now...


_________________
Another non-English speaking - DX'd at age 38
"Aut viam inveniam aut faciam." (Hannibal) - Latin for "I'll either find a way or make one."


kirayng
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Nov 2011
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,040
Location: Maine, USA

11 Jan 2012, 11:26 am

Ddddd wrote:
If you got your diagnosis after your 25th or something like that... Why didn't your parents/school seek help? Or did they but they didn't find what caused the problems? Or did they see no problem at all? What was the moment you decided to get a diagnosis?


I'm awaiting diagnosis. Also, I'm adopted (at age 16, ward of the State from 9 until then) and my medical records are pretty much lost from when I was a child. I had a psych eval done as a teen that my parents can't find because movers lost a bunch of their stuff. So that's why my parents didn't seek help-- they only knew me for a few years and were told nothing of my past (that's what they say). My mother actually said, "Don't be too disappointed if you don't get the Asperger's diagnosis" :roll: My issue is I can't handle a thing without having a meltdown... so yea, ugh.

Anyway, the moment I decided to pursue a diagnosis was after sitting on the idea of having Asperger's for more than a year. It was a "wait and see"; if all my problems were psychiatric, I'd be dead by now (I have frequent suicidal ideation-- not how to go about it, but thinking about wanting to die and my reasons for it) and there would've been decline in functioning.... I don't do as well as I should but I am still in school full-time with a decent GPA about to graduate, also in a long-term romantic relationship (10 years this month) and have a relationship with my parents and brother. I think all of that would've fallen apart if I was crazy. I just can't cope is all. :(



glider18
Supporting Member
Supporting Member

User avatar

Joined: 8 Nov 2008
Gender: Male
Posts: 8,040
Location: USA

11 Jan 2012, 12:32 pm

I was officially diagnosed with Asperger's at the age of 44 in 2008. My school years were during the time before Asperger's made its way into the psychiatric manuals. But still, the traits of Asperger's/autism existed from the time I was born.

I recall something my mother said once, many years ago (probably when I was in high school). I was born via C-section because I had become entangled in my cord and had around 45 minutes or so of oxygen deprivation. She said she was concerned about me beginning elementary school because there might be something wrong with me. However, I quickly adopted the label of "gifted" as I excelled academically. However, I was placed for a very brief time in Title I reading for reasons I don't fully understand (ironically, I am a Title I reading teacher today). I also had a best friend (but hardly any others). We remained best friends up until junior high school. So...my grades were great, and I socialized a lot with one friend. From an academic standpoint I was fine. From a social standpoint, I was thought of as shy, but I did have a friend. So I was ok. Teachers commented that I should socialize more. But Mom always considered my awkwardness there as an "only child" thing. Today research shows that "only children" usually function just as well as children with siblings in the social arena.

In school I always drew amusement park layouts and house plans on my papers. But not much was said because I excelled in the classroom. Some teachers would make some comments about it, but it passed by. I think in the school I teach in today, a teacher would try to stop a student like me from doing all these drawings on school papers. But back then, I was allowed to do it. Also, my father taught in the same school district I attended---and he was highly respected.

In the first grade I began a huge pencil collection from abandoned pencils I would find discarded in the hallway. I kept them all in my desk---that only I used during the day. One morning as I opened my desk, my pencil collection was gone. I asked the teacher, and she said she took them from my desk because I didn't need all of them. I walked around the room in a lost state trying to find my pencils. I remember looking in the window sills around the plants and stuff. I never forgot that. She had no right to take them from me---they were mine and not hurting anyone. This teacher happened to be the mother of my best friend---so I spent a lot of time at their house. So my ill feelings got absorbed away in her kindness of being like another mother to me. But, to this day, I collect pencils I find abandoned. So her intervention failed to work on me.

In junior high school, my best friends father thought he needed to hang out with other friends besides me. So my best friend began hanging out with the "cool" bunch---ones that liked their beers on the weekends when they got to be high school age. I found this too awkward and uncomfortable, so I abandoned my best friend. I took up the ritual of walking "strange" patterns around the playground during recess---over and over again. I also did this at home. I wasn't bullied about it (being different) because I was like the tallest kid in the middle school. I was 6'1" by the 8th grade. And I had always been the tallest kid in my class since I began school (until high school because I had already reached my maximum height by then).

I spent a lot of time to myself by high school. And there were times that kids from the neighborhood would call to see if I wanted to go golfing, etc. Mom always wondered why I didn't want too. But after a few questions about it, she would let it go and allow me to be with my friends---my roller coasters, house plans, and musical instruments. Again, my parents thought of it as the "only child" thing. My teachers thought of me as gifted and geeky. My high school senior yearbook reads (about that year) as the year I swept the awards assembly.

Strangely, I am not (by definition) academically gifted. My IQ score was (and I guess would still be) 111. I consider myself gifted because of autism.

I had not heard of Asperger's until I was 44 years old in 2008 when I was the high school gifted teacher (a position cut because of funding). I realized the diagnostic criteria fit my life. I talked to my wife and parents about it. They agreed it fit. That was when I scheduled an appointment and was officially diagnosed with Asperger's. My wife was now able to realize better the reasons why I didn't like to socialize when she did. I had a therapist that talked to her about it, and it strengthened our relationship.

My wife recalled a time when we were dating (when I had just started college and she was a junior in high school) that my parents took us to Cedar Point. She said I could not keep my arms still in the car---I was flapping around a lot (stimming). I had forgotten to take my Benadryl for my allergies---a medicine I had been on since probably 3rd or 4th grade. After eating breakfast in the car, Mom asked if I took my Benadryl, and I took it and calmed down a bit. Perhaps it kept me from the more obvious flapping that I would have done without it. However, I still finger flapped a lot on or off Benadryl. But off Benadryl---I was like the classic autistic flapping. I finally got off of Benadryl in college as my allergies improved---and then only did the finger flapping which I still do (did I outgrow the more classic autistic flapping?) I watched video of myself as a child (even when on Benadryl) that shows me standing and doing some nice autistic flapping and video of me sitting (before Benadryl) doing some nice autistic rocking.


_________________
"My journey has just begun."