Need help!! !!

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Lately, I have been wondering if I really do have AS. There are times I feel like I am normal, there are times when I feel weird. Anyways, getting off of that, let me tell you my experiences and you can be the judge.

When I was growing up, I always had problems with my attention span. I was initially diagnosed with ADD (and wondering if my poor attention span can be attributed to ADD rather than AS). I nearly always needed to be cued in class because my attention would go into a book, or some reading related activity. I have a habit of getting engrossed in books, and more recently, the computer (Wikipedia, Astronomy, etc.)
I have been a excellent reader, reaching the 12th Grade reading level in the 5th Grade. I have been an excellent speller, winning a spelling bee in the 8th grade. I could have gone to a geography bee, but I became stubborn and refused to go to the function. My worst areas are math, study skills, and organization. I can do Algebra great when I fully understand and memorize the concepts, however when I haven't memorized or understood the concepts I do awful, meaning that in a class where there is high pace between different mathematical concepts, like Algebra II, I end up doing awful, I usually get no better than C's, maybe if I fully understand everything, a B-, when I completed Algebra II last year, I barely had a D-, I always thought that people with AS were supposed to be good at math, but I'm not. I am not good at organizing, if you saw my locker and my binder you would know (they were cluttered with paper constantly and always needed reorganizing). I can't study very well, if I do it is by rote memorization of the questions and answers. I never really felt like I could ever make good friends, I know quite a few people by their face, but not their name, until I memorize it. If I know a person very well I can talk to them, albeit without looking at them, which makes me feel unconfortable. I have always had problems with eye contact, looking at another human being's face disturbs me most of the time. If I have to go somewhere where I have to talk to someone, I usually have to think in advance of what I want to say. My dad is very intolerant of my social quietness, there was one time where I was on the computer and my sister and her boyfriend were playing video games in the other room, my sister and her friend kept insisting that I come in and play with them. I said no to the point that I was getting very stalwart in my objection, despite their repeated pleas for me to come in and play with them. Finally, my dad, in a frustrated voice, told me to go in and play, citing improvements in my social skills, to which I finally had to relent.

I used to and still do have many obsessions, in chronological order, Astronomy, Pokemon, Dragonball Z, Pokemon again, Gundam series, anime in general, Pokemon again, Anime again, Japan, AS, and finally Astronomy again. I have noticed that these obsessions get to the point where they can be very overarching in my life, if you look at the duration they usually last from no more than a few days up to around a year, and often I am able to describe a year in terms of my obsessions. Since I discovered Wikipedia, I get on there and virtually fly around on any conceivable subject, especially Canada, science, geography, Astronomy and Japan related. Another area, in which my family is fairly proud of me is that I can help them out of nearly any computer glitch, or even problems with the TV. One time a TV repairman came around and he got to a point where he didn't know what to do (while I did) and I showed him what was wrong and I even fixed the glitch he was having on the system.

I have trouble adapting to change and get easily disturbed by loud noises. When I was little my parents bought me a fish bowl, it had a constant hum and I was having trouble sleeping so I turned it off. I also got disturbed when we had fire drills at school and it got me upset to the point when I was younger that I peed my pants every time we had a fire drill. I finally had to ask the principal to forewarn me before any drill was conducted. I have had touble readapting to school each year, dealing with things such as school bells, stress from being in the classroom, etc. The exact same thing happens when summer vacation came around. I had trouble readapting to being home all day. I have a bad habit of not taking showers, taking care of my personal hygeine and wearing the same clothes for days at a time. Pleas don't think I am weird for some of the things I said in this paragraph.

On stimming I really don't know whether I really do that or not, however I have some really bad habits. When I was little, I used to sing other countries National Anthems very loudly on the bus every day, to the point I ended up embarrassing my sisters, about which they told my parents, and got me in big trouble for my weirdness. Another incident came on the bus when I was in the 8th grade, when I realized that one of my sisters missed the bus, and I (quietly) went paranoid, when a high school girl told me how cute I was, I went crazy and yelled at her. When I am alone I talk (and even yell and scream) to myself about all the problems I have with the family and the general environment in which I live. Another less mentioned and unnoticed habit I have is that during a family talk or a lecture, I usually stare at some object or picture that looks disorganized and try to put it together in my head. I have never been very coordinated, when I was younger and even now, I still can't catch a ball Consequently I am bad at sports and had to seek constant exemptions from PE when I was in school. I also am having some difficulties with learning to drive, I have trouble trying to do all of the multitasking that comes along with driving, I usually will stare straight ahead, and not look around at the cars behind or around me, if I do, I have trouble staying straight on the road. Many times that has gotten me in trouble with my dad.

I was diagnosed when I was in the sixth grade with AS. I am wondering if I still have it or not because there are certain areas that I've improved in like it has gotten easier over the years to talk to people I'm familiar with but it is still very difficult to talk to people with which I am not. I would like to go to the doctor and see if I still have it or not or get a second opinion. I want to ask you if you think, based on what I have told you, that I really do have AS. I am concerned that my poor math ability will interfere with my plans to become a computer programmer. I am also concerned that my trouble with driving will end up depriving me of an independent life. I can't ask my dad for help, because he is intolerant of my social and certain academic failures, will readily point out my mistakes, and he is getting up there in age (66) and there is only so much he can do, my mom is living in Egypt and having an affair over there so she is out. My sisters have no interest in and are too young (15 and 17) to help me, they are obsessed with their social lives, if I ask my aunt she will go religious on me, tell me that I am bad for all the things I am interested in (she thinks they are un-Christian) and ask me to pray to Jesus for help (her religious fundamentalism has driven me away from Christianity and turned me to atheism). If you are going to suggest that I move out, I can't right now (my dad doesn't want me to), I am not capable of it yet, so it will be a while. I really don't know what to do, and I am desperate for real, human advice. Please help me!! !!

You've done a thorough self-assesment and that's really important for all of us to do periodically. AS is so nuanced for each of us who have it that it can be hard to get a grip on for sure and I'm not qualified to say if you have AS or not, though a lot of what you describe is familiar to me.

However, you say you were diagnosed in the 6th grade and I'd say at this point, if it helps to start with that diagnosis as a starting point, you should look on it as a way to simplify what's going on with you. Know that some of the challenges can and do get easier as you get older. It's pretty simple, we learn how to pass and function better and some things that are a challenge, if you do them often enough, they are not as much of a challenge.

As for computer tech, that's the work I do and I enjoy it. I wasn't particulary good in math in school, but one thing they know about AS is that things improve if a skill is matched to something that get's us going.

And not all programming is math--it depnds on what you're interested in, for example you might want to look into web-programming starting out with HTML and see if you like it (and it's a good place to start regardless).

My recommendation is to continue honing in on the areas where you a clearly a whiz--keep fixing things and tinkering: that's all good stuff for computers.

Try and chunk the rest into smaller digestible bits and pick your battles. For example, I think eye contact is over-rated, but for your own self-preservation see if looking at someone's chin when you are talking to then is comfortable--or even the throat area: I do this and the other person rarely gets that I'm not looking them in the eye.

hope this helps and hang in there

-- keats

That was alot to read

Anyway, I wanted to be a computer programmer when I was in school too. But maths was never my strong side either, language and facts were. Working in the background tinkering with computers and software suits me best, so I wanted to become a system or network administrator

But you could probably find a solution, you don't need to be a maths wiz to study programming. Learning and memory skills are probably just as important, perhaps there are some programmers here on this site that could tell you more.

Do you have a therapist or some advisor you can talk to outside of your family? Cause I find that can be really useful to move forward with life, one of my biggest problems happen to be procrastinating. So you have the diagnosis of AS, that doesn't mean you have to feel awkward all the time, it doesn't define who you are. I'd really suggest if you're worrying alot like this that you speak to a professional, it can be very useful to get someone elses perspective on things.

I am not sure what you are asking for other then if your AS is gone?I think you know enough about AS to know it doesnt go away,but you can learn coping stratigies.The reason it is difficult for psychs to DX in adults is that we have learned coping skills.It takes a lot of effort for me to pull myself away from my "interests" but I have learned to avoid even starting them if I have to go to work or go to an appointment.I can "do" small talk but I never learned to enjoy it and still think it's boring.I have learned appropriate stimming....you can massage your forehead or rub hands together and the worse you will get is people asking if you have a headache(I do,when I am around most people)....

I hope you can stick with the driving practice(practice at your own pace,can help with learning multi-tasking) but find someone who is more patient to teach you...parents can make anyone a nervous reck.
I hate driving and didnt get my licence until I was 30 and it is harder to learn these skills as you get older(I think).I still have the anxiety when driving and avoid it when possible but I have some "muscle memory" with practice,that makes it easier then when I first began(what a nightmare).

In the list of obsessions....I didnt see anything about computers?Do you want to do that for a job or is your dad encouraging that?Is there anything you can do in your area of interests?Do you know much about IT?(I dont know much,think it is "fixing" stuff?)

Anyway,I am not sure why you feel you dont have AS anymore or think you might have been misDX.You seem to have enough traits that have caused issue for you in life and if you have made improvements....thats great...but AS isnt a virus,it doesnt "go away".At 43,I spent most of my life trying to understand what was causing so many difficulties in my life inspite of my efforts.I was grateful to have the explanation of AS to explain some of them.I hope to use the information to decide which of the traits I want to try and "change" and which I want to hold on to, as essential to my "MEness".

Hope there is something in this monologue,which you can find useful.I wish you luck.

In regards to your previous posting, I am interested in computers too. However it is what I would consider to be a fundamental interest rather than an obsession.

Please IGNORE this post

I'm sorry about this triplicate post. I just learned, that this computer is so slow that you don't know that it has already posted until you hit three times and by then it has posted three times, if I could delete these duplicate, ahem, triplicate posts, I would.