Dammit...this used to be a lot easier.
My name is Leah. I'm a 24-year-old diagnosed Aspie with comorbid ADD. It's been a long, long time since I was last able to access the internet and post on a forum, due to serious health problems and a nightmare situation with my family. I returned to find the forum I used to post on gone because some as*holes overthrew the original owner/creator of the board. I'm a little scared to start posting anywhere again...partly because I always kind of freak out when introducing myself to new people. But I found I really needed a place to talk to other people of my species again...so here I am! ::tries not to hyperventilate::
I'm a film student at San Francisco State University (formerly Academy of Art College, but financial issues and a severe lack of resources for disabled students forced me to transfer). I'm a writer, a film buff, a sci-fi/fantasy nerd (yes, this includes comics and anime, go ahead and laugh), a science geek, and, weirdly enough, a seamstress and textile artist. Like any Aspie worth her stripes, I will cheerfully go on and on and on about any of these subjects until told to shut up or summarily shot. My first love was and always will be the written word. I will literally and compulsively read anything that's within visual distance: novels, magazines, street signs, food ingredients, stereo instructions, etc. I find it much, much easier to express myself in writing than by speaking.
I have the standard array of Aspie traits, strengths, and struggles, if anything about Asperger's or any ASD can be said to be 'standard'. Perseverations include spinning (as of this moment, I have sacrificed 3 computer chairs to the gods of vestibular stimulation), rocking, hand-twisting and wringing, and, unfortunately, skin-picking, though medication has helped me with that. I'm hypersensitive to sound, certain kinds of light (I have to wear dark glasses when working with lighting rigs on my film projects, and fluorescent lighting makes me irritable, twitchy, and gives me headaches after more than an hour of exposure), food textures, smells, and fabric/clothing texture. I'm brilliant at trivia, can memorize anything but mathematical concepts or equations after reading it once, and can play piano by ear...but I can't read music, my 'working' memory is extremely bad, and I can't do any math more advanced than simple arithmetic, i.e. 2+2=4. I suffer from severe panic attacks which didn't used to be as bad as they are now, and it's a mighty challenge to even be in the same space with more than 5-10 people at a time.
Like a lot of Aspie/ASD people I've spoken to, I seem to suffer from what I call 'Nothing Works Syndrome'. I have multiple medical problems that, like Asperger's, are pervasive, systemic, and permanent. I have Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, and what was once Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia but is now Addison's Disease, thanks to surgery 8 months ago to remove my adrenal glands. I was also recently diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, about a month ago, and suffer from intractable sleep disorders--apparently since birth, according to my parents.
Do I wish I was rid of all those health problems that are f*****g up my life? Hell yes. Do I wish I was an NT? Hell no. In the immortal words of Popeye, I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam. I don't see Asperger's as a disease or something that needs to be fixed. It's how I was born, it's built in, it's my species. Homo Autisticus.
Whew. There. I've rambled on and on about myself and whined about my problems enough. Thanks to the creators of this forum for giving me a place to speak, and thanks to anyone who reads for fighting their way through it.
- Leah
Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain.
30 Nov 2005, 12:37 pm
You sound like you will fit in well here. I know what you mean about the 'nothing works syndrome'. I hope to see you post alot. 
