Found my way here at last....

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Greetings, fellow "Martian anthropoligists"! I don't know how previous searches for online AS resources failed to bring me here, but last week I met a WP member in person at an AS-related function a week ago, who told me about this site. I'm very hopeful about getting up to speed on this thing I've been dealing with my whole life but until last summer, didn't know its name.

I've gone through over 40 years of struggling with making connections to people, and sometimes making connections that served me very badly (people taking advantage of me, etc.), as well as never finding a real career niche and never having gotten anywhere with women. I've felt varying degrees of depression constantly since I was 8 years old, when I first became the target of school peers. And, worst of all, I never felt like I had any real perspective on why all this was, since I'm fairly intelligent and, say many, not bad looking. For some reason, all my supposed advantages have gotten me basically nowhere. I've wanted all the "normal" things that have ever seemed to me hopelessly out of reach.

Then last May I had a conversation with my mother about my early years, in which she revealed that she had me examined by a psychiatrist at age 3 on account of concerns of autism: suspicions he categorically dismissed because I didn't have ALL the signs. She was told, there are no degrees of autism; one either has it or not. (This was the late 60s, before anyone in the U.S. had a notion of "the spectrum" or conditions like Asperger's.) Only last year did she learn the contrary and so that's how the subject came up.

A few days later I wandered into a local indie bookstore-cafe, happened to find The Autism Sourcebook by Karen Siff Exkorn, and began reading its first section. I was astonished to see general descriptions that pretty much matched my childhood experiences. I felt as if I was reading my autobiography. There I learned of "the spectrum" and, when I got to the section describing Asperger's, I sensed I had at last found the key to understanding my whole life. Now I became convinced that I needed to find a specialist to get a formal diagnosis.

In early July, someone came into my line (I'm a retail cashier) wearing a T-shirt with an autism theme. I asked her about it, and she told me of a children's Asperger's activity group she runs
called "Unique Kids." She told me of the doctor her son sees and recommended me to him. I
was able to somehow get an appointment to start the diagnosis process, and a month later, I finished all the tests.

I'm diagnosed actually with HFA. The only reason it isn't technically Asperger's is that one of the DSM-IV criteria for the latter is the exhibition of normal speech development between ages 1-3, which I did not. (This in fact was one of my mother's compelling reasons for having me checked out in the late 60s.) But I was told that in practical terms of dealing with it henceforth, I can consider myself an Asperger's case. I'm also co-diagnosed with dysthymia, a persistent mid-grade depression, that I know I've had for 35 years. I spent the last months of 2008 just trying to let the reality of this diagnosis sink in, and now I'm looking to find ways to live with it.

I may be unique even around here, in that I'm a practicing Catholic of traditionalist persuasion, as I have been since age 20. (Until two years ago I was an avid partisan who kept himself strictly within that milieu; I was then persuaded of the wisdom to explore the broader world as I began sifting through long-held convictions to see which of them were worth retaining, a work still in progress.) I have a good grasp of a number of serious issues in religion, philosophy, culture, and politics ... an approach I'm now trying to bring to my understanding of AS and how it affects me. If I can build a circle of friends here as well, I'd be delighted.

Last edited by mcm15501 on 21 Feb 2009, 4:36 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Hi,

nice to meet you. you once were lost but now you're found.

Hi mcm15501 welcome, I also discovered self in my 40s not easy elated and grieved at the same time, but a few years down the line and here I am out of the shadows of life and intend to stay, I now have my identity back - you may find some of my earlier articles of interest like Making Sense: http://asplanet.info/index.php?option=c ... Itemid=129

When I started on my own journey there always seem to be someone with an answer on WrongPlanet and my other home to my planet

Hello, and welcome to the Wrong Planet neighborhood, mcm15501.

I look forward to hearing more from you. I'm a traditional Christian also. Fortunately, no one here hates me for that.

Welcome to WP!

Hi mcm.
I am new here too and I was just diagnosed with AS last week!
I too have struggled for 40 years. I am frustrated that I have had to live this whole life without explainations as to why things are so hard for me. I could read at a very early age and have always had an easy time with language skills. This made everyone think that I was above average in general. If my parents had been able to watch me struggle in school (with peers and with math and with gym class) They may have been more understanding. I think my dad thought I was just too lazy to do well.
Now that I know what is wrong with me my parents are not interested to hear about it at all. What is past is past with them.

To WrongPlanet!! !

Thank you all very kindly!

The key, as I've found particularly in these last couple of years, is to be aware of how to speak to that in public ... and how not to. With that, I utilize my AS-driven "analyticalness." What I've already learned, in earning the trust and good will of people very different from me in the real world - a skill I hadn't even wanted in former times - will hopefully serve me well here.

What's more, I am in that process of reevaluation I mentioned above. And, as some of my posts will reveal ... let's just say I have my struggles with some of the particulars.