Hello, new at Wrong Planet

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Greetings everyone

Now what should I say about myself ?

Since this is the introduction area of this forum I probably won't get away with my usual approach, not talking about me at all, so maybe let's start with a bit of background about me.

I'm .. old enough, an engineer by trade even though I haven't worked as such for quite a while now and I'm German.
I know it's a bit generic but that's all I'm going to share for now.

What brought me here ?

The short answer to this can be given in two ways.
By now I'm fairly certain that I have AS. (evaluation soon )
Alex Plank.

And as short as those answers are they probably require some explanation, at least the second one does.
So maybe I should share the story how I came to that AS conclusion.

For a long time (childhood and youth) I thought of myself as pretty "normal". In retrospect though I think there were signs that my normal differed quite a bit from what society seems to consider normal.
I was and still am very introvert, was usually not part of "the group", was bullied and had very few friends.
The usual or so I thought.
Especially during my time at university and shortly after that I had a few rather jarring experiences that showed quite clearly that my emotional reactions or more to the point the lack thereof were not considered normal. At least once a friend of mine has dubbed me "stone" due to that.
The fact that social interaction is often a challenge for me, that I'm very introvert (a hermit in my fathers words) and that I practically gave up on "mankind" and wished not to belong to it anymore might also be considered indications that there's something "wrong" with me.
Long story short and fast forward to 2014.
I can't tell you how exactly I came to it but during the summer of that year i stumbled upon "The Bridge". For those who don't know what I'm talking about. The Bridge is an American television show that has a female lead with AS and Alex Plank was consulting on that show.
The odd thing about it was simply that I could, to my great surprise, find myself in that character. Something that very rarely happens to me. So I started to look into the matter. One or two Wikipedia entries later I've had already arrived at the Asperger syndrome. And so I started my search.
After a few weeks of research and introspection I came to a number of realizations.

The first was that the number of indications that pointed towards me having (being ?) AS became so numerous that I had to face the serious possibility that I would have to bury any prospect of being "normal".
The second was that you can get only so far with a diagnostic on your own. There are a number of symptoms that are by definition only observable during social interaction and only from the "outside".
And third that if I am right with my diagnosis I would have to look at my previous life and myself in a whole other way.

My reaction to to the first and second was simple. I sought outside help which lead to an appointment that hopefully will bring some clarity in the next few weeks or months.

I don't know how I will look at my life if my suspicions are confirmed. I haven't really come to terms with that prospect.

Hey Noctua welcome.

Welcome! Glad you've appreciated my work on The Bridge! It's great to hear that you were able to so closely relate to the character of Sonya Cross. Diane Kruger was a joy to work with and she really did the character justice.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!