Accepting the diagnosis

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Hello,

I am new to Wrong Planet, but not new to a diagnosis of ASD. I was diagnoses with what was called High Functioning Autism as a child, but I refused to accept the diagnosis until recently. I am in my late twenties now. I am male. I have also been diagnosed with a rare form of Epilepsy, and my neurologist has been recently addressing the issue of ASD with me, so I am looking to understand a bit more about myself. I have had extensive neuropsychological testing and I have an extreme issue reading body language, as well as alexithymia and facial blindness (all in addition to ASD symptoms). I went through a program at a local center for the study of autism, but I found it extremely difficult being in a group of people with Asperger Syndrome, which was the main focus of the group. I found this difficult as I prefer to spend my time alone and everyone else in the group was extremely verbal. I am much better at written communication, although I have my moments.

I was able to earn several degrees, and I found work as a librarian and English teacher to non-English speakers, and I have had three romantic relationships and I am satisfied with the few friendships I have in my life, but I would like to make more. I want to be married one day. I enjoy languages, and I have many special interests, but Sanskrit is my primary interest now for almost 15 years. I also invent languages, and I like to read philosophy and participate in politics. Sadly, I am unable to be very independent in terms of living conditions, and I am unable to drive because of my Epilepsy. It makes me quite ill.

I am described in my daily life as cold and harsh. This is unfortunate because I consider myself a lover of beauty and a very gentle person on the inside. I am trying to do better, and I hope that I can learn here.

Thank-you,

Friend_of_Sankt_Veit

Welcome to Wrong Planet from a fellow epileptic!

Thanks!

Welcome Friend_of_Sankt_Veit. Nice to meet you.

Welcome Friend_of_Sankt_Veit!

Enjoy the forum! Hope you can find information that can help you and maybe make some friends.

Welcome to WrongPlanet, Friend_of_Sankt_Veit

You sound like a fascinating person, on a level with JRR Tolkien.

I hope you share your knowledge of languages liberally on this forum!

Thanks so much for the welcome messages. I was away for a while due to illness. Alita, thanks for the welcome and I will definitely share with the community as soon as possible. I have invented several languages, but not being an "official" linguist, I don't know if they could be used in the "real world" or not. Several are clearly based on natural human languages (similar grammar) and several are familiar, but somewhat alien to the way most people think linguistically. My father didn't want me to study linguistics as he didn't see it as practical, but it is a nice hobby.

I spoke with a psychologist about my languages, and he thinks that it is possible that the grammar of my first language is too complex, even though he didn't examine any of my material. However, I tend to disagree as the brain is very flexible (even the brains of people who are neurologically diverse, and I try to correct the misunderstanding of the complexity of a concept like 'rigidity' which is an unfortunate word) and people speak and think in many diverse ways the world over.

I am getting pretty close to a woman from Russia and she tends to think and speak very differently in terms of using articles and the like. We are still two humans and all of her desires and interests are pretty much the same as mine. I am at a great disadvantage in the relationship because she knows different languages: Russian, Hebrew, and English. I speak English, German, a little Swedish, Czech, and some languages of India, so maybe the Czech will help me out a bit. I like that she is very direct with me and there is absolutely no ambiguity regarding her interests or wishes or in conversations.

One of my languages is written only, and is more of a code. Based on my understanding of computer science and linguistics, I am sure that it would be very difficult for a computer to break it. And it would be very easy for a human to learn. I may share that one day soon. The code appeals to human interest in art and our unpredictable natures. I modeled it on my own observations of people with neurotypical ways of seeing the world. I think neuro-diverse people may like it too, as many of us are artists.

Best!

Hello Friend_of_sankt-Veit,

those made-up languages Sound really interesting! I've just started studying lingustics (and philosophy). This is my first week.

supercreativname,

Thank-you for your reply to my post.

I have to confess that there is some embarrassment when it comes to discussing these kinds of things. It doesn't seem to most people to be a good hobby for a grown man, and I have been told this to my face many times (even laughed at by educated people). However, I am glad to find some people here w/ interest in this. I have this "thing" with languages. Sometimes I can learn a language (say proficiency in written skills, or listening) within a day to a few days, rarely though more than one skill at a time. I tend to compose grammatically correct, fairly complex sentences after a day or two. I am not trying to brag about these skills, as I believe it is fairly common outside of the US for people to be multi-lingual (more and more in the US these days). I have my own strategies and they work for me.

My made up/invented/conglangs are actually not for the purposes of something like a TV show or book, or the artistic goals of Tolkien. I tend to view inventing languages as a combination of two activities - an unorthodox method of learning real languages (don't ask me how this helps, but it does for me; it seems to be like cross training in physical fitness) and also a way for me to explore different kinds of human thought and linguistic expression, to test the limits of what we can use in a language and thought. This is just personal and not academic in any way, obviously.

I was really inspired by reading the Tractatus in this regard, and it is one of my favorite works of philosophy. I want to point out that I sometimes prefer the analytic philosophers, and Russell is probably my favorite philosopher (Hopefully, I will have the opportunity to explain why Wittgenstein is not at some point; Marx is a close tie w/ Russell - just being honest). I have also enjoyed the pessimists (Cioran in particular) and the Existentialists. I was raised religious, and I consider myself a former Roman Catholic and now atheist for a while. I will try to keep from offending anyone, but I thought it best to be honest.

Best,

Friend_of_Sankt_Veit

Welcome to WP. I think your work with languages sounds fascinating. I can't imagine why anyone would think that was not useful. Especially the bit about the interactions between language and how we think and live. I am NOT a multi-linguist, but can get by in Spanish and French. I can tag a bit of Bahasa Indonesia and Swedish. And of course, my native English. What I love about learning the different languages is how much I learn about how others see the world and what they think is important. It is actually these differences that provide the stumbling blocks to me in making progress beyond sort of advanced beginner. I also heard a program recently on NPR in which a couple of serious poly-linguists explained how languages were broken down and once they learned that part, they were able to put the entire language together in a couple of weeks.

i live in Germany and here most People speak two languages: german and english. It has become perfectly normal for People to read books in the english original (instead of the german Translation) and to view Shows/films in english (especially in the age of Netflix.) Also, some People in my age - early 20s- just start inserting english phrases into german conversations. I was brought up bilingually (my mother is from England), so all the Things cool People like to do now, i have been doing since childhood (i mean, watching Thomas the Tankengine in english etc.). and i don't really see what all the fuss is about.
Sadly, all this is only true for english-language stuff... Try reading a French book or something in public, and you get very weird Looks... so being fluent in english is fine, knowing any other language is weird (german doesn't count of course).
So I guess I Kind of get what you're saying

Please don't take this the wrong way supercreativname (I say it with some humor and out of respect), but I knew you lived in Germany before you actually told me. The way you corrected 'Sankt_Veit' to 'Sankt-Veit' (in English it is Saint Vitus, patron of those w/ Epilepsy) several posts ago. I was sure I was going to receive some criticism from someone at some point about that, haha.

My mother's family largely came from Saxony (I think near Chemnitz, was Karl Marx City) and East Berlin (during the 1950s was the last big move). There are still some of my family in Germany, but many are now in the US of A and S. America (also Eastern Europe and Paris).

My mother has many unique personality/cultural quirks/views that may be (stereotypes definitely) and derived culturally from different generations of people with that background so long ago. That is what some modern day German friends closer to my age than you are (in Germany) tell me. For example, she often likes precision in language and has to have her space very orderly. My German grandfather was much the same way and taught her many sayings (like "Each person has a place and one should stay there/sit there", etc.). Conformity and following the rules were very important in my family, and I grew up in a rather strict home (HFA did not help). However, my mother is the best and I would not ever want another mother, ever. This may sound sexist to some in contemporary society, but she loves to cook certain kinds of food for everyone in the family (my sister Heidi loves to eat with us w/ her children), and when I was very ill with Epilepsy she often prepared my grandmother's special recipes for me to cheer me up. She is always doing things like that, even though we don't see eye to eye many times on contemporary humor (for instance). She married a guy who loves to cook so it all balances out. She was a college professor and in hospital administration, one of the first women in our little town to do this, so I am proud of her accomplishments as a woman.

She is big on German culture and the like, so I was required to learn and speak the language as a child and to have a pen pal in Munich. She planned to send me to stay there in high school for an extended trip, but I refused to go out of fear of traveling due to a lot of violence going on in the world at that time. I still sometimes speak German language, but I don't like to do it very much. I still enjoy some German-language writers/poets/philosophers of the past (in particular) Hesse, Schiller, Goethe, Heine, Mann, Rilke, Sacher-Masoch, (raised on Marx, unfortunately a very controversial member of the list). Too many others to name. It is nice sometimes to have the local librarian find me a few books of those authors in German.

Thanks for your comments!

Hi! I’m new here too.

I’m super interested in your tips and tricks for learning languages. I love linguistics and would love to learn more languages but I don’t have the best memory. I feel like I’ve been stuck at level 1 spanish and japanese for years. I would love to get an aspie perspective on cracking the language code. I’m sure it would be way more useful than the ways I’ve been trying to learn- which apparently don’t work with my brain too well.

Welcome to WP!

I joined recently myself, and I kind of relate in the sense of being accepting of your autism diagnosis. I've been diagnosed since I was two, but there's been many periods in my life when I have not been accepting of it myself.

As of right now, I've been more accepting of it now than I have been before, but I still avoid letting the world know that I have autism. As I said in my own introduction thread, I go by an anonymous user on this site than I do on other sites I go to because of how much I try to hide my own autism from the world. My actual identity is something I would only give out to people that I would actually trust on this site if I were to communicate with them.

Welcome to WrongPlanet...