My story

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I suppose my story starts back when my eldest son was three years old. We started to notice that he acted differently to the other children his age, especially when involved in social situations; the larger the social situation, the more severe his withdrawal to it. We took him to his pediatrician and explained what we were seeing, only to be told "It's probably nothing. Don't worry about it. He seems OK to me." Over the next four years his mood swings and anxiety reactions got worse and worse, to the point where he started trying to hurt himself, and losing control to the point of destroying his room, or screaming hateful things at us (his parents) and his siblings.

At that point we accepted that we didn't know how to help him, and took him to see the professionals. It's been a long road over the past twelve months or so with the diagnoses going through Anxiety Disorder, Bi-Polar, and PDD-NOS, but we finally now have a diagnosis of Asperger's with a particular sensitivity to sensory input. He's been hospitalised a couple of times, sees a therapist and occupational therapist on a regular basis, and is currently having an IEP created at his school. For the first time in years I'm seeing my son becoming happy with who he is, and it's a wonderful thing.

So, where do I fit in within this process? During one of my son's many therapy sessions his therapist started asking me questions instead of him. Shortly thereafter I was referred to a Psychiatrist and therapist for suspected Generalised Anxiety Disorder, and put on medication to moderate and reduce the anxiety. My first reaction was "Woah, is this what life is meant to feel like?" and I realized that I'd gone 41 years assuming that everyone felt crushing anxiety all the time! As my son's treatment progressed my wife and I started reading as many books on Asperger's as we could find, so that we could create the best environment possible for him. This was when the big realisation hit; as I read more and more about the presentation and symptoms of Asperger's I realised that these books were talking about me. Everything started to finally fall into place for me, and when I started discussing my suspicions with my doctors I was tested and diagnosed Asperger's myself.

So here we both are. We have differing triggers (he has touch, smell and taste, whereas I have auditory and visual stimulation causing overload), we both have the same crushing anxiety brought on by social interactions, neither of us can handle changes in routine or situation very gracefully, but for the first time in a very long time I feel that we're stepping out of the darkness and into the light hand-in-hand.

I look forward to learning more from everyone, hopefully working on my fear of social situations, and helping my son have an easier time growing up than I did.

My Father and I have a lot in common, too! He is not autistic, but there are definitely parallels between the two of us. When I told him I wanted to see if I had Asperger's, he said it is not a disorder. In other words, he saw Asperger's syndrome as a positive. I do have gifts because of Asperger's, but I have diffuculties, too. Only recently has he truly recognized them. I love my Father for always supporting me, even though he might not totally understand me. Best I can say: love your son unconditionally.

Perhaps Hans Asperger himself said it best: "Exceptional human beings must be given exceptional educational treatment, treatment which takes into account their special difficulties. Further, we can show that despite abnormality, human beings can fulfill their social role within the community, especially if they find understanding, love and guidance.”

Understand, love and guide your son. Perhaps you can do it even better than other parents, because as a fellow Aspie, you may understand him better than anyone else. Best of luck!

Thank you for your reply. This is really what I want to do for him; be there, be a person that maybe has some special insight into what he's going through. It's really made me want to try and face my social interaction difficulties and anxiety head-on though, so that I can maybe share with him how to do it. I just don't know if I can do it yet. That wall seems impenetrable for much of the time, and I just don't know how to even begin to chip away at it. It's difficult trying to even think about improving social interactions that I don't understand at a very fundamental level.

That's one of the cruelest things that I've found about living with this: I have a strong desire for friendship and companionship, but I don't think I have the 'social toolkit' or mental strength that I require to fulfill that need. I've lived in the U.S. for eleven years now, and the only person that I count as a friend here is my wife (and a wonderful, loving, understanding friend she is.)

The loneliness is definitely the worst aspect for me.

Hi!

Honestly, i can say You're in a wery unike situation. As of this little story:

After some 43 years of not knowing who i am, by a coincidence, i'we helped my wife with a report. She's educated in healthcare.
It was about a person suffering of organic scizofrenic disorder, and Aspergers Psyndrome,, suddently i felt i was reading about myself.
Why? I'we read about a person having Aspergers. Ewerything started to fit together. All the probs of not socialicing, all the fightings for one of my kids.
- And our problems. The frustrations and desperate cries for help...
I imediatly went to se my med. and asked if i could see a specialist? took all the online tests, to document, ect. and i were FINALLY told what I'we already understood.
I were a Aspie! - Suddently i had a slam. - My youngest girl (all 3 kids, have treads) Who needed help and had been a ball in the game for 7 years(! !!) Just because a psycholog would'nt accept she were wrong!
Had been mispositioned in the system for the last 5 years!! ! - But after i were diagnosed, 4 weeks ago, She started listen, and now shees talking 'bout having her checked out as well... - I can finally see a glimpse of light....!

Yes - I too am lookin' to guide my kids, hopefully shielding them from all the pain and misjudging of the past! - And here i see the most important step as to know myself!

Hope i were not rambling to much! - But, my coonclution is, feeling the problem on ones own body, is the best teacher one could possibly dream of! - Given a open mind!! !

Welcome!
Hauge

Hmm. A little too slow!

But the best you can give him is that he's not alone! - And let him know that You're willing to share the path with him...!

To WrongPlanet!! !

Thank you

Just made a big mistake and took the 'Emotional IQ' test. "What the heck," I figured, "I've had 41 years of practicing my social stories, so I should be able to get through this."

Yeah, apparently not - 5th percentile. According to that I have all the emotional understanding and empathy of your average houseplant! I suppose it bears testament to how well I've managed to fool people for all these years. Just hoped that I'd managed to get myself a little further than that.

Interesting story.
Emotional IQ, I'll have to look into that.

Welcome.

Welkome to WrongPlanet.

The WP Kink

Yep! Seems that all we're doing is gettin better to fool the NT's around us. - AND ourselves...!

When i took the tests EQ were 7. SQ 64, and AQ 42...

Guess we need to accept who we are, and use our strenghts to make our own niches where NT's just need to subsume...

In a discussion, with a collegue, i tried to explain it in this way NT's CPU's are running 64 bit RAM-Bus, where ours run 8 bit...
This makes it more difficult to multitask. But at the same time we're having more clockcycles to process the datas, before the Ram-bus again are ready to x'fer...
They (NT's) se us Aspies as ackward persons with special needs. But time after time i find that they're comming on their knees asking this looney for help...
- A few days ago, i were removing virus'es from our accountants PC, After fighting with the mashine for 3 hours, she admitted that she would have erupted a long time ago.
And all i could say were i just began enjoying the challenge!! !
Quite satisfiing!

Make out of this little story what you want, but remember You have some gifts that makes You superiour!

I totally get what you're saying. I've always known that I was totally different to those around me when it came to processing social interactions i.e. they could do it and I couldn't! It's just that I'd spent decades building up this deck of 'social interaction flashcards' in my head, and after fooling so many people for so long I figured I'd be able to bluff my way through the evaluation. I'm guessing that the evaluation is designed to penetrate that kind of bluffing in a highly effective way! It was quite the shock.

Luckily I do have some skills that offset the lack of social awareness. I'm an extremely visual thinker, with a handy ability to visualise and piece together the elements of abstract problems, which has led to quite a successful career in software engineering (surprise surprise... I wonder how many Aspies on here work in I.T.?)

Thanks for all the answers and greetings everyone.

Welcome!

Welcome!

Welcome

We share something in common. I too realised I had AS (undiagnosed) only seven months ago, through my 10 year old daughter. It is now very apparent to me that my late father was also AS.

I too thought this to be enlightening at first. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out for me. I was quite happy in my blisful ignorance of my condition. I now know what a sh*t I am but I don't know how.

Hello,

You life story reads very simular to mine. Lucky for us my son was diagnosted with asperger's at a young age. We knew at a young age that something was different. He started getting help in developmental pre-school. It was not until he did Kindergarden for the 2nd time that he had the diagnosis. He repeated Kindergaden due to his lack of social skills. My son seem to always be angry, destroys his room, is mean to his mother, younger sister and dogs. Sence the diagnosis we see the behavial doctor every 6 months, weeks he see a counsler and my wife reads lots of book on it. My wife had dedicated herself to the kids and improving their lives. A lot has gotten better, but still a challenge trying to figure out what triggers out son to go into a bad mood. From all this new infomation I have seen in myself that I fit several of these traits of being an aspie. Now I am confilicted about how I should change my life, help my son, repair my marriage, work to support my family and enjoy life. The most fustrating part is that my son's mood sets the tone for the household.