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Hi, everybody. I joined this forum some time ago because I had encountered Aspies on some ADD forums and began to wonder if I might be one of you. I decided not ... but now I've decided yes, and hopefully will get a professional assessment soon. At first I identified out based on the characteristics I don't share, but this week I borrowed a few books from the library and decided yes, this is me. I especially related to Jennifer McIlwee Myers's foreward and chapter in the book Asperger's and Girls.

Now I'm re-evaluating my life story through this lens ... so many things make sense. Including, unfortunately, my unemployment and why I can't seem to do anything about it. I'm 42 years old and I think I'm traumatized by forcing myself to be what I'm not for all these years. I had a job for 19 years - basically my entire adult life - but hated it and took a buy-out in 2007, not realizing that the problems were in me and not the job. I'm losing my house and don't know how I will pay rent anywhere once it's gone.

The thought of going out looking for a job, where I would have to interact with people every day, is just intolerable right now. I've applied for SSDI, but I understand that it usually takes a long time to get, IF you can get it. So I'm not sure what to do. I'm trying to cook for a living, in my own kitchen -- which is illegal (not health department approved), so I'm only cooking for my brother and an occasional friend I can trust not to turn me in. Of course, I don't have a lot of friends.....

Anyway, enough whining. I'm grateful to at least have some understanding of why I'm having such a hard time, so maybe I can find more adaptive ways to take care of myself. I'm not sorry I left that secure job, with health insurance, and a private office with a door I could keep closed. I was miserable and stuck, and although now I'm miserable and crashing, I think I needed to go through this terrible year before I can know myself well enough to take care of myself properly. Well, I don't know how to put that, really, but I guess I'll start hanging out here now and start figuring it out.

Hello reginaterrae, welcome, enjoy your stay on the Wrong Planet!

Thanks, glad you all are here.

To WrongPlanet! !!

Hi Regina,
It sounds like a rough life of yours. I can relate to parts of it and Im sure others can too. Me and my husband use to say we should follow what our hearts want and put our mental health first in line. The consequenses with lack of money gives life its turn but you get something else instead and learn what to put value in and not...
I so much hope that things will work out well for you. Dont give up on life and try to stay strong.
Wrong Planet is a wonderful supporting place. Feel yourself warmly welcomed!

Richie, thanks for the exuberant welcome!

xalepax, thanks. Yeah ... in theory I agree, follow my heart and put my mental health first. Trouble is that the insecurity about money (stress!!) is not doing my mental health a lot of good. I have a lot of faith in God, and I know He's got my back, but it's hard not being able to see HOW He's going to lift me out of this crisis.... The good thing is that I've been in a panic of imminent homelessness for a year now, and here I am still in my home, well fed, warm and physically comfortable -- it's a real lesson in give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6:24-34 is my favorite scripture reading these days (the lilies of the field passage).

I have an intake interview appt Monday with some case manager people who hopefully will help me figure out what to do next and how to do it.

I truly understand that insecurity about money do cause enormous stress that can bring the mental health to the very extreme levels...I have seen two films lately that gave me some perspective about both money and about beeing homeless.

One of the films was about a young man who gave all the money he owned to charity and gave up his home voluntary. Then he took off on the roads and sometimes took some temporary jobs to be able to move himself further on but his dream was to live in the nature to the extreme that it killed him in starvation when he ended up in an area far away alone from other people...

The other film was about a man who became homeless out of lack of a job to pay his rent. He was a very determined guy who didnt gave up his dream of getting a job. He was taken into a training program by a company after he had been chasen the boss around convincing him that he was capable of doing it. He never told he was homeless and had a really hard time struggling with this part as he also was responsible for his five year old son. But no matter how difficult this was he never gave up and fighted with his learning to be taken into the company as a paid employee. He succeeded at the end!

So, keep beliving in a brighter future. It is difficult to not knowing how to get out of it all but one day you will and then Im sure God is with you all the way!

A great Good Luck to you on Monday. I hope you get to meet good people with good solutions!

Thanks, xalepax. The good wishes and kind words are much appreciated.

Welcome to WrongPlanet!

Welcome to WrongPlanet.

Thanks, guys.

So ... my therapist has tentatively convinced me that I don't have Aspergers, but rather schizoid personality disorder -- especially, that it's not that I can't read social cues, it's just that I don't care to. Or something like that. He showed me the entry in the DSM-IV-TR, and I have to say it matched me pretty well. It's hard to say, at 42, what are natural deficits and what are just learned coping strategies.

But it's not a settled question yet -- I've only spent a total of 5 hours with this guy so far -- and regardless, I'm having a ball over on the Off the Wall forum I guess even if I don't like too much face-time with people, I do like it here on the Wrong Planet. Well, the politics-philosophy-religion forum can be a bit tiresome, but it's the nature of the topics, I guess. Anyway, I'm not changing my "aspie self-diagnosed" identification on my profile yet, but it's on the table.