Hi everyone
Just breezed into town
.... breezed in about a week ago, I mean, and since then have been semi-obsessively reading everything here for the most part. As in, not coming up for air.....
I've sort of known it all along . . .
And I've had various professionals give me their opinions on what "it" might be since 1972, such as depression, or abuse survivor with repressed memories..... and ADD is as close as they've gotten. Which I definitely do have (ADD). Been diagnosed & taking adderal for that since 2004 [at the age of 46, my motive for getting diagnosed was keeping my job]. I've been told I was depressed a lot (very recently in fact, by a couple of my many doctors) and in fact I do take an a/d as well, and do go through spouts of depression.
But I digress. (Always!! !! !! !)
What I did not realize until just recently (thank you my good friend the internet) is that there are other people like me on this planet. Because I know some people in real life who are on the spectrum, and at least one person in my family has been diagnosed (can't think of any adults I know offhand, but a couple very soon to be adults for sure....) But I just didn't see the similarity between me and the people I know (like aspie but w/speech delay - hf autism?), somehow? Although "something" was causing 99% of people to shy away from me, or use me as a source of humor..... and I didn't even realize that it was, maybe, because I didn't "get" something about --- people?.... I thought they didn't understand me for sure, but somehow I never saw .... whatever it is that regular people do that makes them like each other .... & when someone did try to clue me in, or invite me closer, I rarely picked up on that either.
I'm just realizing that's because I had no idea what the aspie/auti people were like on the inside (or anyone really)... evidently they aren't communicating themselves with me... occasionally I see people online for a while & I'm surprised when they say they're autistic, after all, they seem so [you know] and when I was in college I interned at a state hospital for a short time (early 70s) and one of the places I worked was the "autistic ward" ~ there was a very us & them mentality - to the extent that the people with autism weren't allowed to leave, and weren't allowed to have a choice whether or not to be observed by strangers just because they wanted to observe "autism" for psychology class (at least that's why I was there).
A lot of the "inmates" were somewhat verbal - and some quite young (or at least, so I thought, but I didn't know about people looking weirdly young -like I do - back then). I don't know what happened, they've stopped locking people in state hospitals here anymore but I wonder if a lot of the "behavior problems" those people were having, had to do with how they were treated there.
Personally, I would have been Freaking Out if they had locked me up in that place, it was very much like a prison, only colder and frankly quite scary! and, smelled like [something that should have been cleaned up better, I'll just leave it at that].
At the time - I might have been able to talk myself out (unless my parents had me committed, which I know was under consideration all thru my teens pretty much, but they didn't feel it so much after I moved out at 17). My early coping skill was (a) very high IQ and (b) read a billion books, probably 3/4 of them fiction - not science fiction, I guess my taste was molded by my mother's library, as I started reading at the age of three. I may have picked up subtle hints about NT behavior & what was expected from books, some clues about how people behave, although not why. And from my mother and other female relatives, all of them determined to make a "lady" outta me!
Managed to work for most of my life ~ several long-term jobs, which fit for one reason or another (although it was never because I was friends with someone who worked there - and I'd heard about that concept, like "it's not what you know it's who you know" but it seemed really abstract, and like that couldn't possibly be it....).
And I have three incredibly amazing children ~ two of them are pretty much grown (older teens) and one half grown. My kids think I'm a great mom, and they seriously mean it, they love me more than anything and I am SO proud of them. Other people like them too, not just family either, friends, teachers, friends' parents - go figure.
So I was playing NT borderline-successfully for a while (did go to parties for daughter's daycare friends, did have her friends & their parents to the house) and in fact I had a much much easier time of it than I can imagine having now. Things have changed, a few things got on top of that camel & then .... bam. I have some physical health issues, which seem to intensify the [what I consider to be] most negative symptoms of my mental health issues, anyway.... I'm just glad I wasn't like this when my kids were babies, or I dread to think of how that would have gone.
Lyme disease is the/a culprit here, I think, or a co-infection (I don't want to write any more because I'm skeeving myself out here I am NOT someone that lives in my body in the first place and it f'in hurts in there, anyway. Which I'm aware of somehow.... dangit.
Must take a shower & go to the laundromat. I hate, hate the laundromat for so many reasons, but it's getting to the point that no one has clean clothes (2 kids live at home) & I don't have money to get a washer and dryer at the moment at least not the ones I want. Don't want to buy more clothes, just bought a very small house and / because I want to be more functional by having less stuff.
Anyway.... I'll be back later, I'm sure. Just wanted to say hello.
26 Jan 2010, 11:00 am
