Fresh aspie from the Netherlands

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Hi,

I'm Marijn, 25 years old, Dutch and since this week officially diagnosed with Autism. I've been reading the forum for a while (since I took the tests for the diagnosis), but I waited with registering until the diagnosis was complete.

I've always known I was different but I previously assumed it was because of the experience of being a cancer survivor since age 11 and being a tad smarter than my peers. Only recently has the possibility of autism become apparent to myself because of experiences with autists and the fact that I was consiously learning myself to act normal based on other peoples behaviour.

Upon discussing the possibility with my parents they said my pediatrician pointed out the possibility of autism at an early age. No diagnosis was ever made because I didn't have any real problems growing up, for which I thank my parents' excellent care and, as it turns out, my intellectual advantage (I now know this enabled me to process everything quickly enough to prevent melt-downs, altough I probably had my share of those).

Altough she confirmed my suspicion of Asperger's Syndrome, the psychologist put a diagnosis of classic Autism (DSM-IV 299.00) in the report, aware of the coming changes in DSM-V. I'm happy with that as it both confirms what I thought and makes the diagnosis more "future-proof" in case Aspergers gets integrated in another type of diagnosis.

This is it for now, I hope to learn and contribute a lot here. I'll be happy to answer any questions, so don't hesitate to ask!

Hi Marjin!

Being a cancer survivor must have made you pretty strong. It's good to have you here!

Watch out for those geese!

Welcome greetings, fellow-traveler Marijn, to the WP forums.

Welcome to WP

Welcome to WrongPlanet and welcome to my time warp.

Hi there fellow dutchie

To WrongPlanet!! !

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

Hello, welcome. I can understand a fair amount of Dutch, because my home language is Afrikaans. You write English pretty well, though.

My parents -- particularly my mother -- was also a pretty good parent to have as an undiagnosed autistic child. Unfortunately there were many coping skills which I never learned in my youth, and have to build now later in life. It's good that you can have an early start with these things.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

@ViperaAspis It has made me (mentally) strong, my past experiences help me to see things in perspective. No matter what, I seen and experienced worse.

@Alphabetania Thank you, my English writing is probably better than my Dutch. I've always read and listened to a lot of English, I could understand it at a young age.
Afrikaans usually catches me by surprise because Suid-Afrika is so far away geographically and culturally you don't expect to understand so much of what is being said.

No not really. I can understand German and write/speak it a little but not more than my average peers. I have also had French and a bit of Latin in high school but that didn't really stick. Latin a bit more than French, but that has to do with the interest I had in it, combined with the history involved with the language.