Anyhow, a week or two ago I started reading "The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome" and a lot of it sounded familiar...
I am in my mid-30s, male, live in New York City.
I guess I'll start with psychological tests, psychologists etc. My grammar school sent me to get IQ tests when I was young. I scored a few points below genius. Always got in the 99% percentile in those state-wide reading/math tests. Got into a great high school, did OK freshman year - good grades, made friends. Sophomore year was bad, started getting bad grades, had few friends at school, and at home had few of my old grammar school friends. Sent to school shrink, he gave me an IQ test, said I scored near my old score. He was amazed how many numbers I could remember backward and forward. He gave me psych tests, I stumbled over recognition of authority questions. His diagnosis "I had organization problems". Went to a few shrinks, which I did not want to do, finally went to one who I thought was OK. I had one good, but sometimes trouble-making friend at the time, my mother always wanted to cut off my contact with my one real friend, the shrink said he thought me being friends with him was good. My friend is very sociable and gregarious. It may have been helpful talking to him, I don't know.
I had been into computers since I was 9 or so, but in summer break of sophomore year I got really into them. I talked online and met up with other people locally involved and overall it was a good thing. I made a network of new friends, got a career path going etc. My father was a blue collar worker. Anyhow managed to get through school, got a decent SAT score and got into a top 25 university. One of the nice people on my floor once told me I did "not fit into the dorm social structure". The first semester I did well in 2 classes, and the other 2 I did not (one class I should have never taken it was too hard). The second semester I eventually kind of gave up on going to class. I asked one of my friends, a withdrawn musician, to be my dormmate in sophomore year but he said he already made plans with someone else. I didn't go to final exams etc. I was spending a lot of time on the Internet.
Came home and kind of bummed around and worked odd jobs, but had a really good time actually. I guess I sometimes have trouble making/keeping friends or being in large groups, but not as much as some people with Aspergers I've read so maybe I'm somewhere on the scale if I'm on the scale which I think I am. Eventually started working in computers. A year later, through my social network a friend of a friend got me a really good paying job. It was the dot-com boom and I was making a lot of money and companies were seeking me out to some extent. I got my own apartment and was making money. I'd go out with my friends drinking and did all sorts of stuff. I even met a beautiful, smart girl at a company I worked at. We started going out. I re-read my diary of the time and had forgotten something she had said, she said "You don't seem to know how to get along with people", in her case meaning like sitting around a table with a group of people. After a number of months, I strongly suspected she had been lying to me and had been cheating on me and we broke up.
Anyhow I started working at a Fortune 500 company but did not like it. I socialized with my co-workers which helped me keep my job during a layoff, I think. I was tired of the stress and could not deal with the office politics. It really was long hours and stressful though. The economy was tanking and I could not find another job so I quit.
I moved back home. I kind of bummed around, this time in anti-authoritarian political stuff for a few years. Eventually, through a friend I got a good computer job. I was not feeling as secure, so I got a job a mile from my parent's house and lived in my parent's house during the week, eating dinner there, and in my apartment on weekends. The job was OK, then the company went through a lot of changes, and office politics flared up. A programmer was sacked, then I was sacked, then a few weeks later my boss was sacked.
I knew I was going to be sacked and had been interviewing, but my lack of a college diploma had hurt me. My job really needs one, getting in during the dot-com boom was luck. I had been going nights and have been going full time. My GPA was really high, then I made some mistakes (and was a little depressed) and it slipped, this last semester it has bounced back.
Oh, I made some notes on the first 30 pages of Complete Guide to Aspergers.
One thing about mimicking and voices...I talked a certain way I think, then I met another computer guy who talked in monotone and was incredibly focused and I began talking like him (he was very smart). Maybe I mimicked him. Then I got a job answering IT support calls and my voice became even more monotone. Once I had a few drinks and my bosses wife, who was smart and nice, said, "Hey, your voice has completely changed!" It had become normal I guess, not monotone. My girlfriend noticed the same thing after I had a bit to drink once and noted it.
Anyway, the standard things. Decent with one on one, often bad in groups of people. The Complete Guide talks about feeling socially exhausted and withdrawing to my room, yes, that's me. In fact, the last apartment of mine was all about that room - a white room, closed door, closed blinds, no distractions (I specifically asked if it was noisy) mostly so I could study math for school. Which I did. But also have deep thinking for computer programs and the like. I have made real decent money with computers, I would love to somehow make enough money with my skills so I could not have to be dependent upon the corporate politics of corporations for my food and shelter.
If I have Asperger's, its a weird problem. Some have speculated Warren Buffett has it. So it's basically like, some things I suck at, some I am good at, and those good skills are things that are like the top paying jobs out of college. So sock away money etc. so I don't have to worry about that as much, and then deal with these other problems. Or do both at the same time.
Recently my best friend has gone away for a bit (alcohol rehab), my next closest friend is married and has moved miles away and our relationship has kind of frayed a little unfortunately. There are some people I'm talking to but I'm feeling a little disconnected, which is probably why I started reading this Asperger's stuff to begin with. One thing is I'm still in my mid 30s and living at home (although the recession contributes), unattached romantically for a long time, my good friends are away or drifting away and I'm feeling kind of anxious and antsy, so even when I call old friends or acquaintances up, as the guide says Aspergers is more conspicuous during times of stress or change. So the last time I want to reconnect with people is when I'm in this weird state.
30 May 2010, 9:20 am
