As seems to be the practice around here I suppose I'd better introduce myself and give a bit of a potted history. So here goes...
I'm 31, freshly diagnosed with Asperger's, live in the UK, have a wife (no kids) and work full time as a computer programmer
That's the facts, but why do I find myself here at WP? I always felt kind of excluded as a child, never had many friends, didn't mix with other people and was painfully shy. This only became more obvious when I left home at 22 to work at the other end of the country - didn't know a soul after even after 3 years there.
Then I met my (then future) wife online and moved up to Harrogate (UK). She read The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night and pointed out that the main character did an awful lot of things that I do, so I read it, managed to catch a TV documentary about autism and it all set the old grey matter going enough for me to start investigating the subject further. After taking one of the online tests and visiting the NAS (UK) website I went to my GP and she tried to talk me out of it but relented and referred me to a psychologist. After a year of being on the NHS waiting list (and researching a lot more) I'd come to the conclusion that I was AS but was told that I'd have to wait another 18 months. I then decided to go private. That was about 3 weeks ago and I got diagnosed a mere 5 days ago!
I'm happy with it, my wife is happy with it but the rest of my family and pretty much everyone we've told are refusing to understand what's going on inside my lump of grey jelly (it was only after we had a firm diagnosis that we decided to 'go public'). It's early days yet so maybe things will change but there are so many questions and problems that I never dreamt I'd have to face - getting the diagnosis was supposed to be the hard bit, not having to live with it.
So that's my story. Hopefully you won't get annoyed when I ask stupid questions, go looking and asking for support/opinions but I'm hoping that fellow AS-ers will kind of understand where I'm coming from, be able to offer advice, ideas etc.
26 Apr 2006, 3:52 am
