Good Afternoon (although that may not be applicable to you),
I would like to make my introduction. I have been a member of this site for nearly 1.5 months. I have read various threads, however I hesitated to make an introduction. I feel this is characteristic of how I communicate in person. I also wanted to have more information before I made a post, and I was simply uncompelled by any suitable purpose to contribute. I will use this thread for a while to talk about myself, and I welcome input from other members, particularly those who have been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome or are familiar with the various diagnostic criteria, e.g. DSM or ICD.
On Monday, I began therapy with someone who specializes, among other things, in ASDs. Monday is my 3rd session. Like the many competent and resourceful people here, I found my way to this forum after a period of introspection and investigation. I have been particularly reflective over the past 1.5 years, approximately. I have had numerous difficulties. I am 24 years of age. I live alone, though I don't pay for my residence and am supported monetarily by my mother. I am reclusive. I suffer from obvious anxiety related difficulties, particularly in relation to dealing with people, my identity, and how I spend my time, which are all quite interrelated.
Prior to the aforementioned time, I had a girlfriend, a job (in computers, my profession since the age of 15), and worked at being more sociable, however this was not sustainable like most similar things I have attempted. That year, I was romantically involved with 3 women, and none of the relationships ended well. The first left me without proper notice when she moved to a city 1200 mi away, then returned 1 year later and repeated this act. The second broke up with me quite suddenly the same week I was fired from a job that I disliked. My dismissal occurred shortly after being injured during work. The third woman was extremely difficult to get along with. She stopped seeing me after I was in a car accident and hadn't been working for a time, but interestingly not before I helped her move, and paint and fix some walls.
After these things happened, I became very reclusive for a period of about six months, and have maintained a preference for this lack of contact. Some of the things which particularly occupied my thoughts at this time were.
1.Academic and Intellectual endeavors
2.Friendships
3.Life Principles, i.e. No. 1, particularly with regard to the prevailing sentiments of humanity and mythology or religion.
4.Recreational use of psychoactives
Prior to 5 weeks ago, I had no knowledge of what characteristics Asperger's Syndrome was comprised of. However, I feel that when one is remarkably different from others in sustained proximity, and able-minded enough to sort these differences, it is only a matter of time before one has the feeling that it is they who are peculiar. Would that I had long ago reached such a definitive possibility as that I suffer from a syndrome with a specific rate of incidence, however I was tasked with framing my proclivities without this knowledge, or in spite of it, i.e. with my own principled observation. In some ways, the conclusion was a more thorough acknowledgment of some things I was aware of previously, though I continued to operate as I had, quite unhinged. I felt a significant amount of denial of my own feelings and desires, which began when I moved to this town just shy of the age of 11.
After the move, I was in the largest school I had been, and would be in successively larger schools here in the Southern United States. To say little of the bullying and teasing I experienced, the reasons for my need to adjust were manifold. Thus began what I now recollect as a long legacy of transforming myself in order to be congruent with what I saw around me, and others ideas of how I should be.
I have represented a number of contrastive, and sometimes contradictory experiences, which I have found bothersome to recollect and difficult to have recounted by others. Exempli gratia:
I was regarded as gifted as a child after a series difficult experiences in elementary school. After leaving the city of my birth, wherein my preferred climate and most familiar geographical orientation is located, my marks began to drop sharply until I required summer school in order to pass the seventh grade. I was aloof, sad, strange, and felt increasingly dumb and self-repressed.
I have been regarded at times as a prodigious athlete, which I credit to the continuing routine of my being immersed in water shortly after my birth, thus being made to continue cultivating physical skills such as swimming, which I performed in diapers, and also to being enrolled in martial art at 3 years of age. However, I am notorious for being uncoordinated in a home or similar environments, being unaware of my body, or those of others around me. Thus I frequently did, and continue to, bump into fixed objects, and as a child was likely to plow into other children to reach a destination, particularly before being coached by my parents on this.
I nearly failed the freshman year of high school, but was allowed to continue at the behest of my teachers. I recall being yelled at by my English professor for being " being so goddamn smart, but wasting your talent!" At this time, I was scaled in the 99th percentile for depression, suspected to be bipolar, and have deficits both in attention and intelligence. Thereafter I was in public school, where my lackluster performance largely continued despite being an academic decathlete, despite being regarded as the most talented writer in my school, despite being sponsored, mentored, and offered employment by executives of defense contractors, one of which is notorious for it's negative visibility in relation to Abu Ghraib, despite receiving commendation from a state representative, despite a petition that I should replace one of my professors in community college, and similarly unremarked episodes.
I went to a local university where I had received some scholarships for computer science activities for two summers during high school. I was unable to deal with my anxiety and other difficulties and was eventually academically dismissed, twice. This occurred in the midst of my return to martial art and subsequently waning interest in school. Martial art became my primary occupation during this time. I was prompted to establish a course of physical fitness in response to skeletomuscular pain I began experiencing in relation to obesity I gained until my Freshman year. Shortly thereafter, my sudden change in physical appearance seemed of interest to women for the first time. This was another enticement, and the distraction of deciphering and acceding to others' vanity took hold. I eventually began modeling after much goading, but as I indicated, I previously have been terminated from most other work I have held professionally. Apropos, this period was marked by unmoderated efforts to be more socially successful, which in my case was not engaged on consistently healthy terms regarding the sensitivities and desires I unsuccessfully suppressed in order to achieve my status and be hedonically pacified. This I experienced at times as sudden difficulties with attachment to people, sensory overload during activities, which including recreational use of marijuana, and other cues that I was not living well. I was unable to sustain my most ardently pursued passion--my special activity, martial art--due to injury. I attempted to treat this but was left dejected and unable to cope with repeated visits to doctors, during which I complained but to my bafflement did not receive a prognosis indicating that there was a problem.
Currently, I live alone, am unemployed, and have been working to understand my neuroses. These include anxiety, attention deficit, and other sensory difficulties. These frequently manifest with basic activities such as reading, or any intellectually stimulating activity. I am utterly discombobulated by other things I have experienced but not been able to explain, including sudden sharp deficits in cognition during stressful periods. I am also now veritably bulimic. In essence, I have wanted to focus on controlling my emotions in order to engage in some activities which I may enjoy, but this is difficult because I seem increasingly sensitive to the world around me, or perhaps have always been. I also feel very self-centered and indulgent. Some problems that I imagined I had worked through in the past are much worse now, though as I have indicated, my true feeling, is that I have not been able to properly address most of my problems. I dislike the climate, being outdoors, being seen, talking to people, being questioned about whatever draws people to what I am doing. Generally, I am having difficulty assigning value to interacting socially with others and what is appropriate for me to sustain success and independence.
Those are some of the details of my life as I see it. I welcome any type of advice or criticism. If my enthusiasm and regard for this community persists despite my current use of a professional therapeutic service, I hope to be further enlightened. Generally, I would like to have a basic understanding of what characteristics I have been unable to control, and if they correspond to those experienced with a significant rate of incidence by others. I look forward to conversing with you on the forums.
31 Jul 2010, 4:35 am
