A belated introductory thread

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Joined: 5 Nov 2010
Age: 31
Gender: Male
Posts: 282
Location: Canberra, Australia

23 Nov 2010, 4:20 am

I've been here for two weeks now, and have been posting quite a bit, yet never got around to making one of these threads. So, cue introduction to WP:

I had speech delays as an infant (was apparently tested for autism, diagnosis showed up negative,) and had many intense interests around this time (the ones I can remember are road signs and the Parkes Radio Telescope in Australia.) The first couple of years of elementary school were fine, I had friends, although from what I can remember, I was not a normal person (I spent a lot of time talking to my kindergarten teacher in the playground, and do recall going up to a bunch of older students and bragging that I knew what 100 * 100 was .)

Parents moved house, meaning a change in school to a rural school with a lot of deviant children. Cue three years of social ostracism and intellectual unstimulation. This pretty much destroyed my social skills during (what I've read is) a very important developmental window (ages 7-12.) As a result, I left this school with virtually no social skills, having been bullied relentlessly for almost three years (none of it was physical, all of it was mental, which made it much easier for lazy teachers to ignore it.) To add insult to injury, a councilor at the time (one who serviced many schools in the district,) came and said that I should become more like the other children to "fit in" and stop being bullied. Not only was this impossible (my social skills were already destroyed,) but was really quite insulting (not to mention pretty incompetent on the part of both the councilor and the school.)

Cue moving to middle school at about age 12. Didn't really fit in for the first year (although I did get along quite well with one of the teachers.) I put this down to either social anxiety disorder or Aspergers, or both. It's hard to make friends when you've been constantly ostracized for three years. Did finally make some friends at about 14-15, and slowly became accepted by the whole grade. Hell, I'm probably "popular" (although not in the Hollywood sense.) The bullying stopped at the end of (about) year 7 (13,) and I slowly gained more social skills, but I've still got what I feel are inferior social skills, mixed with very mild social anxiety disorder and very mild Aspergers. I've probably got some ASD, but I'm not really sure which one, and I probably won't get diagnosed, as I don't really feel it's required.

tl;dr: Bullied in elementary school, lead to SAD. Probably got some ASD, exaggerated as a result of said bullying.

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Shadi2
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23 Nov 2010, 5:59 am

Hello Samsa

I have seen some of your posts. Thanks for sharing your story with us.

Have you tried the tests in the general autism discussion? maybe you already have, but if not they are interesting, and maybe it would help you figure out where you are approximately on the autism spectrum, or if you have AS traits.

See you around

Shadi

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Wallourdes
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Joined: 24 Jul 2010
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23 Nov 2010, 6:19 am

I've seen you around here too, Welcome to WP

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KyleTheGhost
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