Well, I feel like this is like a "coming out" party of sorts. This whole thing has been nagging at me for years and I've never really pursued a diagnosis until recently. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Let's start with an introduction and some history.
I'm 45, male, gainfully employed and highly functional in most areas of my life. I've always considered my issues to simply be social phobia, general anxiety and being a non-linear thinker.
However, the first hint that there might be something more to it came from my chiropractor. I have very tight tendons behind my knees and he determined that the cause was the fact that I walked on my toes. "Yeah? So. Doesn't everyone?" I've had people comment on it in the past, but never thought anything of it. He was surprised that I didn't see anything wrong with it and just suggested that I try to adjust my gait.
The next poke was when my son was slow to develop verbal skills and his pediatrician noted that he walked on his toes. As a result, the county sent in an assessor. Of course, I tried to explain to them that there was nothing wrong with toe-walking. I did it, after all. He probably picked it up from me. We also taught him to sign from a very early age and he just didn't have the same motivation to learn to talk. I wasn't worried because he communicated well, he just chose to sign rather than form words. Oh well...they knew better. In any case, they assessed him as perfectly normal and with no outstanding issues. However, they started listing off symptoms that they were checking for and it was like they knew me. (uncomfortable with eye contact, uncomfortable with light touches, highly focused, difficulty with socialization, difficulty breaking patterns, inappropriate or contradictory facial expressions, etc.) Again, I just scoffed at what seemed like arbitrary criteria. After all, I did all of those things and and I'm a productive member of society, high IQ, highly functional....certainly not autistic. <ahem>
Poke number 3 came when my tinnitus reached life-altering proportions. I've had the ringing in my ears for as long as I can remember and I've also been abnormally sensitive to sounds (things like the flyback in a TV drive me nuts if I'm stressed out to start with). Anyways, I was getting stressed at work which made the tinnitus worse which stressed me out more which affected my sleep which....repeat until dizzy. The stress also made my social phobia REALLY bad. I just wanted to crawl under a rock and be left alone. Anyways, my GP sent me off for brain scans, hearing assessments, cardio tests, CT scans of my neck and shoulders, etc. At the end of it it was an H2IK problem (Hell If I Know) and he prescribed Lexapro to see if that would help. Sure enough, everything slowly levelled out and I was back to my "normal" self. Had I known that I'd get dropped from my insurance, I probably would have said no to it. Luckily I didn't know and, apparently once it's on the record, you're SOL forever. So it's kind of a non-issue now.
Poke number 4 came when, after decades of "you just have a weak immune system...you need to exercise more and eat more whole grains", I was finally diagnosed with Celiac. I went gluten free and my physical problems went away after a few months.
Poke number 5 came when I was reading a Robert Sawyer book where the father of the main character was a research scientist with Asperger Syndrome. It was the first time that I really got a feel for what Asperger's was and the pieces started rearranging themselves.
The last straw was when I was listening to Sara Silverman's book, "The Bedwetter...stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee". She talked about how she was diagnosed with depression as a kid and made the statement that depression was like a feeling of intense homesickness even when you were home. Holy Crap! One of the weirdest feelings that I ever had was staring into a mirror one day and saying out loud "I want to go home" and I was in my own house. Ok, now I knew something was up. That was such a specific match for something that I thought was so damned random.
I started doing some research and it was all falling into place.
As a kid, I was always "different" from the other kids. However, I grew up with them and I had a small tight-knit group of friends that "got me". I was weird, but in a good and interesting way. So what if I felt like making eye contact was somehow making a very intimate and unwelcome connection. So what if I jumped if anyone accidentally brushed up against me. So what if I'd sit under the stairs and read to my "inner circle" at recess or hang out talking to a teacher instead of running around like some rabid dog.
One defining moment (in retrospect) was in 3rd grade when some new kid decided that I was "too weird" and needed a beating. I was taken totally by surprise when he started punching me. However, instead of punching back, I calmly grabbed his throat and told him that I'd let go when he stopped punching me. He finally stopped, I asked him if he could breathe and then I just let go and went back to what I was doing. Next thing I know, I'm being dragged off the schoolyard by a teacher and thrown into the interrogation program. For weeks afterwards I had teachers asking me why I did what I did. I had to explain that I just thought it was the easiest and most direct way to get him to stop punching me. To this day I still stand by the decision. I was also asked why I didn't hit him back (that would just keep him hitting me), why I didn't stop when he couldn't breathe (he was still swinging), why I didn't hit him once he was down (why would I?). Again, I just chalked that up to being more rational.
Speaking of "rational", I also remember my joy at discovering Star Trek as a kid because it had normal people like Spock and Scotty on it. "See...I'm different from you, but I'm just like them." Spock's rational approach to everything made perfect sense to me and Scotty's funky intuition, ability to find solutions that nobody else could even think of and the way that he loved the Enterprise were right on the money. Perfectly normal stuff.
Of course it all went to hell in a hand basket when I changed schools. Now I was "the new kid" and I was 'weird' and I really couldn't deal with all of the people around me. I made friends with the teachers and occassionally by being the only one that would talk with the "newer" new kids. Oddly enough, I didn't really feel any strong desire to keep in touch with my old friends. I always had 1 or 2 "close" friends, but never felt a need or desire to be "social". I was just "that shy kid". Unfortunately, that also meant "easy target" for bullies. I still didn't get the whole fighting thing though. I'd subdue the attacker, assume that meant it was over and then get jumped and pummelled when I let them up.
I still don't get the motivation for hitting someone. I also don't get the motivation for being an as*hole to get ahead, lying or people that cheat on their significant others. You might as well grab a pigeon off the street and use it to wipe your ass. I understand that you want a clean ass, but there are so many better ways to deal with the problem that the choice of solution is totally irrational to me. It makes it very difficult for me to function in a very political office. I border on the self-destructive by not being able to understand nuance, lie properly or spot when someone is playing me. I have 20/20 hindsight and I can analyze the hell out of it afterward. But I'm just not wired to anticipate it.
Ok...somewhere along here I jumped off the rails. (normally I'd edit this, but I'm really more concerned about being authentic here than making a particular impression)
I really don't know what I am. The best analog these days would be Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. I get him and if it weren't for my wife coaching me and my need to maintain a job, I'd be him. I have an extensive network of filters and facades that I've built over the years that let me function in polite society. But if I were to just "be myself", that's pretty darned close to who I'd be. What confuses me is that I have really strong empathy for him, but it's my understanding that empathy is a sign of "not" being an Aspie. Hmmm...
I seriously considered getting a formal diagnosis, but I was too nervous about making the call. I don't want to be labelled. I just want to "know". Someone in here said that it was upwards of $4K for a diagnosis and that kind of sealed the deal for me. Now I'm looking for cheaper ways of assessing. My wife is really discouraging me from pursuing this. She's really uncomfortable about even talking about it. So I'm hoping that I can find some sort of release valve in here.
So, that's my ramble for the day. Unedited, uncensored and completely uncertain about whether it was the right thing to post to a bunch of strangers. I guess the worst case scenario is that I just fade into the sunset and the best case is that I find some people who understand some of this crap (whatever this crap might actually be)
09 Aug 2011, 5:28 pm
You actually hit on a pet peeve of mine with the intelligence comment, though. I test well. Whether it's IQ tests, professional exams, tests, etc. If it's between me and a peice of paper and the answers are black and white, I can pass pretty much any test. But I'm not really a big beleiver in the whole IQ thing. All it really proves to me is that I'm good at pattern recognition and eliminating wrong answers. I was tested a few times as a kid and always ended up off the charts, but I feel pretty dumb when it comes to a lot of things that other people take for granted. So I don't really beleive in that whole "objective intelligence" thing. I score well and I joined Mensa because I was naively convincing myself that I'd go to meetings and maybe find other "weird" people like me. But I've never worked up the courage to go to a meeting. (big shock and surprise).
