In a conversation a friend of mine, going by the username Tiranasta here on this site and many other places online, mentioned this community to me and I thought there was no harm if I had a little look around.
I go by Pourriture everywhere but my name is Anne. I'm a female Australian by sex, living in Australia. I am a diagnosed Asperger's Syndrome as of the 29th of March 2011. Originally only my younger brother was suspected to have Asperger's, as his behaviour was troublesome and flamboyant, whilst I was only withdrawn and with atypical, boyish interests. The diagnoses of autism and AS is very prevalent within my family on both my mother's and father's sides.
It became apparent that perhaps my younger brother and I could be sharing the same condition as I got older and struggled immensely doing things 'normal' teenagers do and being uncomfortably hypersensitive. A major thing I struggled with was schooling. After years of school refusal I dropped out and am yet to go back. I have gone through many therapy sessions with an array of psychologists, councillors and psychiatrists, been admitted to a psychiatric ward twice, and been diagnosed with numerous mental health disorders (major depressive disorder, social and generalised anxiety disorder, bulimia/EDNOS, body dysmorphic disorder, etc.) Eventually I got an appointment with Tony Attwood and although my diagnoses as of then was still correct, an official diagnoses of AS has cleared a lot up and been of general help.
I used to be actively interested in the natural world when I was younger - fauna, astronomy, physics, weather phenomena - and mathematics and the arts, including film, but my health has since limited the involvement I can have in developing my passion for such things and my hobbies now consist of not really things that interest me, but of things that help tolerate my stress and mood levels. Spider solitaire, TCG sorting, and watching L&O: SVU/CI for a few examples.
But also because of my health I have developed another group of active interests and that is in psychiatry, psychology, neurosciences and behavioural sciences. As of present I am keenly interested in the comorbidity between AS or HFA and mental disorders. I guess that is what kind of brings me here now. I'm interested in learning about what fellow neuro-atypicals struggle with in relation to health and every day functioning in modern society. I'm interested in what makes things different in the way they are.
So.
Hello.
10 Oct 2011, 3:12 am
