A New Aspie I think.

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Hi. I am 49 years old and am being tested for Aspergers. How did that happen? How could it take 49 years to get to this point? In a nutshell (an expression that makes no sense but everyone uses).....My husband of 21 years died suddenly and unexpectedly after a brief but never diagnosed illness last summer. I have 2 boys, 2 dogs and 3 cats. Always knew I was different but could never really figure out why. I never realized how much my husband compensated for all of my deficits. Actually I never realized I had any deficits until after he was gone. That is when my life started falling apart and I struggled to figure out how to run the house alone. I can't keep up with anything! Despite the fact that I have a law degree I never really used it because I didn't really have any confidence in myself and I couldn't keep up with the paperwork so I just stayed home with my kids. Now that I need to earn a living I'm at a loss as to what to do. So far I'm delivering pizza and taking photos when people ask although I much prefer taking landscape and wildlife photos which I quickly learned don't sell even though people love to look at them. And I love learning to play instruments. Piano was my first and saxophone was next and they are the 2 that I am best at. I play bass guitar in the church praise band and started learning ukulele and banjo this summer. I can play a lot of other instruments but those are my favorite. I also love computers, reading, art and being outside.

Anyway that is kind of a quick version of me as a try to sort out how to get my life on track. In the meantime I was referred for neuro psych testing by my therapist and psychiatrist who are both convinced I have Aspergers. I had 2 hours of testing June 29, another round on July 24 and I have to wait until July 31 to find out the results as interpreted by the neuropsychologist. Am I an Aspie? I hope - but I am waiting impatiently for the results and will be nervous as hell when I go back July 31.

This took an hour for me to get 'Registerd"; now it's midnight . I learned how to organize with Microsoft OneNote Desktop. It gives you an old school color coded folder with everything on ONE PAGE. Any page I need to keep and put i nto its own named folder by being sent to the OneNote printer .So I don't loose this page Right Click / print / onenote no paper. It's late Goodnight rcf

hi, charlie horse,

i have an MD i don't use, so welcome to the club. i just sing in the local chorus now, but once played folk guitar, tuba, violin, and piano. best of luck to you in getting your test results and figuring out how you wish to live.

Hey ukon96 welcome.

I do read some Aspie traits in your post but only a professional can diagnose you. Good luck.

By the way. I was diagnosed Aspergers last year at age 49. It was quite a surprise to me but also a relief as well. I'm sorry for your loss. I know how much that hurts, I lost my dad just a few years ago.

charliehorse I am still learning how to organize but I'm a mac user so I'm not sure I can use MS One Note but I will check it out. Paperwork is my nemesis along with organizing just about anything. Some days I feel like pigpen from peanuts just leaving little messes behind me.

CathyIynn I went to law school because I worked in a law office during high school and college. I wanted to go to school for music and art but my parents wouldn't let me. Ended up with a marketing degree and a law degree that I never used. Don't think I am cut out to be a 9-5 job person since it is almost impossible to sit at a desk all day.

RoadRatt I will be relieved if I get the diagnosis....the part that scares me more is what if it isn't? Then what do I explain all of my strangeness with? I have been trying to figure out how I think I scored on the first part of my neuropsych tests but I can't find anywhere online that would help me see how many levels there were to the parts of the test I took. I know I did horrible on the word similarities test and also on repeating back the list of words that they kept reading to me - I didn't get too many no matter how many times he repeated the list which eventually just annoyed the heck out of me. He said my best skill that day was logical reasoning. I know I did bad on alternating thinking of an animal and then a fruit and I was really slow on trying to connect the dots when alternating between numbers and letters. I thought I was doing good on just connecting the numbers and letters but each time I got stuck when I couldn't find a particular number or letter and then I panicked and it took a long time to locate the one I wanted trying to sort through everything on the page. I thought I did pretty good on the block design but I don't know how many levels of that there were.

Hello Ukon96!

As a Mac user, I have found Evernote provides much the same functionality as OneNote. It also automatically syncs with my iPhone and iPad, which means that when I am out and about I still have access to all my files and so on. I especially like that when I receive a hardcopy paper notice or record I can just snap a picture of it in Evernote and have it always available everywhere. (No scanners required!) It works great too for quickly recording things like serial numbers and such so that they are always readily available.

Let me guess: well-intentioned people have suggested you sell your landscape photos to National Geographic.

Welcome!

Thanks. I'll give EverNote at try. And yes National Geographic was suggested.....a dream job but unfortunately they don't take random photos from just anyone. How did you guess?

Welcome to Wrong Planet!