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Hey, i just registered for this site and i figured i'd introduce myself.
I'm Dan.

I'm not diagnosed with AS, but a friend of mine who works with Austistic children said i totally reminded her of one of her students. I thought this was weird, so i did a little research and stumbled across AS on Wikipedia LINK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome
It pretty much describes me to a point that there is no doubt in my mind that this is what i have. It's almost as if they wrote it specifically about me.
I'm 25 years old and i've been to counceling as a child but to my knowledge, noone has picked up on this, except for my friend. What exactly are my options here? I'm assuming i should get it professionally diagnosed. What about after that? I really cant afford theorapy on my own. I do have medical insurance, but i don't know what that covers. Anyways, all advice given will be apreciated. Thanks in advance.
Dan

Hi and wellcome!
As you will soon see,there are so many opinions about all this.
I am absolutely aspie, although "diagnosed" only by myself, I can see no necessity/advantage in being diagnosed by a professional that, probably, knows less than me about all this.
Well, being an aspie has so many advantages as you probably know, although, we probably pay much more atention at the bad side.
Well, we will learn a lot this days.

Oh, I forgot to say: if you are really aspie you will be absolutely sure about it, so, there will be no need of a specialist to tell you what you know. Besides that, you can "direct" tests to show you are aspie or not, it is to say, you can answer according to your desire of being seen as aspie or not.

It does have many advantages, but i'm starting to think that ignorance is bliss because this whole thing is starting to take it's toll on me. It is a slight relief now that i kind of know what's wrong (or not wrong) with me, and now i can take steps to be less of a dick to people with a normal thought process.

well, i am absolutely sure in my eyes. I was thinking more along the lines of getting help with my social issues, and maybe to get a little understanding at work for my behavior sometimes. Not that i want to use it as a scapegoat, but maybe it will help thm interperet what i'm trying to say at times, when i am sometimes understood with my motives.

I think it seems strange at the beggining, but it will be soon felt as usual, and indeed it is usual, it is not really a strange way of thinking.

Well, i certainly don't want to change who i am, but i'd like it if i didn't alienate myself from certain social situations. I really don't enjoy being lonely.... and i imagine it only getting worse with age.

Are you thinking in what to do in order to overcome our social disabilities?
Seems to be a good task, I think I had been putting my efforts in how to live happy with it, but your goal seem to be better than mine.

I'm definately thinking that ignorance is bliss...I was diagnosed only a week ago, and since then, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, how life would be different if I weren't an aspie, how I would be thinking if I were NT, and so on and so forth. I also learned that pretty much all of my "nervous habits" are actually stimming...so now whenever I do them, I get self-conscious

Yes, i'd really like to help myself overcome at least some of it. I realized i was having social issues a while ago, so i've been working on it most of my adult life. I know i've made progress so i totally think it's worth it. The biggest improvement i have made has been in the past 3 years, when i moved from Connecticut to San Diego, California.
I think alot of it has to do with the fact that once i moved out here, i got roomates for the first time in my life. it really helps me interact with people on a regular basis, making it easier to cope with social situations, just like i'm more efficient with math formulas when i use them on a regular basis at work. I also think that if i had a full time brother or sister i would have developed these social skills much quicker.

As for my "ignorance is bliss" comment, i ment more in the way of being able to just accept stuff, instead of logically trying to figure it all out. Every topic that i hold any interest in i have to pick apart and analyze, and that usually leads to a strong debate, and the other party thinking i was just looking for an argument.
I totally understand what you're saying though. I told my roomate today, who is actually the first person i told, and it went fairly well. It actually seemed to relieve some tension on my part, and maybe explained a few things on his end about me.

Last edited by GenericUserName on 23 Apr 2007, 10:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Actually, with age, it improves - to use a software metaphor, you wind up writing yourself an emulation subroutine so you can appear to be more like what's expected. At this point, if I want to display my aspie tendencies fully enough for anyone to grasp, I have to consciously disengage my emulator. The downside, of course, is that social situations do tend to be tiring - my wife and cohusband stopped taking me to the club, even when we could get a sitter, because after a while, I'd start feeling tired and looking "sick". (And you know you've got to be looking pretty bad if you stand out in a Goth club!)

i guess i kind of ment the loneliness part if i didn't mak an effort to get "better". I have picked up on the tiring part of it all. When i get tired or hungry i get fairly pissy, so to speak. How do you guys think you do with alcohol? Sometimes it makes it worse, sometimes it makes it easier.

Welcome to WP!

Tim

In order to know how would you feel if you were a NT, you can use the NT emulator drug, that will turn your mind cloudy, and will put you at a kind of sociability induced state. But, take a warning, you must use the NT emulator drug only at parcimonious doses, and only eventually, over the risk of turning to a irreversible and pervasive NT state.The NT emulator drug is selled everywhere by so many forms generically called alcoholic drinks.

I believe I must have a real comprehension of things in order to understand them. NTs get satisfied with a cloudy comprehension about everything, what turns many tasks easy to them. I think that if we really focus on social relations, and try to undertand all that, we would probably superseed NTs in social relations, what, for me, would be very borrowing, but, probably, a good purpose.