I just learned I'm Aspie and I can't stop crying.

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I've always flapped my hands.
I used to joke that I was trying to fly away from stressful situations.
When autism awareness became more of a thing in the late 90s and early 00's and the butt of many an internet joke I would laugh at myself for some particularly 'autistic' things that I do and have always done, but it didn't actually occur to me that I might actually be autistic.

Kids weren't diagnosed in the early 80s. I only just learned that yesterday. I always assumed if I was autistic someone would have already known, because I was in SPECIAL ED in the 80s... yep short bus to school, sped.
Ive talked to more shrinks, Councillors, therapists and the like than I could ever hope to remember in my lifetime.
I just assumed I'D HAVE BEEN DIAGNOSED then.

it all just fits, it all just fits and I cant stop crying for the little girl no one understood.

That little girl who tossed and turned all night if she had a little scratch because it hurt so much, couldnt even stand the pain of soda pop fizz,
that little girl who always knew she was wrong/bad/different.

Flipping the bike upside down and spinning the wheel over and over for hours.
Having to make scripts in my head of how to react in every possible situation because how else would I know?
Being so involved in what I was doing I'd not go to the bathroom, or eat.
The rage/fits that made me absolutely unlovable to any care taker, as a child.
How that felt
to know that I was unlovable and still be unable to control them.
. The anxiety, the fear, the sadness and loneliness of social rejection of being bullied mercilessly until death seems like the only option left.
The shame.

The f*****g shame I felt.

I just found out why and I feel so bitter about it.

I think the first step for you will be getting over the shame and guilt. You have always been you all this time, there is no reason to be ashamed or to be bitter about it. There is nothing wrong with being you. Hopefully, as is intended, a diagnosis will allow you to better understand yourself and accept yourself. If you cannot do these things you will never be happy. Good luck.

I understand the problem with pop. I've never been able to stand it either. If you ask me it's overpriced sugar water. Can't even stand carbonated water. Ah well, it'll probably keep you healthier.

I'm sorry for your sadness. That wound may leave a scar. There are others here who would have benefited from someone at some point taking the time to figure out why we were different. That said, it is a pretty subtle syndrome sometimes.

You sound like you have been amazingly strong all your life. You should be proud of all you've gone through, how you figured out a way to work it out.

Thank you for your reply.
I'm over the shame and guilt mostly, but it was an entire childhood full of it to the point that I was suicidal many times, homeless and addicted to drugs, always friendless, always ashamed of my inability to function like other people. I never fit in EVER except with sped kids, and online kids from IRC but the worst part, wasnt the kids who picked on me, but the adult men who took advantage of the fact that I was socially CLUELESS, and pretty.
to think of all that could have been avoided...
The abusive alcoholic I married because I felt I didnt deserve anything better due to my own melt downs.
the guy I was with after that who would only ever insult me
the six years of loneliness in between the two..



Today I am feeling bitter more than shame. Im bitter because I had to endure so much shame, when some understanding of what autism is would have made ALL THE DIFFERENCE to me.

I also have severe OCD which was only discovered last year and which I now understand was formed as a way for me to organize all my scripts on how to behave and act in every situation, and to tolerate the severe anxiety of being constantly overwhelmed, and exhausted and over stimulated.

I mean it just all fits so spectacularly.

I genuinely feel hopeless about ever being happy regardless.
Ive endured too much now,
the mind just doesnt bounce back after that

Last edited by SwimmingHigh on 04 Mar 2017, 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It Is one of things i remember from childhood so clearly, because I knew it made me weird. I asked every kid I met if pop hurt them to drink and no one EVER thought it did. (I already knew scratches and hang nails and bruises hurt me way way more than other kids, and i was sooo curious about why)

I also hated being different so i drank pop as often as i could, enduring the pain until it no longer hurt me,
Then I quit because I had an addiction to drinking it lol.

oh man autism explains why i will eat the same meal or listen to the same song for months on end too, yah?

im mind blown
Im truly mind blown how the pieces all fit.

Last edited by SwimmingHigh on 04 Mar 2017, 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I've been through unimaginable circumstances that are soo insanely horrible the last group of friends I shared my story with thought I was a liar, and I lost those friends.

The first time in my life I had a group of close friends for more than a year, and it ended not over my weirdness but simply the disbelief of my life story.


hurts so damn much, tbh

now you know why those shoes other people were always trying to get you to wear never fit and hurt your feet...

while i havent been diagnosed with aspergers i am starting to realize that i have it...

it empowers me to reach out to those few friends i made in life and lost either to callousness or neglect...

it empowers me to keep my mouth shut when i think of something off the wall to say that will most certainly alienate me...

it empowers me to speak up when deep down i know i should but dont know how to say it...

it empowers me to not be so rigid in my approach to my children... one of whom has Dx aspergers and the youngest of which (my little girl) almost certainly has it...

it empowers me to fight for my life to correct the recent meltdown i had dragging my wife down with me... who suggested i may have aspergers months ago to which i got mad and yelled at her...

it empowers me to re-evaluate my life and go through all the stages of grief over all the pain i suffered and even caused sometimes...

it empowers me to move forward with the ability to seek the help i need and make the changes in my life i need to make while still retaining me...

you have every right to be mad... hurt... and to grieve... just dont do anything rash... you're too important...

but knowledge is power... use that power to move forward...

I am a mother, my days of doing something rash are behind me but the longing is there and that is sad,
I appreciate your response very much, thank you.

I have taught myself through pure FURY with myself, to do most of what you have said above, I somehow mamaged to be a performer, a sales person, and even popular once (Just to see if i could and what it was about, and it was entiiiiiiiirely fake for me, but i did it)
The relationship thing? Im not holding my breath i can ever make that work, but I am seeing someone casually and i think maybe that can be okay.

better than the self imposed six years of celibacy i endured after my divorce :p

for male aspies sex may be difficult to obtain but i imagine, judging from my experience that being aspie and a girl just leaves you vulnerable to all sorts taking advantage

sad

is autism hereditary? Looking back my mom was weird af, (i usually assumed a lot of my weirdness was learned from her if not outright inherited)

My daughter is sometimes a little strange but nothing like I was, she has friends and does okay in school no one has ever suggested she needed special ed for any reasons and she was born in 03 so... I am trusting theyd know by now if there was something up..

i am very glad you've had time to take a breath and digest what's going on and reflect...

part of me wants to write more but my own thoughts are too jumbled now...

one thought has gotten me through aa lot though...

no matter what my current situation is i convince myself that it could always be worse and that more than likely i am not charting new territory... odds are someone else has been through this and they found their way out...

i am new to these boards too but i am certain the people here will look after you...

Thank you for your reply. Please feel free to write anything, it is calming for me to read and reply to forum posts. I belong to many but never on this subject matter before now.

I cried tears of relief when I was first diagnosed with OCD because I thought it meant I was going to be able to over come it.
I started reading as much as I could about it, and trying to fit the pieces of my past together but things just weren't all there.
They are now

I feel very upset that this isn't something I can ever 'overcome'. There's no way out of being autistic, you cant learn not to be autistic. AT best all I can ever be is a good replicate of a real human.
Im incredibly sorry if that offends anyone i don't mean it too but thats where I am. Thats my honest raw misery that I am feeling right now on day 3 of fully accepting that yes, I am autistic.
I hope I'm wrong.

Things that happen in childhood and horrible things that happen after stay with you forever. Even when you get over them the damage caused remains. Some are better than others at mitigating the damage done to them after years of abuse. Do not measure your progress against that of others, just make sure you are continually making progress. Remember also that life is a single direction, at least as far as our current knowledge of the universe is concerned. Remember the past, employ it in ways to help you in the future but do not live there. Look forward, that is the only direction we can go and so that is where it makes sense to focus. When we are driving we focus mostly ahead because that is the direction of travel. We look back now and then to gather information that will be useful on the continued journey ahead but we do not focus there.

I was diagnosed later in life as well and wish I had known much sooner but I'm not so sure it would have stopped those that wanted to abuse me. It would have likely just given them something else to come after me with. It may have helped me make better decisions with my life direction though. However, for the above mentioned reasons, it's better not to focus too much on that. It's hard at first however. I found myself going back in my memories and realizing how all kinds of situations went wrong that I couldn't understand before. Now I can use them to help prevent those mistakes again in the future. Unfortunately we usually have to make all the mistakes before we learn them because of a lack of social intuition. That is a painful process indeed in a world where no one understands you. I abhor sounding cliche but I don't think I would change it at this point. The reason being that I intend to use it to do something positive, I'm just not sure what that is going to be yet.

Good luck

^^
ty

Regarding the pop, it's not that I found it painful, it's just...the bubbling gas feels weird. Can't stand carbonated water or beer for the same reason. Grapes and yogurt also aren't on the menu, as I simply can't stand the texture. Coke isn't useless however, it actually cleans chrome better than commercial chrome cleaner, repels mosquitoes, and loosens rusty bolts. It's probably a good thing I don't drink it, right? Here's more reasons why Coke is bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KYlxcHH0So

However, those are anomalies. Most of the time I am rather undersensitive to pain.

yah the bubbles were incredibly uncomfortable to me.

I try to avoid sugary drinks. I succeed most of the time.

will we have to emulate being normal? yup

do we still need the social interaction that we have convinced ourselves we either dont need or dont deserve? yup yup yup

it's kinda cruel that we need something so badly yet are completely incapable of attaining it naturally like the rest of the world!

but isnt trying out hardest to fit in something we've been doing our whole life anyways? at least now you/we have the knowledge as to why we fail so much and maybe that's enough to get us on the right track so that starting that journey to acceptance and connectedness again wont feel like we are trying to walk uphill in a lava-like flow of molasses with 100 pound anchors strapped to both ankles and on and on and on and on...

it enrages me to read some of these posts here of aspies being told by friends and 'experts' that they dont need friends and should accept they will never have friends or a mate and thats ok because hey... they have aspergers and they dont need friends anyway...

the following is a cut and paste

Here is the grief model we call the 7 Stages of Grief:
SHOCK & DENIAL- You will probably react to learning of the loss with numbed disbelief. ...
PAIN & GUILT- ...
ANGER & BARGAINING- ...
"DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS- ...
THE UPWARD TURN- ...
RECONSTRUCTION & WORKING THROUGH- ...
ACCEPTANCE & HOPE
-www.recover-from-grief.com/7-stages-of-grief.html