New member from Surrey England

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Hi All, just registered today and I thought I would introduce myself. My name is Dave, I am 55 and hail from Worcester Park in leafy North Surrey, just outside London. I have no formal diagnosis of Autism but I very much believe I am firmly on the spectrum. From when I was a child I realised I was not the same as 'normal' kids, the most pronounced difference being my strange and intense obsessions and the fact that I always struggled badly to make friends. This has given me pronounced depression and anxiety issues and in fact I have spent a good chunk of my life on medication of one sort or another trying to deal with them. Many if not most of my obsessions I have had for pretty much all my life - don't ask me about the Napoleonic Wars whatever you do! Back in the 1970s when I was growing up nobody really knew about Autism, I think I was just treated as the weird kid, although I was never bullied about it until I got to secondary school and even then it was never too bad.

What has made me aware of my condition is the fact that we have an adopted son called Matthew who, 10 years ago at the age of 7, was diagnosed with Aspergers, and being a father to him has given me the ability to recognise how closely his characteristics resemble my own. It has been a liberating experience I think to realise that there is a name for my condition, that I am not just an oddball, it has explained such a lot that I still found puzzling about myself and my life and about which I have often felt something resembling guilt. I have very strong autistic tendencies and I am proud and happy to admit it.

I don't know if the trajectory of my condition is a normal one. I was strongly autistic at least until I left university. I studied history and was always obsessed with it to the point of writing down in a notebook and trying to memorise all sorts of lists, Kings of England, Kings of France, Roman Emperors, anything you can think of. At university I had no close friends and was happiest when sitting in a library on my own reading. After I left university I was (eventually) able to get a job and leave home and for a while I seemed more 'normal; the obsessions seemed to lessen (or, perhaps, just change), I did well at my job, finding I was surprisingly good at IT even though I never saw a computer until I was about 17, and I even managed to have a reasonable social life, although I think most people continued to think I was odd and I was embarrassingly inept at speaking to women!

Now, in my 50's, I seem to feel the old tendencies exerting themselves. My earliest obsessions have me hooked again and I figure I am too old to be apologetic about the fact. I find that my increasing autism is giving me a few issues. my depression and anxiety levels have risen and I am experiencing what can only be described as dysfunctional nostalgia as I become more and more unable and unwilling to live in the present and spend a long time searching the internet for things that will remind me of my childhood. My main concern is my family and being able to look after them, which isn't always easy as my wife and son both have health challenges of their own.

Anyway, just wanted to say Hi, hope to get to know some of you here better.

Hi. Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Welcome to WP, I'm glad you're here!

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome to WP, from sunny Berkshire

Are you originally from Liverpool?

I am indeed, although I haven't lived up there in well over thirty years and in fact in the last thirty years I have only made two very short trips up there. No family left there now so not a lot to go back for.

I once took a train trip through Merseyside--from Manchester. I found it quite interesting, actually.

Oh my goodness!! We have a LOT in common, Liverpool Dave, from your interest in the Napoleonic Wars to your adoption of a son (Matthew), to your feelings of alienation and obsession with the past / childhood nostalgia. I don't know a lot about the Napoleonic Wars but my special interest people (Charlotte and Emily Brontë) were obsessed with Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington, so I read about the era frequently in their biographies. Welcome to WP.

I look forward to hearing more!

Thank you for your welcome. I love the Bronte books I have read (Mostly Charlotte's - I have read Jane Eyre and Villette many times and love them both - and Anne's; for some reason I have never read Wuthering Heights, which is really something I should do sometime). Their lives, and those of their siblings, seem to have been so tragically short, but definitely of interest - is there a single volume biography you might recommend?

It's funny, throughout my whole life my intense personal nostalgia has been accompanied by an obsession with history and a belief that I was born at the wrong time (assuming that is that I was born on the right planet!). I read history books from all periods endlessly, did the subject at Uni, and would love more than anything else to write a popular history one day if I could decide on a subject and stick to it! The Napoleonic obsession began on Christmas Day 1976 when I watched Dino de Laurentiis classic Waterloo film on TV, and I was hooked forever. My obsession has inevitably drawn some (mostly gentle) mockery; one birthday my brother had a T-shirt made for me with the slogan Napoleon Fan Club, Member : 0000001!.

I'm afraid these days I can be a tremendous bore, I'm one of those guys who can get involved in long conversations with fellow enthusiasts about details of a regiment's history or what style headware was worn in a particular year. Dunno about you, I find something safe in the complete mastery of a subject no matter how narrow, it's like there's one little part of the world I feel in control whereas mostly the world is quite an intimidating place to me.

It was adopting Matthew that taught me about autism, he was diagnosed back in 2009 at the age of 7 and the similarities with myself are incredibly striking!

Sorry to go on, thanks again for the warm welcome!

It's a city with a rich maritime history, and then there's the Beatles! Always makes me sad to go back though, everything has changed so much since I lived there.

I'm fainting just a wee bit! Villette means the world to me and I'm somewhat obsessed with Lucy in the ways you are obsessed with Napoleon. I'd wear a Lucy shirt as well! I'm also obsessed with Wuthering Heights (my username is from the novel), and I have over 100 books on the Brontës with their own antique cabinet. I do have a special interest in Anne as well, and I just read two biographies on her life. For a single volume biography pertaining to the whole family, I'd recommend Juliet Barker although it's quite lengthy:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brontes-Juliet ... 0349122423

Perhaps The Brontë Myth (Lucasta Miller):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bronte-Myth-Lu ... oks&sr=1-1

I usually read separate bios of each sibling, or literary criticism, but I'm looking through my collection now ....

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cambridge-Comp ... oks&sr=1-1

I adored the Cambridge Companion but it would be best after you've read WH.

I'm sorry I'm rambling. If you choose a bio, feel free to send me a PM and I'll let you know my opinion before you commit to it. There's actually a lot of politics in Brontë scholarship these days, as ridiculous as that may sound, because of the bicentennial. Critical opinions of Charlotte will vary the most.

My brother adopted his son and I've always played a maternal role in his life, so I can identify with you on that level as well.

I'll stop writing now so that I don't derail the thread, but hello again ... and welcome. You've found a safe place to land, here. Many of us can relate to your experiences and your feelings of nostalgia for the past!

Isabella, the Brontë nerd.