Margrave wrote:
I’m a forty-one year old software developer and I’m again mulling over the likelihood that I have Asperger’s. I always felt something was off about me as a kid (hey, who doesn’t, right?), and neurodiversity wasn’t really talked about in the same way back then, so I’d just try to fit in to avoid being labelled “eccentric”. As an adult, I have friends and family members (including my dad) who I very clearly recognise as having Asperger’s/ASD, but I’ve always resisted putting that label on myself. I preferred to think of myself as more “higher functioning” than them, I guess. At uni I drank pretty much every day in an attempt to mask my more anti-social and obsessive tendencies, and to some extent it worked as I was able to build a social network. But yeah, still very awkward.
It’s fortunate (or apt) that I got into computers, because any kind of working environment I’m not comfortable in pretty quickly turns into a disaster. Relationships were very touch-and-go for a while, though I’ve been with someone for over 15 years now and we have a pretty good understanding of each other’s quirks. She wasn’t getting great emotional support for me for a while, but, partly through relationship counselling, I learned some ways to better communicate with and support her, and it’s so much better. She also tries to understand and help me, even though she admits it can be frustrating at times.
I kind of went down a rabbit hole a few years back trying to get an ADD diagnosis, but when I finally got in front of a specialist they weren’t having it at all. So obviously I’d passed all those online tests through characteristics (and I’m not spontaneous at all!) that I now understand are common to ASD. I think, in retrospect, though my cousin might possibly have had ADHD, that’s not really something in my family. But although the ADHD specialist acknowledged there was “something”, they weren’t interested at all in following up as it wasn’t their particular area, so it just felt like I’d wasted three years on nothing.
So I don’t really know if I’m here looking to self-diagnose, talk to other people in the same position, or just learn more about my nature. At the moment I’m thinking a lot about situations where I struggle, and development strategies for coping with those, but also areas where I have great strengths that could be better utilised. I’m kind of bad for having interests that I’d love to get into more, but neglect because they have some social component, or just don’t appeal to my brain on as much of a systems level, if that makes sense. I used to go more to board gaming meets and stuff, because I love games with complicated rules to learn and it got me out of the house, so maybe it’d just be nice to hook up with people with similar interests again.
Grateful for any thoughts anyone might be able to share with me.
I worked as a software developer for over a decade and can tell you that the amount of focus required really rules out ADD. One has to concentrate, focus very intensely to craft code. How could you do that with ADD? ASD is a different kettle of fish. I think I have it to some degree, and it is possible and even likely that a lot of programmers and engineers have the mixed curse/blessing that allows us to be kind of oblivious to a lot of things other than the beautiful machine.
I could be wrong, but to my knowledge, the only thing ASD has in common with ADD is two capital letters. Now my brother was officially diagnosed with ADHD, so maybe there is some kind of relationship that I don't know about. He may have Aspergers too for all I know. All these are labels though, they are interesting to consider in order to explain behavior, habits and preferences.
_________________
My magical motto is Animus facit nobilem. I like to read fantasy and weird fiction. Just a few of my favorite online things:
music,
chess, and
dungeon crawl stone soup.
26 Aug 2019, 6:25 am
