The psychiatrist said...

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That I am the smartest Aspie he's ever met, and I highly skilled at explaining things and should be a public speaker for Autism.

He also said that there is absolutely no doubt I also have inattentive ADHD (which I concisely diagnosed myself with after years of vague diagnosis's) - which explains SO MUCH that Aspergers never did (Aspergers never seemed a full explanation).

Is that shrinkspeak for "easily bored"?

What a lovely, positive response, do you think you will do something like that?

I think so. Most children I met who were diagnosed with this (I'm a voluntary chess teacher working with kids with all kinds of interesting neurological conditions) had no attention problem whatsoever if the topic interested them. And I suspect someone with a REAL attention problem would not be able to play tournament chess, anyway. There was only ever ONE girl who really had an attention span of less than five seconds. Started talking and by the end of the sentence had forgotten what she was talking about. A real problem. But the others? I wouldn't have pegged them as ADHD. Just as intelligent young people (probably more intelligent than their teachers) who weren't particularly interested in school stuff.

Yes, I will, I want to help people.

This is not really what inattentive ADHD is. Real inattentive ADHD is no trivial matter. In fact, I'd say it effects my life equally as badly if not worse than AS. It was much worse when I was younger (the severity has lessened in the last few years)

How it affected me:

I used to lose track of time for hours on end. I could be sitting in a classroom, and I'd look up and realize the room was empty and everyone had left for the next class. I used to get left behind/locked in rooms because the teacher wouldn't notice that I was sitting in a corner lost in my head. Once I was at Year 2 sleepover and I almost got locked in the TV room all night. Once I got locked in the church all day where we were doing school play rehearsals and I had to wait till the afterschool rehearsal before they found me.

When I was reading I couldn't hear if people said anything to me, and even if I wasn't I would often miss half the instructions given in class (not on purpose) and lose marks that way. Before I started taking ritalin (which helped my focus) I was an mediocre student, and afterwards I was a high ranking student. In maths I went from a D grade to an A (and I had always understood maths easily, but I couldn't maintain focus for more than 5 minutes at a time before my mind would drift).

It was like being in a perpetual fog. I would lose massive quantities of things because I would forget I had them on me (hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of stuff, and my parents would get really upset and angry cause they thought I was being slack), I would constantly forget to go to classes. I would forget where classes were being held (or generally just not get the memo - like the teacher would say the lesson before; 'we're working in the library next class', and i'd completely miss it and wander around the school for an hour looking for the class often crying I was so upset), and I would forget exams or get time confused. I sat and cried in my Year 12 maths exam in front of the entire grade because I realized I had focussed in on a clock that had stopped, and even though I knew the answer to every question I had been taking my time drawing margins as I went because I thought I had a whole half an hour.

One time, in High School, I had a spare period after lunch and thought I'd get in some piano practice. After a while I noticed that I hadn't heard the bell in a while, and thought it must be getting towards the next period. I wandered outside the practice room, and school was finished - it was getting dark and everybody had been in choir rehearsal for half an hour already (I was choir captain and supposed to be in there). Hours had gone by.

That's what it's like.

The thing is, I really really *care* about school work. I loved school, and wanted to do well. I have always loved learning. So yes, inattentive ADHD is a real condition and not a farce.

I have inattentive add as well... though none of my doctors think I have Aspergers I'm hellbent to prove it to them hehe. Being inattentive doesn't explain how I became so introverted much like how Aspergers didn't explain everything for you. Anyway it would be neat if you became a spokes person for autism.

Also speaking of real inattentive add I once was working at McDonalds when they made me be the lobbyist, janitor, and I was cleaning the seats, why? idk, then lost myself in my thoughts. Later the manager chewed me out because a customer sat in a seat full of water and I couldn't remember if it was me who got the seats wet... I put two and two together after they fired me.

I don't know if I should laugh, but that's a classic. I have endless ADD stories (is it labelled ADD when it's inattentive without the hyperactive component?).

In high school, I used to lose my entire sports uniform (including my sneakers, which was the worst part because it's really hard for me to find shoes that fit my weird sized feet) about once every two weeks. My parents would go beserk. Once I left the bag on the bus and started walking home without it, and my friend made the bus driver stop and wait at the next stop, and ran all the way up the hill to give it to me and all the way back down to the bus again.

Once I somehow (don't ask me how) kicked a money bag with $6000 in it out of the car door without realizing at all. It was never handed in, $6000 = gone. That was a very bad one.

There is quite a lot of trouble with not being able to focus on something that doesn't intensely interest you, though. I should know. I have that problem. When something interests me, the rest of the world doesn't exist. When it doesn't interest me, even the threat of failing (and, when I was a child, the threat of getting beaten up by my sociopathic stepfather), wouldn't motivate me. I simply cannot gather my mental resources "on demand"--if I'm not interested, it doesn't matter how much I might want to, how much I might struggle, how much I might stare at the book and turn the pages; how close I might be to failing; my mind will be somewhere else in five seconds every time.

Sometimes, I can force it. When a deadline comes up and I have enough energy left over, sometimes I can focus in an inferior sort of way, producing an adequate result but nowhere near my best. I can often create routines consisting of "boring" events, that my autistic brain internalizes, and once I start them, I'm carried through them as though in a current. That's how I manage to keep myself clean and fed and my apartment in order. Sometimes I can combine "boring" events with non-boring ones, on a different channel. For example, I keep myself from losing focus while I am driving by listening to a book on tape; my attention bounces between audio and visual and I stay aware of my surroundings. Before I figured that out, I was literally a dangerous driver--the sort who will forget that she is driving altogether and there is a turn in the road coming up, or the car ahead has slowed down, and create an accident despite being fully rested, sober, and doing her utmost best to stay attentive.

The opposite--hyperfocus--happens when I am interested in something. The rest of the world disappears. I even lose a lot of the mental processes that create consciousness--that is, the processes that you use to observe yourself. Nothing exists but what I am doing. When that happens, I can do amazing things. But I can't trigger it when I want it.

Please come to the Brisbane Inaugural World Seminar for WOmen and Girls with Asperger's Sydrome on AUgust 7th and 8th, Sunshower. And others too - if you are in Australia or want to come...it is the first seminar of its kind - specifically for women and girls, which is wonderful.
It is at the Holiday Inn, Brisbane, Roma St Transit Centre.
IT is organised by Asperger Services Australia. The first day is lectures and the second day will be a forum and we need to get many good role models and girls and women who are learning how to deal with their issues in a manner that is positive and can be passed on to others.

www.aperger.asn.au

I hope it is ok to post that site up here. I think it will be a great seminar.

So, he gave you an IQ test, and then compared it to the score of everyone else with AS he sees? (By "smart", does he mean "can speak well and has insight"?) I don't understand what the psychiatrist said.

I had a psycho at Attwood's say I'm very smart, and I replied with, 'how would you know?' I've also had several others say the same thing [at a hospital], but I was unable to offer that reply as I wasn't all "there".... Morons, really.

millie I definitely want to come, my computer won't let me download the brochure so I'm a little confused about what I need to do to get in. Do I just fax an application? Do I need to pay? I don't need to stay overnight or anything cause I live in Brisbane. I will have to miss Sunday morning though (because of work), but I can probably come back Sunday afternoon I'm guessing if it's still on (can't get the exact times because the brochure won't download... I might try firefox)

I was very understimulated, and yes, some things just stimulated me more than others, because my brain was wired a certain way, but I really couldn`t concentrate on anything that didn`t stimulate me enough. Sometimes inattentive ADHD (where there are more stimulating things going on in your head than outside of your head so you stay in your head to get more stimulation), or any ADHD, is hard to diagnose in people like me because of that. None of my shrinks thought I had ADD. But maybe that kind of understimulation, or ADD, is part of AS, which I am diagnosed with, and PDD-NOS, which I should be diagnosed with instead.