Bipolar and possibly an Aspie?

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I wanted to reach out before I started going through the painful and expensive process of evaluations.

My son was diagnosed with PDD-NOS two and a half years ago, just before his third birthday. Truly, it wasn't a huge shock, considering my older brother had been diagnosed with classical autism many years ago, before the autism spectrum even existed. But, I found it strange that they didn't share some of the same stereotyped behaviors.

I've made it a habit to keep up on the latest news and studies when it involves the spectrum. That's when I ran into an article about the underdiagnosis, misdiagnosis, and co-morbidity of Aspie women. I was intrigued. And that's when I started to identify with it.

Though I'm on many medications to treat bipolar disorder, I am still having some difficulty. Don't get me wrong, I'm emotionally stabilized, But, the medications still didn't fix some of my other issues, namely social, sensory, and anxiety. In fact, once I was stabilized, it seemed to make those issues seem worse.

I was talking with my mother recently, who is skeptical about everything. I brought the possibility of me having Asperger's. Oddly, she thoughtfully replied, "That is definitely a possibility." I thought that if my mother had her own suspicions, then it might be something I need to address.

So, some background. I'm a 29 year old woman, a wife and mother. I literally have no close friends. Sure, I have some people I see now and again. But, I don't feel close to them. About half the time, I don't care, because socializing exhausts me mentally and emotionally. I just don't seem to be able to connect with anyone.

I mean, that's if I can get past the social anxiety. I try hard to fit in, and at first, it seems to work. Superficially, of course. I have spent a lot of time studying people who are highly skilled in the social arena. So, I kind of have these rehearsed behaviors and scripted speech. However, it doesn't take too long before people start noticing my differences. And it's just too exhausting over long periods of time to learn all of the complex rules, revise the script, and then rehearse it all. I mean, assuming I even got the rules right in the first place.

I am very intelligent and well educated. Despite that, I haven't held a full time job longer than 4 months in my entire life. I did that twice. Workplace politics are too stressful for me. I can't handle sitting at a desk all day. I loved working with children. But, I was baffled and hurt by the constant reprimands and berating for things I wasn't aware I was doing wrong!

That's really not the half of it. But, I have a tendency to ramble, so I'll stop while I may have a few interested readers remaining.

What do you think?

Sounds like it to me!

I've casually brought it up to professionals in my son's early intervention team. Each one dismissed it, based on one specific piece of criteria. One informed me that it wasn't possible, because I make eye contact. I tried to explain to her that I really don't. It makes me uncomfortable, so I can't hold it when someone is speaking to me. Plus, I can understand them better if I'm not looking at them. And it's rare that I look at anyone when I'm speaking.

But, when I was little, adults charged me with being disrespectful for not looking them in the face. I love music, and when a teacher taught us how to pretend to look at the crowd without really looking at them, I started doing that. If a person pays close attention, they'll notice that I'm not really looking at them. I'm looking past them, or focusing on a spot close, but not directly. Besides, my son makes eye contact. I guess since he has a speech delay, it's more on point.

I learned language very much earlier than my peers. Even my grandfather used to joke that I was 5 going on 35. Though I had an advanced vocabulary, I still couldn't make conversation properly. I remember a lot of really painful social issues. By the time I was in second grade, I didn't want to go to school anymore. I even had a teacher who bullied me. She wrote to my parents in a report card that I was too sensitive and couldn't handle constructive criticism. Except, she never had anything nice to say. It was all criticism.

I watch things on TV that young girls do, and I get really confused. I never had a big birthday sleepover with all the girls I knew. And I really never sat at a lunch table full of girls and talked about boys. Actually, I was sitting with a few outcast boys. I liked boys games. They were functional, and the rules were clear and solid. The only issue I had there was the fact that I was too clumsy and uncoordinated for sports. I was such a clumsy child that I sustained 5 concussions by the time I was entering adolescence.

I was well into my adulthood before I started to notice obsessive behavior. My brother was so ridged in his schedule that a whole day was highly ritualized. There was a strict schedule to adhere to. When I was in my teens, it bothered me, because it prevented me from doing things that I wanted. But, my whole life started to unravel after college, when I became to designer of my schedule.

I couldn't seem to get everything done, and I'd forget really important everyday things, like paying bills. I went through more than one shutoff. I'd forget to buy groceries. When my husband came into the picture, he really helped. His penchant for taking the lead complimented my incapacity to care for myself. Now, he takes care of the big stuff while I handle the smaller details.

But, that still doesn't stop me from getting distracted by the very tiny details and lose sight of the bigger goal. I'll be cleaning, and I'll stop and spend the rest of the day organizing a drawer or a box. It looks like a clothes bomb went off in my house, but my jewelry box is immaculate. Then, I'll get stuck, because I don't know where to pick up. And if a certain task isn't complete, I can't just leave it undone. It's so frustrating.

My whole life is so frustrating and complicated to the point of panic attacks. Just the idea of leaving my house is terrifying half the time. I don't feel like I belong out there. But, I take some medicine, spend an exorbitant amount of time doing a self-care ritual that should be commonplace in my daily life anyway, and then I go. It just upsets me too much when I go out of the house and things aren't "just right".

And that's all for now. I have to start getting ready for work. I don't need to be there for another 5 hours. But, I have to make sure there is enough time for everything in case something goes wrong.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO8RvEVH_To[/youtube]

It's interesting that you bring this to my attention. I watched a number of videos from the site. I have a couple of notes.

I don't have difficulty recognizing overt expressions when a person isn't speaking. It gets even clearer when I'm not speaking either. It's like, everything gets jumbled up when I have to look AND listen. It's difficult for me to speak and look at the same time, like output and input can't work properly together.

It's the more subtle expressions I don't catch. I have no idea when someone is just listening to be polite. Boredom and annoyance are also two things I don't catch. And I completely miss cues that a person has checked out of a conversation. Oh, and flirting! I've insisted to my husband that I'm not attractive, because no one flirts with me. Apparently, they do and have, and it went right over my head! I just thought they were just really nice.

Anyway, shifting moods didn't become an issue for me until my teens. I don't remember being an unhappy child, just a very, very nervous one. My mom once remarked that she and other adults found it odd that I cried about things that made other kids happy. There's video of my third birthday when they brought the cake out and started singing. I actually remember it, a little. I was confused about what was going on and I started crying. I didn't seem to understand what a birthday was or what I was supposed to do. The adults had to help me blow out the candles and show me that the Cookie Monster was a cake.

One thing I'm pretty good at is tone. I have what I guess is an over developed sense of hearing. When I'm not looking, I can pick out the same actor's voice across characters and shows. But, I can detect even slight changes in tone, like pitch, emphasis, and inflection. It's the only reliable way I can pick up on how someone is feeling. The words paired with the sound seem to make some kind of sense.

It's also one of the very few ways I can determine if a person is lying. But, it's not very reliable with experienced liars.

The biggest problem I have is figuring out the why when it comes to a person's feelings. Some things are easy to work out. My boss gets upset when I call off because she'll be short a person to run that shift. But why do people get mad when I talk about something interesting? I have a coworker that gets mad and accuses me of "smart mouthing" when I was just stating a fact. Why? How is it disrespectful when I clarify or reassure her?

Sounds like it to me.

I have a daughter with bipolar and a son with Asperger's. There are many similarities. Neither read people very well, but where my son is clueless my daughter thinks everyone is out to get her. Neither make friends easily. They both make friends with boys with Asperger's. My daughter usually find the Asperger's with behavioral issues as well (but that describes her brother also). So in a way it is what she is familiar with, and in another way it is the closest she can find to someone like herself. She does have on girl friend at church, she also has Asperger's. They both throw temper tantrums, but my son throws them when he is overwhelmed, my daughter's fits cycle. I could totally see how one could be misdiagnosed for the other.

I feel like it's easier for the females to be identified as having solely emotional problems and that is considered the source of dysfunction. For me, it is the other way around. It's often something social that triggers a kind of overactive emotional response. That's not to say I don't have mood shifts. But, up until now, I didn't realize the little things that prompt it.

For instance, I have a tendency to fly into intense emotional fits. I cannot handle disappointment. I mean, it sounds really childish, but it's about the change. And when someone tells me that we'll do it "later", it makes it worse. When is later? Hours? Days? Weeks or even months? And there comes a point where that vague concept becomes unacceptable. Later is a lie created to appease someone else to dodge plan or promise.

Sounds unreasonable? It's that kind of rigid black and white thinking that landed me in the bipolar basket. In reality, later really means not now. But, I can't process it. It makes that disappointment crushing. And so, when a similar situation occurs, I already know the result. It's depressing.

I have what we not-so affectionately term as "rages". Something will set me off. Last Thursday, my son hid my glasses from me. Thankfully, I have contact lenses, but I was fixated on those glasses. I literally tore the house apart. And, in one of my least fine moments, I did it screaming, crying, growling, whining, and hyperventilating. I focused two hours that needed to be used on housekeeping and child rearing on the hunt. I could not be satisfied until they were found. I was obsessed, and my whole world had broken with those being missing.

My brother and I are both on anxiety medication. His was more recent than mine, because he developed a high blood pressure problem. But, I started to see the similarities. We both use hem to prevent or derail meltdowns. I always considered them to be panic attacks. But, I always wondered why they just wouldn't organically resolve.

I have an appointment with my psychiatrist coming up in a month. I think I'm going to mention it, and see what he thinks. But, I want to stay on my medication. It mostly works, so I don't want to rock the boat.