A bad time to make this discovery...

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You know, over the past 18 years, I've known I was different. I've had my doubts from time to time, assuming that I was just maybe egotistic, feeling the need to be different; to finally accepting it, but just saying that I'm just slightly eccentric; and then completely puzzled as to how I'm different, but having an incredibly difficult time assessing how. Now in the course of the last few days, this thing called Asperger's Syndrome was brought entirely out of the blue to my attention, on what I thought was a totally unrelated issue. As I began to research it deeper and deeper, as I usually do whenever anything piques my interest (by the by, that "Hi, I'm new" irony poll gave me a chuckle, as it's exactly what I did), I just simply had a flood of emotions. Part of me is so excited to finally know what this is, but then there's that part of me that definitely feels some way about the final affirmation of my diversity from most other people, but I just can't really say what that feeling is.

I am not sure if I even have an official diagnosis as of yet. See, when I mentioned that I discovered this on a once-thought-to-be unrelated issue, I mean to say that I sought therapy because of severe depression, my own self-suspected OCD, and recurrent thoughts of suicide. During my intake into the clinic, the woman who was "evaluating" me brought this Asperger's thing to my attention, and from that point on, it was abundantly clear to me that this was most likely how I was different. One of my "interests", has always been and still is observation and introspection. I just can't explain the feeling I had when, assessments and statements I had made of myself were read back to me, verbatim, organized, and summarized in a fashion that I've just never been able to do for myself. The woman who performed the initial evaluation has a son with Asperger's, and she was fairly convinced of it as well.

I'm not so entirely sure that right now is the best time for me to have made this discovery, however. As I said, I sought help for depression, "OCD" and recurrent thoughts of suicide. In the midst of that, I'm also about to have to move, I'm unable to find work, and I'm just filled with so many different feelings because of all this happening at once. Although I'm practically elated by the fact that after years of introspection into who I am, I'm finally presented with a pretty clear map and description to help, I'm nearly scared to death by what sort of implications this actually does have. To be quite honest, I have so far not lived much of a successful life, and I ponder if this could be why. I never even sought therapy to help myself, I've always felt that I never wanted any medication to change who I am, or any shrink to try to change the way my mind works through various therapy. Although the field of psychiatry is helping me to discover who I am and I'm not opposed to that, I'm faced with the simultaneous desire to not change, but the fact that if I continue the way I do, I won't even be alive to be the person I am.

I suppose it was never taken lightly by anyone who found out they had Asperger's. I have to say though, that I am very lucky to have been diagnosed now, when there seems to be a lot more known about it now, and a much larger community-involvement.

Welcome! Have fun posting here.

i lived w/ my dad until i was 11, and he would not tell me anything. i remember taking tests and they would not tell me the results. i hated that. when i moved with my mum, she told me everything i wanted to know. i was not upset that i had AS, i was just happy to find out something i was curious about. as i read about AS, i started realizing all my skills, all my interests, everything about me, is the result of this AS. my strong math skills, my lack of desire for social company, my interest in computers, my interest in physics, etc. i am, however, disappointed at my lack of language skills; but i would not trade any math skills for language skills. this semester of school just finished, and i passed my last English class i will ever have to take, with a 65%; i have 5% more English skills then the bare minimum, thats 5% more than i need . see everything is just how you look at it. would you rather be you, or be someone else who has a job, a family, and possibly drug addictions and lack of education?
"normal" people do not have strong interests in things like science, so if the world was full of "normal" people, we would never progress. so one could reason that because of people like us, the world is a (relativity) better play to live.
enjoy your AS, it may treat you well.

I always say that if I was rich instead of poor, I would be eccentric, not an Aspie. Welcome to the community!

Hopefully your stay at WP can help relieve you of some of your troubles. Welcome.

An eccentric hundredaire! That's me :p But kidding aside, why is a bad time to make this discovery? As long as you can take this discovery and somehow have your life benefit from it then it can't be too bad. Even without diagnosis I've been forcing myself to go out with friends every weekend and it's been great. Not at the time - with all the anxiety but when I think back on it I'm like "hey, I had fun" even if I couldn't follow the conversation too closely :p