My name is Tony. I'm 24, and have lived in western New York since I was in Kindergarten (though am moving to South Carolina this spring.) I figured out I'm an aspie less than two weeks ago, and all the years of confusion about my personality have abruptly ended. It's strange it took so long, but instead of telling my life story to explain why, I'll simply do my best to clarify in one paragraph.
All but one symptom of ASD (that being impaired social functioning) either were not present or extremely easy for me to deal with until my late teens. I can look back now and see how autism has always been part of me, but in my childhood and early teens the only things that anyone could see were positive traits; how could I or anyone know I had Asperger's if it didn't ail me, but instead made me appear gifted? Those years masked the syndrome. My late teens and early twenties showed more and more (mostly negative) autistic qualities, but due to not being diagnosed as a child, I was certain I had something that was either unknown or a rare personality disorder -- I had never met a person with autism in my life so that likely prevented me from seeing it in myself.
So that brings me to several months ago when I got the diagnosis. I went to New York City to visit three different psychiatrists (one world renowned) that were affiliated with top universities. I was diagnosed with Asperger's and I didn't believe it at first, it didn't seem like that could be the truth due to many reasons. But I started to research in depth over the next few months and watched many video blogs from other aspies, and it hit me on March 12th that I most certainly am an aspie; I came to the conclusion that it was my childhood, environment, friends and family, as well as my own personality that caused this diagnosis to elude me.
There have been tons of awesome things I was able to do in my life, talents that I have, and an ability to appreciate certain things to a far greater extent than any neurotypical I have known. I never knew why but it's obvious now that these are boons that come from being on the spectrum. As for the negatives of being an aspie, I can deal with those now knowing that I'm not alone. It's not going to be easy, and there will be hard times I'm sure, but it was harder three years ago when I had the erroneous thought that there actually was something wrong with me. Hopefully now I can face the world with confidence, and just simply be myself without worry.
So, yeah... less of an "about me" type of introduction and more of a blog about my past, but this should suffice. I look forward to participating in this forum :-]
21 Mar 2014, 4:39 am
