Hello everyone! I hope you are all well.
So I guess this is where I introduce myself.
My name is Tom and I'm 26. I'm married (no kids yet) and am currently undergoing diagnosis for Asperger's. I've been told I almost certainly have it but am awaiting official medical confirmation.
Until a few months ago, it had never even remotely occurred to me that I may be on the spectrum. It emerged in the bizarrest of circumstances.
Around Christmas, my office organised a little fun event called "who's who?". We were asked to bring in a photo of ourselves as a child, and all the photos were stuck up on the noticeboard and we had to guess as many people as we could. I couldn't recognise anyone. A few of them, I was certain that it was one person and it turned out that it was a different person, some of them even the opposite sex. The average score was about 25 out of 30. I scored 3 (and one of those was a picture of the only black employee in our office!).
One of my colleagues spotted my bewilderment and frustration, and later came up to me in private, asking sensitively if I had autism. I said no, and it had never occurred to me, and asked why she asked. She said her brother had autism and one of the characteristics was very poor recognition of faces, even with people you know. She said she also knew (don't have to be Sherlock to realise) that I was very shy, highly focussed/concentrated on my work and rarely seen at/invited to social events (spontaneous Friday-night drinks after work, etc.).
So I did a bit of the taboo Internet symptom-searching and found that I ticked loads of the boxes for the autistic spectrum. Rather judgmentally, as I knew absolutely nothing about the condition, I thought I couldn't possibly have it as I thought autistic people looked visibly different - only then did I realise that it's only the extremes that you see on TV shows, etc., and that's not at all what every autistic person is like. This was also my wife's reaction when I told her - she thought it was impossible, because her only experience with it is the occasional TV show featuring a character portrayed as having severe Asperger's, to inappropriately comic effect, and said "you're nothing like that", which is true, but she, like me, didn't realise that there are so many people out there who have the milder type and you would never realise if you didn't know what signs to look out for.
Then I asked my mum if she had had any suspicions when I was a child. She said that she had, but once I went to primary school and got myself a few friends, she never followed up on it because if I did have something, it was of the mildest type, and although I was socially awkward and withdrawn, I did have a handful of friends, so it wasn't having a big effect on my life. She also mentioned that I used to be obsessed with certain structural-related toy games and would have huge tantrums when told I had to stop, to go out or to eat, etc. And she said that I was always very rigid when hugged and touched, which also had never once occurred to me.
So recently I sought out a professional diagnosis, which is where I am now.
My three biggest aspie signs:
- Obsessed with statistics, numbers, bus/train timetables, maps, dates, etc. Things like being able to tell you every king or queen since 1066 and the date of their accession; knowing all of the 25 bus lines in my town and where they go, even though I've never travelled on most of them; studying maps for hours; knowing all the capital cities of the world and pointing out correctly any country you name me on a map of the world. When I was younger, I compiled pointless lists of train timetables, phone books, etc. - things that already existed and had no need to be written down again. I have this Excel database of football results and league tables that I've updated every week for the last 8 years.
- I am quite antisocial and do find it hard to make friends, and I often consciously avoid situations where I will be in a large group consisting of mainly strangers. But I am on the milder end of the scale; I am happily married to a wonderful wife, and I have made good friends through school, university, etc., but I can still count on one hand the number of people I feel I could talk about anything with.
- Several times a week I have to ask my boss to clarify an instruction she had sent out via email or said verbally. Sometimes I've included the rest of the team in cc (in case there's anyone else who hasn't understood), and 90% of the time I am the only person who has misunderstood, and it's blindingly obvious to everyone else. Also I get comments all the time about how I don't know any "common" idioms and take everything literally.
I work in an office environment; the department has about 40 people. I've been there for about 2 years, and am now one of the longer-serving employees (people and things move quickly in my company). I just don't get it when a new person comes, and within a few weeks it seems like they know every other employee really well, and I hear about them going on nights out, going on weekend trips, etc., and yet I've known these people for longer and can hardly say a word to them. I guess that is something Aspies will always have to deal with. I don't understand how people can get to know each other so easily and quickly. Within my department I am on a smaller team of 8 people; and even though I think I know them quite well (for my standards), I sometimes hear of them going on trips together and stuff, and having parties, and I had not been invited or told about it. I guess I'm a difficult person to get to know well or to engage in small talk - again, I guess that is a problem many of us here have, which is why it's nice to have found this online community.
Thanks for your patience in reading my incredibly long post. I don't think I'm going to be a really regular user as I have a busy work schedule and often come home, eat and sleep; but I have scrolled through the threads with interest and look forward to communicating a bit more with you. Thanks!
26 Mar 2014, 2:40 pm
