Re: ok now for the truth of the matter

[Guest guest]

Thanks are welcome but not expected on my part, we've all been

rejected and lonely at some stage in our lives. Did I hear you say

questions? Ask away, oh but I can only answer from a girlie

perspective so if it's masculine stuff you're needing to know can

you just pre-warn us felines in the group pretty please?

Debs

>

> i got put on disability almost 10 years ago for ADD ADHD mutible

> types of personality disorders, and manic depresssion,.

> i lost the disability about 3 years ago for things i cant help or

fix,

> i was never diagnosed with asp, just when my ex pointed out this

> weblink about asp and said my god this is you, i looked, and she

was

> right, i never read so much that felt so right about me. in a way

its

> nice to finely know what went wrong in my life when i just couldnt

> understand what i been doing so wrong, or why its been going so

wrong.

> much of what i been saying is for feedback to know i am right and

not

> just hoping and wishing i found a new home.

> and it seems i am home with knowing whats been wrong and making

new

> friends like your selves here in this forum.

>

> mabe now with some understanding, and people about like my self, i

> can ask questions and get answers that can mabe help me make the

> right changes in my life to gain impruvments and mabe start

gaining a

> real prospective about people and life and dealing with it and

mabe

> even helping with my social life knowing whats been wrong and how

to

> fix some things.

>

> thank you.

[Guest guest]

I was misdiagnosed for a long time as well. When I was about 12 the folks got a divorce. As part of the custody battle, my father had me tested and I can still remember going to those psychologists. The upshot of it was that I was fine: intelligent and very mature for my age, there were some things I had trouble with, but it was nothing to do with the way I was being raised. For some time after that I was going to counsellors frequently. They all though tthe same thing. Indeed I liked going to them because it gave me someone more on my level to talk to than the idiots I had for friends, more on them later.

In high school I never went to parties, which is not overly surprising since I was at a borading school, but none of my friends from before my going there asked me to any when I was home. I also tended to be a loner on campus and was a "barracks rat" meaning I didn't like sports and preferred to be inside reading or designing machines rather than out doing sports. At home it was much the same, rarely going outside, at least in daylight.

Jump up a few years, I was having a really bad time with anxiety and was getting in bad shape, so I went to the counsellors again. They said anxiety at first and I went on meds to deal with that. That got a lot of it under control but there were other things still going on. We looked at a few side syndromes but nothing fully fit. Finally, I read a few things and autism seemed to click. This stayed my secret for a time until I read an article in Wired magazine about the Austim explosion in Silicon Valley. They had a quiz in there to see if you had AS. I took it and scored more than high enough to have it. I took the test plus comments I had written about some of the answers and gave it to my counsellor.

He took the package and showed it to this new member of their practice who had a lot of experience with AS in children. He read over it all and in addition to what the counsellor told him about me gave me my diagnosis. The test had been so accurate and my comments helpful that I never had to meet him to get it. That confirmation lead to a search on the internet for AS related sites and a raid on Amazon.com to find books. Reading all this material was a revalation: there were lots of people who had exactly the same problems I did! It really was a watershed event learning about this.

[Guest guest]

Hi Lonely Lad,

Don't think we've talked yet. Glad you and Sparrow were able to work things

out.

> i got put on disability almost 10 years ago for ADD ADHD mutible

types of personality disorders, and manic depresssion,

Interesting! I've met a lot of Aspies who got dx'd with ADHD, bipolar and

personality disorders instead of AS. Not that they need be mutually

exclusive, mind you. A friend of mine has got several of them at the same

time, although she is really an Aspie at heart.

Which dx you get, seems to have more to do with how well known they are by

the doctor you happen to see. Since personality disorders have been around

longer, they are the dx of choice by older psychiatrists. And the more

updated doctors are usually educated by the pharmaceutical companies to look

for signs of ADD/ADHD or depression, since these can be medicated and made

money on. Since there are no meds for the Aspie personality, you often have

to be lucky to stumble upon it.

> i lost the disability about 3 years ago for things i cant help or fix,

i was never diagnosed with asp, just when my ex pointed out this

weblink about asp and said my god this is you, i looked, and she was

right, i never read so much that felt so right about me. in a way its

nice to finely know what went wrong in my life when i just couldnt

understand what i been doing so wrong, or why its been going so wrong.

That's how many of us felt when we finally figured out we were Aspies.

> much of what i been saying is for feedback to know i am right and not

just hoping and wishing i found a new home.

and it seems i am home with knowing whats been wrong and making

new friends like your selves here in this forum.

> mabe now with some understanding, and people about like my self, i

can ask questions and get answers that can mabe help me make the

right changes in my life to gain impruvments and mabe start gaining a

real prospective about people and life and dealing with it and mabe

even helping with my social life knowing whats been wrong and how to

fix some things.

Sure. Ask away. Aspies usually love answering questions. :-)

Inger

[Guest guest]

At 10:28 PM 10/26/04 -0000, ;`~+Lonely_Lad+~`; wrote:

>

>

>i got put on disability almost 10 years ago for ADD ADHD mutible

>types of personality disorders, and manic depresssion,.

>i lost the disability about 3 years ago for things i cant help or fix,

I've been on disability for about ten years now as well, with a couple of

years off it due to paperwork and bureaucracy nightmares that quickly

spiralled out of my ability to control. My disability is not officially AS,

either. I have had a string of diagnoses over the years, including several

types of personality disorders.

I've found that this is a common story among older Aspies -- that we are

misdiagnosed for years before finally realizing what is really going on.

>i was never diagnosed with asp, just when my ex pointed out this

>weblink about asp and said my god this is you, i looked, and she was

>right, i never read so much that felt so right about me. in a way its

>nice to finely know what went wrong in my life when i just couldnt

>understand what i been doing so wrong, or why its been going so wrong.

>much of what i been saying is for feedback to know i am right and not

>just hoping and wishing i found a new home.

>and it seems i am home with knowing whats been wrong and making new

>friends like your selves here in this forum.

I first learned about AS in the summer of 2000 and was diagnosed in the

summer of 2001. I found out about it through an article in the New York

Times about a little boy with Asperger's. Reading the article, I

immediately knew that it was describing what I have. Since then, so many

" puzzle pieces " of my life have come together and the picture that is being

built by these discoveries is one of both beauty and sorrow.

Every person who discovers that they are an Aspergian takes their own path

of discovery after the initial realization. I cannot know how your path

will unfold, but I can know that this great burst of awakening is just the

beginning for you. There is a great adventure ahead of you and that

adventure is you. You are an explorer, just embarked on an expedition to

survey every corner of your inner terrain.

My own journey has had its ups and downs. I go in and out of different

feelings about my Asperger's and about my past and my future. There are

times when I am filled with fury and hate towards everyone in my past who

hurt me or even misunderstood me. I rage that I was treated so poorly and I

feel a great injustice that no one really knew what was going on and that

no one knew about Asperger's. There are other times when I am filled with a

great peace and am able to forgive those who hurt me in the past. There are

times when I am filled with grief for the lost time, the missed

opportunities, the wasted life that could have been so different, so much

happier, so much more productive if only I had known, if only others had

known, if only ....

There are so many feelings inside me about Asperger's, complex,

conflicting, huge emotions. There is a strong chance that you will feel

swept away from time to time -- or possibly often -- by oceans of feelings

about these discoveries you are making about yourself now. Give yourself

time to absorb these feelings, time to heal, time to come to acceptance. It

really is a healing process -- you have been wounded by a lifetime of being

expected to be Neurotypical (NT) when you are really an Aspergian (AS).

While there will be times when you will feel as if " everything is finally

okay now that I know " remember not to push yourself because it is a process

and it does take time. Knowing who we are is the biggest part of our

healing but it is not the only part.

One thing you might want to do as you have time is to go to the links

section of the Yahoo page for this list. Folks have collected a wonderful

set of resources there and it's definitely worth poking around through in

your journey towards self-discovery and self-healign and self-actualization.

>mabe now with some understanding, and people about like my self, i

>can ask questions and get answers that can mabe help me make the

>right changes in my life to gain impruvments and mabe start gaining a

>real prospective about people and life and dealing with it and mabe

>even helping with my social life knowing whats been wrong and how to

>fix some things.

I hope that we can help and be supportive. Speaking for myself, learning

about AS and re-examining my entire life through that lens has been a

tremendous thing for me. Since I learned that I am an Aspergian, I have

gone back to school and even though I still flounder with the social side

of it, I seem to be doing well with the academic side of it. For the first

time in my life that I can remember, I am able to handle stress well enough

to focus on schoolwork. That's not to say that I don't have stress -- I

still have a huge amount of it. But something about knowing that I am an

Aspergian and knowing what that means and understanding where the stress is

coming from and why it is affecting me the way it is (and why it affects me

different from the people around me) has made things easier to accept and

bear.

Who knows where your life will take you ... but understanding your

Aspergian qualities will help you to go further in whatever direction you

were intended to go. Understanding your aspieness will help you to open

yourself to some of the possiblities you carry within you, possibilities

that may have been blocked up to now by frustration and a struggle against

something unknown.

You have found Asperger's, you have found yourself, the unknown has become

knowable. Blessing to you on your journey of learning, knowing and

understanding.

I'll say to you what I said to myself when I first learned about

Asperger's: you're not crazy! You have Asperger's!

Sparrow