Introduction

[Guest guest]

Hello all!

I joined this group

a few weeks ago and have been lurking about, reading and observing. I thought I

should probably go ahead and introduce myself before diving into the

conversation, so here goes. I’m 32. I’m a self-diagnosed Aspie with

a 9-year-old aspie son, a husband and a 4-year-old NT son. I’ve been

married to my husband for 12 years (on Sunday actually). My husband had a great

deal of trouble accepting my son’s diagnosis. He comes from a family

background that does not recognize “mental” conditions (yes,

despite all my efforts, they consider autism a mental thing) or therapy of any

type. In his family, you just didn’t do/talk about those types of things.

There are a great deal of anger issues that have been passed down to him from

his father and grandmother (both of whom I believe to have some undiagnosed mood

disorders). His mother, on the other hand, is extremely supportive of our

entire family. Even more so than my family (who have also had difficulty

accepting these things).

My husband has

really done his best to come to terms with my son’s diagnosis and he has

done a great job. Myself however, that has been harder. I think he believes

that if you are an adult and you KNOW what the problem is, you can just fix it.

We spend a lot of time every day just struggling to understand each other. He

is the type of person who keeps his feelings inside. Were I more astute in

deciphering body language and non-verbal cues, I could probably understand how

he was feeling at any given time. However, I’m not. So it always feels,

to me, like the anger and frustration he finally expresses is coming from

nowhere. In reality, it has been building up for weeks, I just didn’t

recognize it because he did not come right out and explain how he was feeling

to begin with. It’s been a difficult journey and we both continue to

stumble repeatedly. Sometimes I feel like I’m walking a gravel road in

the dark in a strange place and there are huge potholes everywhere that I’m

just NOT sensing. But, we keep pushing forward. And my husband is USUALLY

pretty good about later admitting he was wrong (if he was). Lately, he has

tried very hard to tell me very clearly what he needs from me. And I’m working

really hard to not take every criticism to heart and take everything

personally.

Other than that, I’m

college-educated. Have a full-time job that works well for me (I’ve been

here 4 years now, yay!). Prior to that, I had a TERRIBLE time finding/keeping

solid work. I’m sure everyone here has been there. Completely unable to

play the “office politics”, poor time management skills, poor

customer service/communication skills, etc. I consider myself very lucky to

have found a position that plays on my strengths and accommodates my

weaknesses.

Finally, I like

tattoos, word puzzles and video games. Those would be my special interests I

guess. My husband would call them obsessions lol. I hope to get into the conversation

here soon and look forward to getting to know everyone. J