Hi, everybody! I'm a brand new user to the site. I'm an aspie, 32 years old and married. I've been self-diagnosed for just a few years now. It's helped a lot to understand why I've had some of the particular challenges I've had. My family had been very puzzled about things like why I can handle tremendous crowds at the swap meet but not at the grocery stores (it's because the people at the swap meet move in patterns; I know how to move with the flow or stay out of someone's way. Grocery store shoppers are very random.)
My doctor declined to test me for Asperger's because she found it to be a "trendy diagnosis," and said that it didn't really matter because there was nothing she could do to treat it. I explained to her that regardless of how many other people did or did not have it, or however many new diagnoses it takes to become "trendy," that she was still dealing with an individual case that should be examined on its own merits. She found that to be a very aspie response. Didn't change her mind, though.
But, I gave myself as thorough a self-test as I could. I come up pretty much as you'd expect: a reasonably well-adjusted adult Aspie with some associated mental baggage and an IQ well into the "nerd" range. Most of the time I do OK. I tend to be nice to a fault, and patient - I spent a lot of time in my youth being short-tempered and insufferable, and I decided that wasn't a mantle I wanted to wear, so I went beyond just correcting for it and worked for a long time to define myself in the opposite terms, and now it just feels like normal. Every so often, I run into an old problem giving me new headaches, and once in a while I still discover some fundamental difference between me and the NTs around me. It's frustrating from time to time, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't have Aspergers.
Cheers, all!
- Cap'n Curry
My doctor declined to test me for Asperger's because she found it to be a "trendy diagnosis," and said that it didn't really matter because there was nothing she could do to treat it. I explained to her that regardless of how many other people did or did not have it, or however many new diagnoses it takes to become "trendy," that she was still dealing with an individual case that should be examined on its own merits. She found that to be a very aspie response. Didn't change her mind, though.
But, I gave myself as thorough a self-test as I could. I come up pretty much as you'd expect: a reasonably well-adjusted adult Aspie with some associated mental baggage and an IQ well into the "nerd" range. Most of the time I do OK. I tend to be nice to a fault, and patient - I spent a lot of time in my youth being short-tempered and insufferable, and I decided that wasn't a mantle I wanted to wear, so I went beyond just correcting for it and worked for a long time to define myself in the opposite terms, and now it just feels like normal. Every so often, I run into an old problem giving me new headaches, and once in a while I still discover some fundamental difference between me and the NTs around me. It's frustrating from time to time, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't have Aspergers.
Cheers, all!
- Cap'n Curry
