MeghanWithAnH
Well-Known Member
I don't usually introduce myself so I'm not sure what to say here, although that won't stop me from rambling once I start writing. I'm 29 and have thought I had Aspergers since high school. I never fit in and didn't tend to have many friends, no more than one or two at a time while the rest of the class seemed to exist in a massive interconnected network of friends. Sometimes I didn't have any at all, although that didn't really bother me except that everyone was expected to always have friends and not having any is viewed as a sign of being a failure as a person. It didn't help that I was never interested in the same things as my classmates. It actually makes me really nervous to tell people anything that I like because I never know if they'll consider something unusual but harmless or unacceptably weird. I also noticed that things that were easy or no big deal to everyone else were very difficult for me, while other things that they thought were difficult were easy for me. I knew I was different for as long as I can remember. I often rather enjoyed being different, but it did make things difficult in a world designed with the expectation that everyone fits within certain familiar categories.
I thought about Aspergers off and on over the years. Sometimes I would get obsessed with it and read everything I could find. Then I would get distracted until I read the next thing that got me obsessed with it again. I was especially interested when information started coming out about how it manifests differently in women because it explained a lot of things that didn't quite fit about the information I had been reading so far. I really wanted a diagnosis but it sounded like I would spend a lot of time and money just to be misdiagnosed with anxiety, depression, or making a big deal out of nothing. It sounded even more impossible when the DSM-5 combined the diagnosis with autism, because how was I supposed to convince anyone that I had something they probably associated with children who do nothing but stare into space and flap their hands all day? I resigned myself to self-diagnosis and keeping it to myself, which was unfortunate because I suspected that Aspergers/autism/whatever I was allowed to call it might be contributing to some of the problems I was having finding the right career field and finding a job and sticking with it. I wanted some help but didn't know how to explain the problems I was having without sounding like I was just a 'special snowflake' expecting the world to be perfect and whining about insignificant things.
That all changed when I returned to school for the career I'm working towards now. This profession works a lot with people with disabilities, and the school I'm at has two professors who focus heavily on people with autism. Learning so much about autism in my classes meant that it never left my mind, so when I saw an opportunity to mention to one of those professors that I thought I might have it I had to take the chance. She ended up being very helpful, and it turns out that the other professor had worked with a student in the program before me who discovered that she was on the spectrum. I'm now in the middle of getting my diagnosis and the professor is helping me with things that have previously caused me problems in school and work. I plan to let my diagnosis be generally known at some point because we both hope it will help expand some of my classmates' understanding of the whole autism spectrum beyond the stereotypes that many of them still hold. As a professional, I have vague ideas of being able to advocate for other people on the spectrum, although I don't know what that will look like. I'll at least be able to provide services with a better understanding of my clients. For now, though, I'm still focused on learning about how it affects my own life and what I want to do about it. Part of that is finally getting connected to the autism/Aspergers community instead of observing from a distance. This was probably way too long and rambling, but that's actually probably the best introduction to my writing that anyone could get. So anyway, hi everyone!
I thought about Aspergers off and on over the years. Sometimes I would get obsessed with it and read everything I could find. Then I would get distracted until I read the next thing that got me obsessed with it again. I was especially interested when information started coming out about how it manifests differently in women because it explained a lot of things that didn't quite fit about the information I had been reading so far. I really wanted a diagnosis but it sounded like I would spend a lot of time and money just to be misdiagnosed with anxiety, depression, or making a big deal out of nothing. It sounded even more impossible when the DSM-5 combined the diagnosis with autism, because how was I supposed to convince anyone that I had something they probably associated with children who do nothing but stare into space and flap their hands all day? I resigned myself to self-diagnosis and keeping it to myself, which was unfortunate because I suspected that Aspergers/autism/whatever I was allowed to call it might be contributing to some of the problems I was having finding the right career field and finding a job and sticking with it. I wanted some help but didn't know how to explain the problems I was having without sounding like I was just a 'special snowflake' expecting the world to be perfect and whining about insignificant things.
That all changed when I returned to school for the career I'm working towards now. This profession works a lot with people with disabilities, and the school I'm at has two professors who focus heavily on people with autism. Learning so much about autism in my classes meant that it never left my mind, so when I saw an opportunity to mention to one of those professors that I thought I might have it I had to take the chance. She ended up being very helpful, and it turns out that the other professor had worked with a student in the program before me who discovered that she was on the spectrum. I'm now in the middle of getting my diagnosis and the professor is helping me with things that have previously caused me problems in school and work. I plan to let my diagnosis be generally known at some point because we both hope it will help expand some of my classmates' understanding of the whole autism spectrum beyond the stereotypes that many of them still hold. As a professional, I have vague ideas of being able to advocate for other people on the spectrum, although I don't know what that will look like. I'll at least be able to provide services with a better understanding of my clients. For now, though, I'm still focused on learning about how it affects my own life and what I want to do about it. Part of that is finally getting connected to the autism/Aspergers community instead of observing from a distance. This was probably way too long and rambling, but that's actually probably the best introduction to my writing that anyone could get. So anyway, hi everyone!
