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I am Vanessa

Vanessa32

Vanessa32

New Member
Hello everyone. I am Vanessa, a 52 year old transgender woman with Autism/Aspergers.

I was officially diagnosed at about age 29 after having some work related issues.

The diagnosis has always made sense to me and has helped me to understand myself and cope with life better.

I work as a university librarian. My interests include reading (surprise, surprise given what I do for a living!), blues/folk/rock music, Pagan/Wiccan spirituality, sports, LGBTQ+ topics and left of center social activism in general. I took "Emma" as my middle name in honor of Emma Goldman, the famous anarchist/socialist and feminist.

I am glad to be here and hope to share my experiences and learn from others!
 
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'Lo Vanessa - welcome to AC!! I'm 29 now and I was recently diagnosed with Asperger's - not formally, my doc highly suspects it. Frankly, so have I - but I've been making the big mistake of hoping that my struggles would just go away or that I'd be able to get them under control, and with that I delayed the moment at which I finally got to see a professional. I haven't been able to get any of it under control, and I'm working with my doc to help manage this condition - otherwise I simply cannot do well socially in this NT-dominated world we live in. I also struggle with anxieties daily and am using a method my doc taught me to manage some of my OCD types of anxieties - see Managing Anxieties - the FLOAT Method for more info.

I listen to rock and pop music, mainly from the 60's and 70's. I don't really read much; I play a lot of video games but only one at a time. I'm currently all into the online card game Hearthstone - I don't only play it but I also watch multiple players stream it on YouTube, I read several related sites, and I talk about it to people, even those who don't play it. I also love observing construction sites; got no interest in actually working in construction, I just love observing all the machinery, loved it ever since I was a kid. I had some past childhood/preteen interests that included streetlights and sprinklers. I mention these interests in half of my posts on here, don't I? :D

I work in the software development field but I wouldn't really call that my ambition - I don't really have any in life. I've written a few unpublished novels in my past, and I used to be quite artistic as a child. Right now I'm less artistic and more "computer nerd", I spend so much time at a computer even outside of work. I've hardly ever had any friends and I've never dated. The few friends I did manage to make over the past couple of years are very precious to me and for a while there it was really hard for me to NOT be clingy to them - but per my doc's advice I calmed down a bit because he warned me that it might push them away; I cannot allow that to happen.

So anyway - after having made weekly visits to the doc over the past couple of months and being a member of AC of course, I'm gradually starting to understand myself a bit more and gain insight on Asperger's. I'm learning so much from the members and everyone is just so nice...I wish all the NT's around me were like that, most tend to get impatient with my quirks even if they care about me. You'll do just great on here, Vanessa - this is the key online community for people on the spectrum; thanks for joining!
 
Tyrantus1212 said:
'Lo Vanessa - welcome to AC!! I'm 29 now and I was recently diagnosed with Asperger's - not formally, my doc highly suspects it. Frankly, so have I - but I've been making the big mistake of hoping that my struggles would just go away or that I'd be able to get them under control, and with that I delayed the moment at which I finally got to see a professional. I haven't been able to get any of it under control, and I'm working with my doc to help manage this condition - otherwise I simply cannot do well socially in this NT-dominated world we live in. I also struggle with anxieties daily and am using a method my doc taught me to manage some of my OCD types of anxieties - see Managing Anxieties - the FLOAT Method for more info.

I listen to rock and pop music, mainly from the 60's and 70's. I don't really read much; I play a lot of video games but only one at a time. I'm currently all into the online card game Hearthstone - I don't only play it but I also watch multiple players stream it on YouTube, I read several related sites, and I talk about it to people, even those who don't play it. I also love observing construction sites; got no interest in actually working in construction, I just love observing all the machinery, loved it ever since I was a kid. I had some past childhood/preteen interests that included streetlights and sprinklers. I mention these interests in half of my posts on here, don't I? :D

I work in the software development field but I wouldn't really call that my ambition - I don't really have any in life. I've written a few unpublished novels in my past, and I used to be quite artistic as a child. Right now I'm less artistic and more "computer nerd", I spend so much time at a computer even outside of work. I've hardly ever had any friends and I've never dated. The few friends I did manage to make over the past couple of years are very precious to me and for a while there it was really hard for me to NOT be clingy to them - but per my doc's advice I calmed down a bit because he warned me that it might push them away; I cannot allow that to happen.

So anyway - after having made weekly visits to the doc over the past couple of months and being a member of AC of course, I'm gradually starting to understand myself a bit more and gain insight on Asperger's. I'm learning so much from the members and everyone is just so nice...I wish all the NT's around me were like that, most tend to get impatient with my quirks even if they care about me. You'll do just great on here, Vanessa - this is the key online community for people on the spectrum; thanks for joining!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply! I also had some odd, random interests as a kid. One was that i was fascinated with certain corporate and product logos and signs. Coca-Cola was probably the main one, and i still sometimes like seeing older Coke signs that are still visible, especially the old-school signs that were painted on the sides of brick buildings. There is one in Ann Arbor, Michigan that is really old. Also, gas station signs and logos like the Sinclair dinosaur, car company logos, and so on. Where i grew up, in suburban Detroit, there is a giant tire by the side of an expressway, that was originally the ferris wheel at the 1964 Worlds Fair in New York. That thing still fascinates me.

I can be very clingy, and very needy of attention and positive reinforcement. To know that other people find me attractive, interesting and so on. At times, just being included in social events has been difficult for me, and i really have a hard time when certain people do not seem to want to interact with me a lot. One recent example: I got involved with a local women's tackle football team because i like to support women in sports. I wrote blog articles for them, and was sort of an unofficial cheerleader. Many of the players and their friends and family were very nice to me. But there were also several players who were not as friendly and willing to interact with me. Those players pretty much fit into a stereotype: younger, very conventionally attractive, cisgendered, possibly heterosexual although i am not entirely sure about their sexual orientations. Basically, they reminded me of the popular girls i went to high school with, who i wanted to date but who were not interested in me. I am not sure how involved i will be with the team going forward.

So much of my life does seem to be about the trial and error of getting involved with things, then seeing whether they work well for me or not.
 
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