Aspies For Freedom

I will now tell a story about myself. You tell me which diagnosis fits best into this story. The story covers me from my early childhood (partly based on what I myself can remember, and what my parents have told me), to my current age.

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My early childhood


In my early childhood (0-5 years old) I was never or rarely interested in the world. It's like I just wanted to stick to the closest things.

I never really could interact socially with other kids. And when I tried, I was bullied.

I've only had very few, but close friends. It started out with 3. Then down to 2. Then 1, and now 0.

I've always been anxious and never really done well socially. But I've had some special interests which I pursued. My dad has told me that they (my parents) worried about me and took me to a psychologist.

The psychologist wondered why I could tell her all the details about ships and ports, details that no other child at my age would be interested in. He told me that I knew just as much about ships and ports as adults who worked there. And I was only about 5-7 years old. I don't really remember much of it, this is based on what my parents have told me.

But I do remember that at the age of 5 I became interested in politics, especially that of which covering infrastructure, economy and military.

I used to build large LEGO-cities on the floor in the living room, expanding my mighty empire.

I never really played much with my toys, I just liked to build things, inspired by real world buildings. I collected a lot of LEGO.

Later on I became very interested in military and military strategies and formations. I placed my toy soldiers in rows, ordered by each unit-type.

As I grew up I became more and more authoritarian and dictatorial. I expanded my mighty empire across the living room, leaving less and less space for my parents

But with my expansion of my empire, I also got a new special interest: Execution methods. In school I liked to draw pictures with gallows and guillotines. And I made my own in LEGO-bricks. I also became specialiced in noose-making, and when I got angry, I hanged my Legomen, in my gallows, first placing them on the trap-door, and then pulling the trigger and hanging them. I enjoyed it.

All this developed from age 5 to 12, when I got interested in programming (first Basic, then Pascal).

At that time my empire was moved to my new larger room, but as I got less interested in the physical empire (because now I had Playstation games and PC-games to simulate empire-building) it vanished from the floor and reappeared on my PC monitor (or TV, connected to a game console).

School

I did poorly in school, though I learned to read and write at age 5, and mastered danish grammar at age 5-6. This was before school-age.

When I was 6 years old I went to the kindergarten-class, where I couldn't fit in. A teacher told us what we were about to expect next year when we moved to first grade, and I just couldn't wait. I didn't understand why I had to wait so long, I was ready, I could already read and write, and we learned nothing in kindergarten-class.

I couldn't figure out how to play with other children, and I isolated myself.

When I moved in first grade, I could already read and write and I learned nothing, but I performed well, because I was good at mastering the language.

But then we had something about rhymes. And I never mastered this, and I saw no point in rhymes, and my teacher got angry at me. I just didn't have the fantasy to figure out these rhymes. Still today they make no sense for me.

The school system was collective and socializing, and because of this I never really mastered any subject in school.

At age 10 I got my Aspergers diagnosis, and an assistant in school helped me and taught me math, danish, english etc. individually. This helped me alot.

At age 11 I was sent to a special school for autists and aspies, and I the same method of teaching was used here for all the pupils.

I've had bad experiences on this school, but as this has nothing to do with my question for diagnosis, I leave it out.


Higher education

When I was 17 years old I was partly on the special school for those with autism spectrum conditions, and on Technical High School. Again I performed poorly in high school because the methods of teaching were not individualized. I learned nothing. I thought I could meet other people at my age and begin to develop friendships, but nothing happened. I isolated myself from the other students. I only talked to the teacher, discussing philosophy.

When I went out of the autist/aspie-school at age 18, I continued upper high school in mathematics, physics and chemistry, but did very poorly, again caused by the methods of teaching.

Then finally in August 2007 I was refered to a newly started aspie-high school for those from 18-25 years of age. It works fine for me, and all the teachers say that I am in front of what is normal. I learn faster and more than ever before, thansk to the individualized, and aspie-friendly environment.

Mental problems

When I was 18 years old I began developing psychotic episodes, increasing slowly. I often felt that someone was watching me, and later on I felt like I could control the cars on the highways through my mind. At age 20-21 phantom animals began to appear. Insects at the size of basket balls appeared.

I was given Risperdal, and still take it today, and it helps me and I am almost free from psychosis. It is a small dosis, about 25 mg every second week (or 1.8 mg/day).

Social problems

Though I am free from my psychotic symptoms, my other traits have not gone. I still have a lot of difficulties understanding other people and figuring out what other people might think of what I am writing. This often leads to posts that may seem violent and bombastic, thought they are not ment in that way, and the meaning is totally different.

My psychologist who has specialized herself in Aspergers Syndrome, say that this is caused by my Aspergers Syndrome, while others say that this has nothing to do with Aspergers Syndrome, and I've been accused of not being an aspie but an NT with schizoid or schizotypical or schizophrenic traits.

What do I sound most like?

I think you have Ian syndrome.

(sarcasm)

I think you most definitely have AS but I don't know much about psychosis.

Hahaha Erkolos, that almost made me choke on my spliff ROFL.

You sound nice - your are an individual, with individual brain chemistry.
You doing well at school, you are on medication that helps you to cope, maybe you shouldn't worry too much about a diagnosis, and just accept yourself for you are. Labels help and guide doctors to understand people better, but it seems that you have things  pretty well sussed.
However, my impression is autism.

I somehow recall reading a thread where Schizotypy was mentioned. AFAIK its not a diagnosis as much as a rather vague concept in psychology.

It is like the fantasy that I (and a lot of us) had in adolescence - that there was a group of people somewhere in the universe who were just like me and one day would turn up in a space ship and I would finally be at home. Only the space ship turned out to be the internet!

That is FREAKY, Janet, that you just put the "Coexist" thing in your signature--I just saw "U2 3D" at an Imax theater, great movie.  Bono used the "Coexist" bandanna during one of the songs, and I was thinking of putting that in as my Avatar after I saw the movie... to parody what was going on with the logicalconclusion situation

All the NT girls around here seem to "communicate" in gobbledegook:

"Anyway, so, he went, like, and I was, you know, like, and then she went, and I was, like, you know..."

And they can keep it up for hours.

But it's better to be able to put an exact name to our differences rather than continually relying on guesswork (although it is a start in the journey of self-discovery).

Can we get it back on-topic, please?

Yes - I agree with you - The day my son received his diagnosis - was the day he began to recover from his depression - and work towards finding a happier life. I think he came to accept himself more once he knew there was an explanation for his difference. Prior to this he despaired to much at what he couldn't seem to achieve.

Yes, that's exactly what I was getting at. It's also helpful to get this confirmation before self-hatred and low self-confidence has become heavily entrenched.

From my book knowledge, personal insight from my own diagnosis AS/ BP II and from limited work in the mental health field I have found that:

1) Brief psychotic symptoms may develop in childhood that may be labelled as schizoaffective in modern times, but less recently were labelled as schizophreniform or perhaps childhood schizophrenia, or perhaps "brief psychotic episode", the main difference from autism being that there would have to be a period, how ever so short, of detachment from objective reality. Imagining these things such as is typical with us is not really psychotic but creates the subjective fear of psychosis in us since we are acutely aware of any differences between us and our environments.

2) Many other mental types seem to have detachment from the objective world as a part of the diagnosis which confuses the high functioning autistic spectrum with those other conditions, or mental types.

3) There may be considerable overlap with bipolar symtoms as well, which may be rather confusing since the autistic/ schizoid personality doesn't go on spending or sexual sprees.

4) Symptoms may vary over time as new behaviours are learned. The crux of our problem is really the detachment and delayed social learning. That's why Asperger's falls under the rubric of the Pervasive Developmental Disorders and not schizophrenia or bipolar I {Manic Depression}.

All in all it would appear that you've had an interesting and rewarding life. Playing with legos and machiavellian schemes in grammar school surely couldn't have been all too bad when looked at from an adult perspective.

Unfortunately, for my son, the self hatred and low self-confidence was very heavily entrenched - to the point of trying to kill himself.He didn't want to die - but I don't think he wanted to live either.
The diagnosis saved his life.

Thank goodness for that! I also feel my diagnosis was something of a life saver.