Aspies For Freedom

Hello, I am 30 ( male ) and recently diagnosed with Asperger's. It was as a result of sickness at work, only a couple of days, but longer term I'd had years of going to the Doctor with Stomach pain and Headaches.

My GP gave me a book to read a few week ago and I researched alot and everything fell into place. My job is customer facing and shift work and it tires me out and it feels 'painful' leaving me no energy or time for my interests. I have no friends and live with my parents.

i've been seeing a councillor recently who seems to understand this syndrome.

My reaction to it is partly happy because at last I can understand why I am different to almost everyone else. But more deverstation because of the hell I've in over the last 25 years, but mainly the last 13 of my adult life.

I'll elaborate more if anyone replies, I hope you do ( PM's welcome ). I just need to know how other people feel about this syndrome and what effect it's diagnosis had on their lives.

Michael.

I feel good about AS. It explains alot about myself. I was self-diagnosed first and I spent alot of time focused on reserching about it, so getting an official diagnosis was abit of a relief as it means the effort wasn't wasted. As for how it will affect me in the future, I have no idea, beyond school I don't have much life experience.
I really enjoy the positives of AS and I am not too bothered about its negatives, it just seems to me that other people are.

Please elaborate further.

Last year on Aven (asexuality visibility and educational network) I learned about asexuality and went from being a 'frigid, tease' to someone who does not experience sexual attraction.

On Aven I learned that Asperger's included a wider spectrum of people than I first thought and after much discussion with Aspies I feel like I'm going from 'insecure, selfish, aloof, immature, crazy person' to someone with a high sensitivity to sensory input and slow regulartory of what to do with it.

It's freed me up to be who I am without thinking I'm a bad or broken person.

I still don't experience sexual attraction and I still get super sensitive and take a while to process things, but I am more sexual with my husband and more social at my church and with my friends than I have ever been in my entire life - because now that I UNDERSTAND WHY I'm different I can work with it.

Also, I understand why 'they' act so strange.  

I would like to hear more about your situation, if you want to share.

After too many years of alcoholism, I went to a drug and alcohol clinic for about four years. Although I learned a lot, I still felt, as did the counselor, that there was something we were close to but not reaching. All of the answers I got, did nothing but raise more questions without answers.
At that time (1977-1981), nobody knew anything about AS.

When I did find out about AS, close to five years ago, I was initially very depressed for about a week......maybe even longer.  When I began to accept that I am an Aspie, the depression changed to such a profound relief.
I had known since I was a small child that I was qualitatively very different from everybody else I knew, but had no clue as to what the problem was. It was such a great healing for me to find out what the problem was.
It was such a relief to me to have my whole wacko life suddenly make sense to me.
All of those unanswered questions were suddenly answered.

I hope this helps.

When I tell people things like I have no friends and I don't like being touched or that I don't find people attractive I always get a response that implies there is something terribly awful about my existance. But because it has always been like this for me, what for me is terrible is trying to fit in with how everyone else appears to live. I've never been sociable because I'm not really interested in other people- that sound nasty doesn't it- but generally I think people are different to me because they need to belong and be loved, whereas I just prefer being on my own and find other people annoying and hard work. I don't mind being liked but I don't need it.

I find social interaction very hard and my work personality is all a performance, I've learnt a series of scripts to behave by, I don't enjoy small talk with customers or demanding people, I could never be a salesman or in marketing or similar, because people's wants and desires don't concern me. This isn't being nasty as I will help people out if they need it, but they need to work for it, then I know they are for real, not just lazy. It's important to me to have a job, otherwise I'd get bored and be poor. I just have the wrong one and not the easiest personality with which to get another.

My choice with Asperges is going to be to accept it and try to live more like it and stop trying to fight against it. Not to use it as a label or excuse, but to try to become my own best friend and enjoy being different because it is not all bad. My work are giving me more councelling, not really sure about how much it helps, and I will return to my GP in a few weeks and maybe she can advice me more.

As it's been mentioned I have little to say on sexuality because I really don't have any experience of it. Its not that I would be unable to do it, its just that the idea getting that close to someone is a way too much for me.

So I am feeling quite positive about being Aspergic and I can't change the past- and most of that wasn't good anyway.

Michael.

Just wanted to say how much I got from reading this thread. I am a parent of a child who is different. He's only nine but he asks why he feels this or that and knows he is not the same as his peer group.  He has already been diagnosed with OCD but the consultant is reassessing him for ASD.  As a parent I went through the tears "Not something else for him to deal with".  Am I chasing "labels" that wont change who he is or help him were my initial thoughts.

These posts have confirmed what I already knew as gut or mother's instinct.  That I have to know if he has ASD, so he can understand himself better, to clear up the confusion he has about himself and to help other people to understand him better.  They also make me think the sooner we know the better we will be able to cope. The consultant has said he is on the Austistic Spectrum but cannot confirm yet where. Watch this space, if it's not Aspergers I'll eat a dozen hats. gg.

I feel like myself. Being Aspergian is nothing like being a cancer patient. It's being a type of person.

Due to my natural Aspergian eccentricity, I have been socially shunned, but since every other person was an **** no matter what I did anyway I didn't bother trying to fit in.

I am also stuck with a useless IEP which I plan on removing.

I also have little to no idea how to make "the first move" when starting a relationship. These things seem to come naturally to Neurotypical people, but I have to learn them intellectually. I'm not gifted with people.

I agree. People who talk about "labels" often don't understand that it is important for us to assign meaning and one way of doing that is to put a name to things.

It would have been so much better had I known about having Aspergers at a younger age; preferably before I had to leave home.

I think I will get more help from my councelling and from my Doctor ( who I am seeing next week ). I think it is all a bit too much for my Managers who still won't change my work pattern's or duties despite clearly being aware that they are causing me problems. I haven't told my parents because I think they already 'know' I'm different.

I've got a work 'do' I've said I'll go to tomorrow and I really don't want to. It is really hard to be a loner when so many people want you around. I think , in gereral, people with Aspergers are interesting and people want us around even when we don't want to be because different is interesting.

I dont feel like Im chasing labels anymore but it was an early thought.  Without a diagnosis I cant get him the help he needs and understanding he has Aspergers means life is so much easier as I understand him so much better.

I can relate to everything you say and feel in some ways that I have to translate the world for him right now to protect him from people misunderstanding him.  Chats with his teacher changed their opinion of him from a disruptive child to a child who was struggling but trying his best and it was them who first mooted the idea he may have ASD.   He is now far far happier. I just need to educate his father next!!!  No easy task.

Good for you.  I think I posted somewhere that my son bounced in the bedroom asking for a birthday cake because it was 12 months since his OCD first manifested. It was a huge problem at first until we learned how to manage it, now, he like you, is really proud of having it.

He said to his consultant that he didnt want to be cured 100 percent of OCD just to get rid of most of it as he enjoyed being special, so please leave him a little bit. gggg

I had a very good meeting with a different company Doctor today. He was very understanding of me and we discussed the positives and negatives of my situation. I learnt from him that in the U K you do not actually need to be 'officially' diagnosed with a 'mental heath' problem in order to be protected by disability laws. Only the recognition of the probelm by a Doctor is needed. OK AS isn't a mental illness, but it can be disabling so I am better protected in work now. As far as he is concerned as a work issue the matter is dealt with and the company has to respond to my different needs. So that is good.

With regards an official diagnosis I will leave that to my GP to arrange. I would like to have the certanty ( although it is by no means certain ), it involves a referal to an educational development assesment ( a psychiatrist in other words ). I am interested to do this.

As I may have said I didn't know AS existed before Dec. 2006. A diagnosis will not reduce my anxiety but it can open up more opportunities to learn how to control it better.

Ultimately I am a very happy person. I don't suffer depression but I do sometimes get challenged about my difference and then doubt myself a bit. That will pass again as it has before. Now I am more determined than ever that the doubt does not return.

I have just received a referal 'pack' from from the '..........Aspergers Syndrome service' ( post delivered at 11:30PM, very odd !). So I'll ( and my parent ) will fill it out and send it off tomorrow.

They say it could take four months thought as they are part time. The government should fund these services to let them be full time.

The agree with that.