autism

Submitted by squirrelABC on Fri, 07/31/2009 - 4:54am

Hi all...so it has been a LONG time since I have written on here. I have been going through quite a lot lately. After so much searching and just seeing so many specialists and such (some of which I could have never seen without my parents)

I was finally diagnosed with autism. I am almost 27 years old. I have had it from birth. I am just now getting properly diagnosed.

Yeah...I know INSANE right? Not even aspergers. Actual autism (autistic disorder) look that shit up in the DSM and tell me how I could go my whole life without a proper diagnosis? It makes me think there must have been some level of neglect in my childhood.

So...I have lost so many years of my life to this. I have spent so many years locked up with no one understanding me. So many years becoming a robot, learning how to become a robot so well that I don't even know who I really am.

Obviously I am a higher functioning autistic person. But "high functioning" is such a misleading label for it. I can't hold down a job or a relationship, not even a friendship for very long. I have absolutely no relationship with my parents even though they were apparently perfectly good parents and weren't abusive like I thought they must have been to have produced this result in me. I can't stand being touched at all. Half the time I can't understand what anyone is saying to me and I sort of tune out or pretend to hear it because it gets so overwhelming I get exhausted trying. I have learned how to write well and how to be a good student and have become educated. I can dress myself, bathe sometimes, eat and drink enough sometimes, sometimes do laundry and even clean my room, I can take a bus, I can even drive but don't have a car cause of the job problem. Beyond that, I'd say I am virtually non-functional. Don't get me wrong. I am glad I am not shitting all over myself and unable to feed myself or dress myself or walk and get around. It could be MUCH worse. But I grew up thinking I was more capable my whole life than I actually was and even though I knew I always struggled more than most, I still believed if I tried hard enough I would always be as capable as others. It's like a huge blow to find out that all the meds and shit have made me worse and never better. That there really never was anything that would help this and that I really was actually born this way. If I had had time to adjust to the idea of me being more or less permanently disabled it wouldn't be so hard, but now....I just feel quite defeated. I was in special ed throughout school, I had an LD and I knew it, but it was always assumed I would learn how to be more or less like everyone else and eventually "pass" and function the way other adults do. Now I am almost 27 and I STILL don't work the way others do. In many ways, I am still a very young child. I knew when I was a teenager and they told me bipolar that it didn't fit me. I knew they were way off with that diagnosis. But what WAS wrong with me, I had no name for, no way to conceptualize. Everyone knew I was intelligent. I wasn't stupid. But stupid was the only way I seemed to be able to understand it. Stupid in ways that other people aren't. Off in my own world that other people couldn't penetrate. All this time I knew there was something very different about me and all this time hearing how bad I was and how ridiculous it was because there was nothing wrong with me except that I was a brat because I would have episodes that were very autistic. All this time wondering why all the meds they put me on that were supposed to help me only made me worse. Wanting to know if there was anyone like me in the whole world. Finally having a name for it, I am relieved. And I am greiving a life that was never mine

Hey I kind of relate to

Submitted by wake on Mon, 08/03/2009 - 3:32am.

Hey I kind of relate to this.

I've been diagnosed with a whole heap of things that may 
or may not be the case. Asperger's is one of those things.
 Not the same as autism, I know, but similar.
 But I'm psychotic too, and I get massively anxious
 and depressed (whether or not this is due to the 
Asperger's or the psychosis or totally separate - I don't 
know). When I get a new label applied to me, I often have
 that 'a ha' moment, and I feel like I can start over 
again, adjust my life, like everything will be different.
 I am glad that you have found something you can relate 
to, even if the knowledge came late. I was diagnosed with
 Asperger's late as well, and I wonder sometimes what my 
life would have been like had I been diagnosed earlier. 
All that time, I was having meltdowns, I couldn't relate
 to people, I didn't even want to be with people; I 
certainly couldn't understand what was goin on. I acted 
out and got mentally ill. I quit things, couldn't keep 
friends (couldn't make friends either). Employment is... 
uncertain and very very difficult. I can do some everyday
 things, but at the cost of others. One day, I hope to be
 independent.

I'm still looking for a reason as to why I am the way I 
am - no one term quite fits me.

Anyway, I related to what you said, although our 
circumstances are a little different.

That is all.

Holy crap that's insane! And

Submitted by GypzyFly on Fri, 07/31/2009 - 11:00am.

Holy crap that's insane! And I know how you feel about being "treated" and then having the treatment become part of the problem. I opted for cortisol shots in my hip and come to find cortisol dissolves muscle so now I have long term hip problems. It likes to slide out of place when I'm dancing, running, fucking... So you get to begin again huh? Start over on a whole different road to management, etc? I've had to do that too. But don't give up on yourself. To quote Dylan Thomas "Do not go gently into that good night. Rage, rage, against the dying of the light."

Love, Cha Li

"Truly great madness can not be achieved without significant intelligence.”
Henrik Tikkanen

Thanks to both of you for

Submitted by squirrelABC on Tue, 08/04/2009 - 7:59pm.

Thanks to both of you for the support. I do feel like this is opening up new doors for me and it is honestly a good thing, but transitions are always hard and it never hurts to have support during times like these.