I put "old age" in quotes because I'm a relatively healthy 60-year-old in all ways except chronic pain from CRPS. Coping well with that, considering I've been dealing with it for a decade. People tell me I look about 40, so that's always good for the ego. I'm also in wonder about that part, since I feel like I've been rolled over by road graders most of my life. I guess it's God's little blessing to "make up" a bit for the abuse?

I don't even know why I wanted to write here. I was diagnosed with ADHD in my 40's, which explained a lot of childhood problems, as well as throughout adulthood. But I only "discovered" the Asperger's after becoming curious after reading up a bit on it. I finally convinced my T that the symptoms fit too closely (especially with childhood symptoms) not to at least test, & now he agrees.

There's not a lot I expect to do about it now. It just helps explain even more, that's all. And, of course, at this point I have grandchildren to think about. I'm especially concerned about one whom I believe is being scapegoated and who has a difficult time coping at home. His parents would get angry if I ever said anything, but they just might listen to me if I told them about Asperger's and suggested he be tested. At the very least he has mild ADHD, although he's highly functional outside the home. Hmmm... come to think of it, so was I. His father is abusive, his mother is oblivious and I simply feel helpless.

At any rate, I will eventually figure out something to do to help. We don't live close enough to them at the time to be there for this little boy enough, but hopefully will move a lot closer in the near future.

My own FOO was and is a complete mess. Mother a narcissist to the nth degree, and in a kind of turn-about, it was my father who was oblivious. Me, with all that ADHD, Asperger's inability to "get it" and general angry misbehavior exacerbated over the years, became my mother's favorite scapegoat. However or whenever all this happened I'm unsure, but the result was an older brother/family hero who is (without a doubt!) a narcissistic sociopath, one sister I haven't quite figured out, another who is every bit as narcissistic as the mom and a baby brother who's alcoholic, a compulsive liar and chronic thief. (Committed armed robbery at the age of 18.)

Then there was "me". The scorn and shame of the family until I grew up to be the "perfect daughter and mother" for a few decades, always there for my parents when nobody else was, only to discover to my horror that I'd "taught" my 2 children to see me as their kicking post, too. What a mess, huh?

The neat thing right now, (besides my determination to help my little grandson escape some of the scapegoating aimed at him), is that I finally, at this "ripe old age", know what I want to be when I grow up. Over the years I've accumulated college credits here & there, but never with the goal of a degree. Now I am determined to return to school to study psychology. Forgive me if this sounds "out there" ~ I've thought about it a lot, including that it's possible I have my own narcissistic and high-&-mighty ideas about my own abilities ~ but my goal is a PhD before I reach 70.

I have no illusions of this being a big "career" or even of making money this way. My main goal is research. I want to learn, learn, learn all I can, especially about the hurdles I've experienced in life (not making it over much more than half of them.) And since not a single person in my family (all of whom have achieved college degrees of some sort, besides the baby brother and myself) takes me a bit seriously except for my husband, I don't plan on revealing these plans until that degree is within reach. In fact, all my siblings think I'm plain crazy. But I'm not. I only had to find different ways to cope with insane abuses and scapegoating, that's all. Now, I'm sad a lot, I'm often lonely and I hurt much of the time, but I'm not crazy and now realize I never was.

So. That's it. Don't know what possessed me to blab all this out here this morning. I've been reading posts for a while and often want to respond, but somebody else always writes what I would have said, and better, so this is my first post on this forum.

I know none of you. But in reading the posts, I feel closer to you than I do most of my family. I guess we are a family, aren't we?