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Originally Posted by daynrand
I love your definition, a "slice of comprehension". No, of course, how can we explain such a thing??? I didn't even know such a thing as AS existed until a few years ago. Of course I'd heard of autism, but never considered there was a type that might relate to me.
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Thanks!
Yes, indeed! I didn't think of autism applying to me either. I had an image in my mind of classic autism, like you see portrayed on TV basically. Part of the learning curve for me was to realize that what I see on TV is far from the truth. You hear people saying that, but you don't believe it as such. I guess that's knowledge vs. wisdom right there.
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Originally Posted by daynrand
Now I'm a bit astonished that some psychologist along the way never made the connection. After all, I would end up breaking down & going to one every 4 or 5 years when the pain of depression & panic became unbearable & I'd forget the failures of the past times & think "maybe there is someone out there who can help me?" And how many times did I tell them that I just couldn't seem to understand, just didn't get it, sometimes felt like I didn't even speak the same language as all "those normal people out there"? I think I described the AS symptoms fairly well & repeatedly over the years, now that I understand it better. But not one professional ever put the dots together.
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I think that ties in brilliantly with what I was discussing earlier about hearing something but not getting it, and I think it is something that affects professionals the most, simply because of the comfort experience can bring. I think many older professionals trained in the eras where we still thought of autism as classic autism, like I even did. Then they came out with Asperger's syndrome and then autism as a spectrum with obvious implications for the vastness of symptoms of course. I think that demonstrates my point perfectly - yes, they do
know that autism is now a spectrum and includes Asperger's, but they still don't
believe that it does. When they think of autism they are still looking for those classic symptoms, because knowing something in theory is not the same as seeing it in practice. That's the human condition basically.
It takes 30 years to train a good psychiatrist with lots of experience and then 30 years to "untrain" him of all his long-held notions he uses to identify conditions. This happens because the standard (e.g. DSM-IV) has been reconfigured (DSM-V). It actually all just illustrates how little we, as humans, truly
do understand about life.
But, rest assured, I had the same question.
Just directed to my school teachers. I asked myself, 12 years I spent in school, my childhood, my adolescence, the most transitional phases of my life, and not one noticed I was different enough to investigate further?
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Originally Posted by daynrand
In fact, you said in another post something about not being so sure about an ADHD diagnosis for yourself. I've had that dx for a number of years, & I do think I must've had it going on as a child, or some aspect of it. But like you, I sometimes wonder how valid that is. When I was absorbed in something as a child I could concentrate for quite a long while & still can, actually. I do get very hyper and antsy & all that ADD stuff, but can't that also be attributed to sheer anxiety over the problems brought on by the AS?
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That might very well be. Things like sensory processing disorder, over-stimulation and the like seem to follow AS naturally. This might very well manifest with the symptoms of ADHD, yet might not even be ADHD. It might be some kind of "autistic ADHD" which might not even be ADHD after all. Also, since we cannot enter one another's consciousnesses, we will probably never be able to observe and compare in order to truly find out. I will never know what neurotypical is like and they will never know what AS is like. The day we can swap modes so to speak, we will have the hard "data" to know truly. The observer can "visit" and "take notes/sample", then "leave" again. As we are all stuck in our own brains, we have no frame of reference.
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Originally Posted by daynrand
Maybe I've accepted the ADHD dx too easily & need to rethink it. I've tried to explain it to my children a few times. Especially my daughter, who has a 6-yr-old son whom I am very concerned about right now, as he reminds me so much of myself as a child. His parents get so frustrated with him & he reacts negatively, which brings on more frustration, & frankly, I fear for him. He has developed a pattern of yelling everything out of frustration, & his parents' way of looking at it is that he is simply being inappropriate and needs to learn to "use his words" correctly, etc. I don't know, I guess I could go on & on venting about that situation, but mostly I know I need to study, learn, go for that degree & be there for him.
How I tried to explain it to my daughter is that in my head there is something like a big hurricane. Within that hurricane are hundreds of tornados. Within all of those tornados are dozens of smaller whirling dervishes. And amongst ALL of that swirling madness are things like pieces of paper spinning out of control, with words on them. My daily job is snagging those words out of the wind, & it's beyond my control to always get the right ones. Sometimes when people talk to me, their words come out of their mouths and spin right up into one of the whirlwinds in my head, & I can't make heads or tails of them. I have so many ideas going on at once that it takes all my effort to nail anything down to accomplish something. I mean, that's the only way I can explain it to her. She was complaining about how my grandson had been doing well reading for a while, but now can't seem to concentrate on anything & is always spinning off in different directions, so I tried telling her that maybe his head is doing that, too, & he just needs time or a different way of doing things to get those words to settle down & make sense.
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That hurricane analogy is a great way of illustrating it!
If anything can describe the mental chaos, that is it definitely. And, what many do not understand is why it is so tiring, why sufferers can only focus for a short while and on one thing only. It's because it's hard work, and that truly illustrates why.
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Originally Posted by daynrand
StbGuy, thank you so much for your validation, too, about going after a degree. You are so right about knowledge vs wisdom. I honestly don't think I was capable of doing school when I was younger. For one thing, I was in too much pain and too fearful... too afraid of people. Now, I don't feel a need to "prove" anything to anybody. I simply want to accomplish whatever God has put me on this earth to do at this place in life, & know now that almost anything's possible. I simply did not have that when I was young. Sad, but nothing to grieve about. It's just the way it was/is. I only need to be grateful for what it is now.
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Me too. I have realigned focus in order to streamline my life. I've also stopped chasing after "normal" goals if I can put it that way. I am not normal, so normal probably won't make me happy anyway. It's a tough decision to make when you are young because of the pressure to fit in and the ever-present worry of youth "slipping away" like it's some kind of commodity. But, when I look at it, I didn't have a youth anyway, not a normal one at least, lost it when I was about 5 already, so I just need to define life the way it works for me, because that's all that'll work in the end for me anyway.
Thanks once again for your inspiring and kind words, I really enjoy reading your posts!