You may call me Fo-Rum!

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--Introduction--

Hey. I'm male, and 24 years of age. I like to play games with my spare time, and sometimes I'll write programs (a hobby), with occasional anime on the side . I don't remember much of my life. I've been lucky and have always had at least one friend around; I've never been close to them. I've never been close to anyone in my family. I currently have some friends, and I still am not close to them. I just "know" them. I have a very bad school history. I started avoiding going to school around the 6th grade, and have been tossed into a detention center multiple times, with once having to do community service. I dropped out at age 16, and have had no real education until 23 years of age (I stopped trying anymore at age 12).

I am not diagnosed. Only over the last 2 years have I been suspicious (somebody I came across suggested it to me). I have done research on and off, with increased intensity this last week. I have taken the AQ test by Cambridge, and scored a 40/50. I have taken the Aspie Quiz by rdos, and scored a 158/200 for my Aspie score, and 45/200 for my NT score. I'd like to get diagnosed to find out my problem, and then seek treatment!

My mother told a small bit of my childhood last week when I asked about it and possible AS. She told me that when I was very young (around 13sh months, give or take), that I had a vaccine that had made me sick (some combo shot she said it was, doesn't remember it). I guess I had eventually started to show signs of autism, and it worried her. She taken me to see a doctor twice, telling them she believed I had a form of mild autism, and both told her to go away. After having read so much and comparing to my own life, it is very convincing to me that I have AS, although I cannot be sure. Sometimes I feel that it doesn't apply to me at all. Signs of AS that I can't relate with (or perhaps notice in myself?), but how can I deny all other the resemblances? Maybe I'm just looking for an excuse for failure.

--Current Dilemma--

I recently crashed and burned in college. It took the encouragement of a friend's mother for me to get my GED, December of 2006, after that I started a spring quarter at a community college, paid for with financial aid. I have spent the last year living off of financial aid, while going to college. Spring of 2008, I missed 2 weeks of college. I got sick, and then pretty much got an ear infection a week after. I found it very hard to return to college that quarter, and even harder to withdraw from classes to prevent issues with financial aid. Summer quarter started off decent, but then financial aid requested I do an appeal or owe the college 800 dollars, while removing my current financial aid. Doing these steps should have been easy, but I found it very difficult, and just ended up ignoring them all, and discontinued going to college again. I now owe the college 1800 dollars, and am out of a "job" so to speak.


--You guys!--

After I found this place two days ago, I knew I was going to come here and pester you all. Not a negative pester, but pestering in ways to hopefully learn more about AS to see if symptoms apply to me. I've found all the technical terms and jargon isn't enough. I need real life examples and experiences to relate with! I want to know exactly what I am, and why I am. I don't pay a lot of attention to myself. Literally. I've noticed being different, with having a hard time dealing with people in an array of situations. Senses such as touch, light, smell (I use this A LOT to stim!), hearing. Some loud noises (the motor-bike question) do panic me greatly. I feel like I'm going to be ran over, and have to force myself every time to not look. However, there are other things I only just recently noticed and was able to compare to myself: rocking when excited or over stimulated, dislike for people touching my stuff, extreme dislike for people intruding while I'm occupied with my "special interests" (knew this, but didn't quite understand). A lot, actually! I've learned a lot about myself this last week! I need to learn more about AS from others with it, with real life examples. I hope you guys can help!

well, fo-rum,

1. FORGET TREATMENT
2. FORGET VACCINES

(please don't mention v-word again, it leads to fairly useless discussions)

there is no treatment for autism as such: learn to accomodate

read & read & find out about your individual autism, about your limitations and specific possibilities

you have come to reach 24 without diagnosis, and the quality of your writing suggests you are of above average intelligence: therefore

(once you have worked out how to accomodate your autism -
with or without diagnosis)

you WILL be able to arrange your life in a manner to suit you

it won't be easy, you have a serious invisible handicap,
but you can learn to deal with it, and you have lots of time;

good luck & enjoy WP

Well, I can't do that. Treatment includes assistance in learning to cope with it, not curing it. I know what it is, and I know possible causes, and I know plenty of denial of possible causes. I still however will say what I will despite what others think!



Yeah! I thought I was doing really good too. I thought I had managed to get over my problems, but I guess not. It's just that I didn't have to deal with anything "new" to the problems. I could go about college and not have to interact with anyone, I could just keep to myself.. I was sort of fooling myself to think I had gotten better with it, perhaps. Assuming I DO have AS, then all I can hope for is a consistent way to handle it. If I don't, then.. Well, I don't know, I'd feel really stupid for having such issues! I already kind of do when I try to explain to my family, they don't understand. They make it sound so easy!

My parents haven't been able to help me much with this. I also remember both my mother and father pretty much telling me to go away when I tried to talk with them, and when I was younger, I tried this a lot. This time, however, I'm going to make my mom help me with figuring out my problem and solutions (it's hard figuring it out on my own). My dad.. Eh.. No, he's still kind of.. Bleh. As mentioned earlier, I also really hope to learn more here!

I appreciate any wisdom I can get!

It is not a good idea usually for you to try to learn all you can about autism and how it applies to you. It can end up that you just incorporate these behaviours into your life to become more autistic. Go to a psychiatrist and be tested and diagnosed formally or told that you are not autistic if you don't meet the criteria. This will be of more use to you in life.

Hi Fo-Rum,

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

There's no actual "treatment" for aspergers though we can teach you how to "hide better amongst the NTs".

One thing to be aware of is that Aspergers often travels with other conditions (call comorbids) - they can be anything from ADHD/ADD, OCD, to Schizophrenia. While you can't do anything to "treat" aspergers itself, you can often treat the comorbid conditions. These usually have the worst impact on your lifestyle anyway - so it's worthwhile trying to treat them.

As far as aspergers itself is concerned...

The best thing though is to recognise it for what it is and start trying to use the advantages. There are advantages - and I think there's a sticky page at WP listing them all.

If you're after real-life examples, feel free to read my blog - it's in my footer.

Oh and... just echoing others... it's been proven that there is no link between Vaccines and Autism. You mother is just quoting old news.

BTW: What types of games do you play and what languages do you program in?

Ah! I play a small selection of games nowadays. I've broken away quite a lot from gaming, and tend to only play older more familiar styles. I usually play Starcraft, and Warcraft 3, however I typically play custom games. I'm also quite interested in MUDs, such as Imperian, Aetolia, Lusternia! I like to mess around on the GTA games. No, not just for "random violence" as one of my friends puts it. I enjoy just driving around and exploring the worlds. I used to drive around on San Andreas going in giant circles for 30 minutes straight, just listening to music. I used to really enjoy first person shooters, but I don't enjoy where they've gone. Games just don't feel like they used to anymore when I was growing up!

I've programmed in several languages, although I've never taken it to a high level really. I first started playing around with basic 1.1 when I was just a kid, around 9 years of age, I also really enjoyed Robot Odyssey as a kid (might as well be programming), although I only liked tinkering in the creation room mostly. I've been very interested in Lua as of late. I first started experimenting with Lua months ago when I was playing Lusternia. I had made some pretty fun scripts for it. I have not enough persistence however to complete some of my more complex ones, only enough to plan the design really! I have however made small things in C++, C#, VB, and other various unheard of languages. I was going to college to be one of those super computer nerds, so then I could do more with programming. I find it really difficult to learn the more advanced stuff through books and forums alone, so I'm sort of stuck without college. ~_~

As for treatment, I don't mean curing! I mean treatment as in treating it! Treatment doesn't always include healing, it includes things such as therapy, but I was using a very general word for "dealing with the situation", which can also include curing.. But I didn't intend for that! I did do quite a lot of research! I do know about the "no link to autism" for vaccines, and of course I know there is currently no method of curing. I do however like to be thorough, which can be very tiring. I find it kind of fun though. But, I'd like to be able to better function in the world, which I find hard to do. I haven't even really had a job aside from being a student for a year. I got hired at a taco bell once.. First day they had me handling money from customers.. I couldn't go back the next day, and never went back again.. It was embarrassing. So, I'd like to fix this somehow! But, not through medication.. Bleh.

Hello

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Glad to meet you, Fo-Rum, and welcome to Wrong Planet. "Thanks" for sharing your history. Take care of yourself now and keep hanging in there.

To WrongPlanet!! !

Welcome to WP!

Welcome to Wrong Planet!