Which Conditions did you consider before AS?

Scintor · Emu Egg Joined: Oct 19, 2011 Age: 43 Posts: 5

When I was in grade school in the early seventies, I was diagnosed as gifted. It was the most painful diagnosis I ever got. Somehow this seemed to mean to all the adults around me (including my parents) that I was too smart to have any problems. Any problems that came up MUST be due to laziness or they were being faked. I learned to loathe the word potential because it was used to beat me down whenever I didn't live up to it. A = acceptable, and B = below acceptable; anything else was failure. The fact that I couldn't hold a fork or a pencil "correctly" was evidence that I was trying to embarrass my parents.

So, I just embraced the idea that I was weird. I took pride in my weirdness and built up armor to the point that I also took great pride in the fact that I could handle any verbal insult. I was also very short, hyper-moral, and the smartest kid in my grade. Needless to say, I was not particularly popular with my peers.

All this changed when I entered high school. Two of my friends (who were also smart geeky kids) decided that the route to social acceptance was in humiliating me publicly for the entertainment of all the other kids. I took them three years to break me while all the adults around me told me that it was all my fault for reacting to them. At this time I completely shattered.

My family moved 1200 miles from anyone I knew, and I tried to get on with my life. I had effectively given up on humanity. I took my first psychology course my senior year of high school. I had always known I was different, but I knew on a deep level that there was more wrong with me than my weirdness.

I went 1500 miles away to university for a year and decided that they were the nicest bunch of idiots I had ever met. I started working and had major personality clashes with my bosses which ended with me needing a new job. (Note: I worked commissioned sales for Radio Shack and was their top salesman for most of my tenure there. Something Auspies are not supposed to be able to do.) I started going to community college and taking lots of Psychology courses. I enjoyed the knowledge, but I still couldn't figure out what my problems were. I returned to university and started going through counseling and psychological testing. They finally settled on Bi-Polar with schizophrenic features.
I started on medication, but this did little to solve my problems. I had started my first romantic relationship in my mid twenties with a girl who was a self declared pathological liar. Through this relationship I developed enough trust to come to a great realization: I had Multiple Personality Disorder! (Don't worry, I'm not on the wrong forum, the ASD is still coming)
Back in high school, my personalities had fractured from the constant bullying. Part of me had retreated into a world of paranoid delusions where I was from another world and the whole purpose of everything around me was an attempt to destroy me.

About this time, I first ran into the descriptions of Asperger's Syndrome. I got my psych degree in '94, so it was only an obscure condition that only a few experts on childhood development had even herd of. I knew I fit the description perfectly, but there was no helpful information for an adult with the condition, so I just noted it and went on with my life.

I managed to finish my degree, get into graduate school and get my paranoia under control, but things were still not going well. My social phobias were getting worse. I would often leave classes, assemblies and church in the middle because I couldn't be around that many people anymore. I completed my coursework for my MS in family studies, but could not finish my last two term papers, so I did not get my degree. I was burned out, feeling like an utter failure.
My loneliness and depression were getting bad and I was not having much luck with finding work. The bright spot in my life was that I found a woman to love. Our relationship was rocky from the start. Our families disapproved, but we decided to marry anyway. She had two daughters from previous marriages, which I adored. I went from job to job and then we had our son. His development was not typical. He went from average length and weight at birth to the 90 percentile in both at his two month check up. His abnormal development continued and at the age of two, he was diagnosed with autism as well as an unclassified genetic disorder which caused him to be both heavier and taller than normal. My in laws had never really gotten along with me and had poisoned my relationship with my step daughters. Now all of his problems were blamed squarely on me. About this time, our third daughter and final child was born.

My latest job had imploded and I was in a depressive slump. My wife suggested instead of looking for another job, I apply for disability and stay home full time with the kids. With two teenagers, a special needs child and a baby at home, this seemed like a workable plan. We went to the doctor and I was diagnosed with Bi-Polar disorder. I knew about Asperger's, but it was not considered disabling enough to qualify for disability. My wife and I secretly divorced (her idea, ostensibly for financial reasons,) but did not tell our family or friends and our family stayed together. When our youngest daughter entered first grade, she developed severe social phobia and was placed in special education classes. I can tell she's another Auspie, but she hasn't been officially diagnosed.

My ex-wife has decided to move across the country, and I have been informed that I am not invited. I have been looking in to getting back into the work force, but my prospects are not good.

I have gotten all of my other conditions under control, but my Asperger's is here to stay (and my Bi-Polar makes occasional visits.) Asperger's shaped my life through all of it's phases but was not my most pervasive problem for a good chunk of it.

Scincerely,

Scintor