Hello there :)

vindaloo · Yellow-bellied Woodpecker Joined: Jun 23, 2012 Posts: 59

Hello everyone!

After a great deal of deliberation I've decided to join up on here to see if I can get to the bottom of a few things.. I'm 32, male and live in Switzerland although I'm originally from the UK. My nickname is wholly indicative of my unnatural obsession with spicy food. I've marked my status as not sure as I don't have a diagnosis either way and don't want to offend anyone by making any claims about myself that I can't back up with actual evidence.

My interest in AS came about around 12 years ago when I saw a documentary about a family where all the boys were autistic and the show focused on the one lad with AS. The stuff he said really struck a chord with me so I've naturally kept a look out for similar programmes and every time I watch one I can't help but clearly recognise parts of myself right there on screen. Things that particularly stand out for me are the interest in computers - I'm a self-taught software developer by trade and wrote my first program aged 7. I was labelled a daydreamer in school by my teachers. I'm fairly obsessive about my hobbies, pretty inflexible at the best of times and have my own way of doing things. I find social situations really challenging, especially when there's a lot going on or there's lots of new people involved. In my job I have a reputation for being very meticulous and I like to plan my work thoroughly, despite being a complete scatterbrain e.g. late for meetings, forgetting to do my admin etc.

I did once make an appointment to see a specialist a couple of years back but ended up cancelling mainly because I was doubting my own judgement. That said, the thought has never really gone away and after doing loads of online tests I'm more curious than ever to find out what's going on. If anyone's interested I can post the scores.

At some point I'll be making that appointment again. I just hope I go through with it this time so that I can find out what's up. In the meantime I'm looking forward to hearing from people and finding out a bit more with the aim of finally getting an answer.