So it turns out, I probably don't have Asperger's Syndrome. More on that in a minute.
I'm a college graduate student (age 33, male and married), trying to finish up a Master's in Education: Teaching English (high school), but I don't know if I will survive my second and final attempt at student teaching (I was out the first time around). And if I don't make it, then I'll just tell myself that I have permission to do something else. I no longer attach my self-worth to successes or failures, although it took me a long time to reach that plateau.
Here's the short version of my history: About a year and a half ago, I went to an on-campus counselor, concerned about my lack of focus, procrastination, disorganization, and general inability to get things done until the last minute. One instructor had commented on my papers, saying that it was obvious that I had plenty of writing skill, but my writing couldn't stay on-topic. I'd write intelligent narrative, but I couldn't stay on the subject. I explained my history and my self-reflections to my counselor (socially deprived in high school, feelings of high stress and depression in my undergraduate college days, and slowly learning job skills afterward), and he said that, unlike most students he had helped, I was very self-aware, yet he also highly encouraged me to get tested for ADHD. I stalled until the state agreed to foot the bill for the test, and took an all-day test including (I think) an adult version of the Wechsler and one relating to the DSM-IV. I recalled having taken the Wechlser or something similar back in 5th grade (about 1990), when I came out with no diagnosis of any disorder, and an IQ of about 135.
The results came back the summer of 2010: Now I have an effective IQ of 147, and I have been diagnosed as ADHD: Combined (that's Inattentive + Hyperactive/Impulsive). Since then, I became curious about autism spectrum disorders, and I wanted to know more about Apserger's, feeling that ADHD maybe didn't explain a lot of my symptoms, especially in my school and undergraduate college years. Well, I'm currently taking the online class "Educating the Exceptional Child", which in my university is the graduate version of "Intro to Special Education", and I think I'm getting a better understanding of Asperger's. We're using the textbook Exceptional Learners by Hallahan, Kauffman and Pullen, which referred to this site, Wrongplanet, which is how I got here.
Anyway, my understanding of Asperger's is this: Aspies are somewhat "blind" to social cues, the "hidden curriculum" of social norms, facial expression, and certain kinds of environmental or situational norms in which many people (neurotypicals) understand and assume that these norms are understood. It's a brief and incomplete definition, but maybe a good working definition. See, for most of my life, I have been socially stunted, somewhat immature. I've avoided a lot of dangerous pitfalls like substance abuse and the darker edges of depression, but I've definitely suffered from a lack of deep friendships (and not from a lack of trying!), a misunderstanding of social cues, and an inability to hold a civil two-way conversation. So I have begun to consider that I may have Asperger's as well. What is strange, and what differs from my above definition, is that I am very self-aware, and that I can typically see and understand the subtle hints a person communicates, but only if I am giving a person my complete attention. And I am aware of the situational differences of society, but I feel like I've had to be taught them explicity; I didn't just infer them during a normal socialization period during adolesence, so I've had to learn them as a second language, or a non-native language, as an adult. I find that I can explain a lot of behavioral situations (in linguistics, they call them "registers", I believe) to socially maladjusted people, since I've had to dedicate myself to learning such things that many others have taken for granted.
With the reading, research, and contemplation that I have done lately, I'm beginning to think that I haven't had Asperger's after all--but since I've had ADHD, and have been subject to the rejection of my peers for much of my life, and had a period of being somehwat isolated in my middle school/junior high days (my father was one who didn't want to have guests, nor did he want me to visit anyone, except family), what I thought might be Asperger's was just my catching up from the socially isolated/stunted days of my youth. For five years in my undergraduate days, I tried to find ways to be social. I had acquaintances in which I could hang out for the afternoon with, people to watch movies or play games or talk with on evenings and weekends, but if felt like it was never enough. I was starving for social attention. When I left college and lost my networks of friendships, I became depressed, but began to turn around when I started to develop skill in customer service. Now, at age 33, I don't have this overwhelming need to be around people anymore, but I am occasionally anxious to have guests or to have a good, long conversation, and my social skills aren't decaying, even though I am a busy graduate student.
Speaking of which, this post is long enough. Comments are welcome. So now, I'm still getting used to knowing that I have ADHD, which can explain why I am perceived in some ways that I am, and trying to compensate. I'm still very interested in Asperger's and autism, because I feel like there's more that I can learn about myself by understanding another person. And I need to learn more about how this is going to affect me vocationally, since only now are some of my past experiences starting to make sense.
12 Jul 2011, 12:05 pm
