Had an epiphany this week...

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I finally looked more into the possibility of having AS this past week after one of my best friends (and colleague) as well as my husband brought up the possibility yet again.

So... here I am. Two nights ago I had an epiphany after reading some articles about what it's like to live with AS. The lists of symptoms didn't do anything for me, but reading the descriptions was amazing. My life makes sense now. I understand why so many social situations ended with me not having a clue and people being mad at me. I understand why the two years I spent at college were an unmitigated disaster. Events that happened throughout my life have an explanation now!

I guess I'm relieved. I now have an idea of what I don't know and why.

My line of work is unusual given my poor social skills. Keeping my mouth shut and thinking very carefully before opening it has served me well so far, but I'm a bit worried about how things will go as I take on more responsibility with clients. I do birth work. I'm in training to be a midwife and I do a lot of work with pregnant women in general.

I'm not really interested in getting a formal diagnosis. There are a lot of social rules that I've learned over the years (usually the hard way) and I'm hoping to learn more here. I think that if I can learn enough social rules to manage passably (which I can do most of the time... it's the time when I cannot that are really bad) and to do birth work (which I love to do) well then I will have been successful.

So far I've told a few of my closest friends about my epiphany and none of them were surprised. That's enough confirmation for me: My life is explained and nobody who knows me well is surprised. I don't like going to see doctors anyhow...

I have three children ages 2, 4, and 6. Learning more about AS has explained quite a lot about issues I've had with parenting as well.

Welcome!

Being a midwife sounds like a really interesting job! I'm curious how the trademark lack of empathy relates in that field. In some ways I've always felt I'm very good at offering first aid, because my lack of empathy allows me to focus on what I need to do to help the person (whereas NT's get emotional and frazzled if someone is in pain).

Though at the same time, it's important to care about a patient's feelings (something that NT medical professionals often fail miserably at anyway, so I honestly don't see how Aspies could do much worse!) Personally I think I would be able to treat people in a way that shows them I care about trying to make them comfortable... So I honestly think an Aspie could be an excellent midwife!

Anyway I'm new here too, and it feels nice to finally get some answers about my own issues as well!

Thank you! Welcome to you as well!

Yes, my strengths definitely come in when I need to act quickly in an emergency - like when a baby is slow to start and I have to be helping resuscitate while charting (writing down) everything that we do and what time we do it. I'm very good at charting and I love doing it. I'm also very calm during an emergency.

As far as the emotional aspects go, I can somewhat personally relate to how women feel in labor since I've had three natural labors myself. Every labor and every woman is different so I can't relate completely, but so far it's been enough. Laboring women are also very blunt about their needs and wants - they aren't thinking about social niceties which means that they don't expect me to read their minds.

Pregnant women's feelings are extremely important in a logical way - at least the way I think about it - because if there are any unresolved issues or if she feels un-cared for, her labor can become more complicated. Also, only having to focus on one person at a time is helpful to me. I focus almost exclusively on the pregnant or laboring woman (especially as a doula) and after having been to many births myself and having watched many birth videos, I think that I have a good understanding of what laboring women need and when. There are specific guidelines for what women need emotionally and physically during each stage of labor (as well as during the different trimesters during pregnancy).

Those things and the fact that the relationship is usually temporary probably help me the most.

Most of my issues come about when I'm in group settings or when I open my mouth without thinking carefully first

I took the famous people face recognition test today and discovered that I have issues with recognizing faces (I'm a huge Star Trek fan and I missed Patrick Stewart ). I've always had difficulties with keeping main characters (especially men because they tend to have less distinctive hairstyles) in movies straight and with recognizing the random people (who obviously know who I am) who come up to me at the grocery store. I thought that everyone was like that...

Welkome to WP

Mick