Sticking My Toe In

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Hi.

I want so much to be witty right now, but I can't think of a single thing. This diagnosis thing has been a real whirlwind for me, and I still haven't quite wrapped my head around it.

This time last week, I was just an obsessive-compulsive with almost no real compulsions. Then I switched therapists. My new therapist sent me links to some online testing (quizzes, really) so that she could get a better picture of who I am before we met for the first time. One of them was the AQ. I scored a 35. I thought the test HAD to be wrong - if I had Asperger's, wouldn't I have already heard about it? I'm freaking 37! So I made my husband take the quiz (to show how wrong it obviously was). He scored a perfectly normal 16.

Because of all this, I found an episode of the Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast featuring a guest with Asperger's, and listening to it, I felt like the floor had melted underneath my office chair. Everything the guest was describing - that was me. The test wasn't wrong. Then I lurked around here for a couple of days and found the table that shows the ways AS presents in women. That described me also.

My new therapist had me take another, longer test at the first appointment, and confirmed it all. I have Asperger's. Or ASD. Or HFA. Or whatever. I'm still learning the lingo. She calls it Asperger's because she doesn't agree with the new DSM-V definition, so we're going with that.

Anyway, I'm here to learn from and interact with people who are like me. I always knew I was "quirky" (which sounds cute, in a Zoe Deschanel sort of way, but cute =/= me), but now there's a name for the kind of "quirky" I am. I'm sort of terrified by it all - and terrified about saying hi to you folks - but I have to start trying to make some sense out of all of it, right? And what better place than here?

OK - I've had this open for like ten minutes now. I'm going to post it.

Welcome to WrongPlanet.

Oh yes, I felt the same when I started out on my journey to a diagnosis - "Who, me? Why on earth would anyone think that? Nah."
Then I started to look back at the previous four decades of my life; "Well, if that thing had happened to an autistic person, then surely..." -[visits autism forum to ask the lovely people there]- "...OHhhh."


None better that I've found yet!

Welcome to WP.

It's bloody hard to hit that post button sometimes.

Hey ParanoidCouch welcome.

Hey, must admit that i was a bit nervous about all of this aswell..... but do you know what?... Its all cool

Welcome to WP

Enjoy

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

I posted... and then I forgot that I posted and wandered off for a few days. lol

Sorry about that - thank you for the welcomes!

I am very glad you have found some cohesion to your existence and hope it continues I have always been paranoid of couches come to think of it, what the heck could be lurking or swimming in those deep crevasses between the cushions... don't trust them!

Welcome to WP! Interesting username--what does it mean? I never knew a couch could be paranoid

I've heard of angry chairs.

And once I met a frustrated footstool.

hi, paranoidcouch. welcome. got any interests you'd care to share about?