New kid - name's Bradford

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Hi everybody -
I'm new to this forum and new to the AS diagnosis. I went 57 years just thinking I was weird and troubled (and ever-so-special). I didn't have a clue what I had until I saw the character "Bob" on the TV series ReGenesis. And that's odd because I've studied psychology (especially neuro-) all my life - I just steered clear of abnormal psych and missed the new entry in the '94 DSM-IV. I envy all the young people here who are finding out so soon and picking up tools to help them adapt. Thanks to Wrong Planet (perfect name) for all the outreach effort.
It's not like I now know this is a disease and something to blame everything on, even though it accounts for 90% of my biggest challenges throughout this life. It's more like finding out you belong to a different species than the one everyone said you were a bad or defective example of, like a bonobo is a defective chimp. And I'm glad it's a condition than confers more gifts than disabilities. It's also good to learn that some of your heroes had the same syndrome.
My condition isn't especially severe or debilitating (118/80 on that test, "very likely an aspie"). I've had decades to adapt, with a good, adaptive mind. I can get close to some people, if they aren't too normal, after I've been around them awhile. And being affectionate isn't much of problem once that cold, cold ice has been broken. Luckily eros is a form of non-verbal communication that can be learned even when you have bad wiring for the subliminal stuff.
I hope I can be of some use here as an old fart with some experience - and that I can do a bunch of learning here as a new kid.
all the best
bradford

Hey ho, I'm glad you're here. Your experiences will be valuable.

Sounds like you're pretty sensible. I'm an older guy too.

Hey welcome...glad to have you aboard. I was Dxed AS a few years ago and am 44 now. I've been researching AS on-line for the past year or so and keep coming back to the same conclussion....For some reason, the people researching AS don't seem to feel it is important to include adults in most of their research. How can they evaluate the effectiveness of ABA or other therapies with no understanding of how AS developes through out the life span. There are examples of adults in the media but the research almost appears that AS was "invented" in 1994. Is this how science is supposed to work.

What am I missing here ? Did I not exist before my DX did or am I magically supposed to be cured because I'm an adult (who had no interventions) and if so, why do interventions on children (especially the extream interventions they recommend....8 hours of ABA a day???) and if I am not cured then could some body please give me some damn help cause I'm drowning here<---some one who is not functioning well.

Nice to meet you, Bradford.

hello bradford and welcome t the site, i see you like archetecture, cool, i like old archetecture and old door hardware (such as old hinges and door closers)

i too found wrongplanet helpful, i was dx'ed in high school by school psycologist and was told all the wrong things about what aspergers is, but i was told aspergers was a developmental disorder and many that have it are socially impared (cant communicate nonverbally to people)

i hope to interat with you in future and hope you enjoy posting on wrongplanet

Welcome to WP Bradford.
I can relate to your former self-assessment of being 'weird,troubled and ever-so-special' !
It was something of a revelation for me to discover the true background at the age of 46.

Hi Bradford welcome, well you beat me by 10 years

Hello.
Welcome to WrongPlanet.
For best results post on WrongPlanet often.

Thanks for the welcome.
I wondered what an Aspie community might be like -
would it just be The Anarchy Organization all over again?

To WrongPlanet!! !

[quote="Bradford"]Hi everybody -
I'm new to this forum and new to the AS diagnosis. I went 57 years just thinking I was weird and troubled


hi Bradford,

welcome and I'm new here too. I was struck by your words - 57 years just thinking etc.... because I am pretty sure that I was extremely young - possibly 2 years old .....sometimes i think I was even younger when i realised in a wierdly adult way that i had landed in a very odd place indeed and then seem to have spent most of my life 'trying to fit' , being painfully aware I did not have the option to 'be myself' . Did you say you were 58? that means you started sussing things out very early - did you mean this literally - I'm very keen, or rathe I should say hopeful to find others who were thinking very things at an incredibly young age - most people - and i include psycholgists in this ( strange people indeed) - have told me it's not possible for a child that young to be that conscious, but I am sure I was. I should probably start a new post on this subject, at moment I'm just navigating the site and mooching about . It was good to read your post, thanks,

p.s. - am 41 in 'human years' but grew up around mostly older people than the norm, so still feel a lot older than my peers.



5thelement

Hi 5thelement-
It didn't really work that way for me. Like the groundhog I popped out a little too early. Was doing precocious things by three, but then went back underground until 6th grade (11). I have very few memories until that time, mostly of being terrified of talking to girls I really liked, and my school grades showed a C average. So I guess I was dull. In 6th grade it was like a switch got flipped and everything changed. Within a year I was tutoring high school science and algebra. I didn't care if I was different - I was determined from then on to be myself, regardless of peer pressure.

- hi - yeah, going underground is a very good way of putting it!! I did that at school pretty quickly so as not to be 'discovered' - still I was very obviously different . If I hadn't given a s**t, well who knows - but i think it was partly being 'a girl' that really drove me underground ( within school definitely ) I had a bash at being myself when I started school and well.twas the beginning of the end , so to speak - but in those days there just wasn't the awareness . freaked my first teacher out by sort of dissing her teaching methods ( albeit very politely ) - tried to explain I couldn't go backwards to doing non joined up writing (at the age of four) she just didn't know what to do other than to suggest I keep that for 'big school' - 3 years away!! oh dear.....most upsetting.
Anyway - bloody good to hear you have been able to be yourself and not give a monkeys what others thought. thumbs up to you.

You might appreciate this song a lot. The music is as good as the lyrics.
You can listen to it here:

http://www.ferrononline.com/discography ... mercy.html

Ferron, White Wing Mercy

White wing mercy I don't want to stay here
White wing mercy don't you leave me here

It was passed among the rest of them
While playing cards and playing friends
That some of us are crazy
(With a voice that knew who)
I tied up all my laces
I covered up my faces
And staring in the mirror
I'd dare to wonder who

Was it my father with his hunting kit
Was it my mother with her hitting stick
Or was it my auntie who was always sick
Or was it me -- that was my biggest fear.
I wouldn't look at anybody in the eyes
I was afraid they'd realize
I was a crazy in a kid's disguise
And they wouldn't let me go to summer camp next year.

How they never gave my growth a rest
At my etiquette or at my breast
Humility the hidden test -- I played along
But going through my day-to-day
I felt sure there was another way
I was wondering the price I paid to belong.

I left my father as only daughters can
I chose to see him as a monster of a man
I left my mother in her frameless cage
But never could I shake her rage

Now you with your visions
And you with your fancies
And you with your stories
I couldn't understand
My childhood adored you
And naked before you
I stand as a witness as timeless as sand.

White wing mercy carry me away
I hear them singing clear from over here.
White wing mercy I don't want to stay here
White wing mercy Don't you leave me here.

Thanks for turnig me onto a new musician...amazing lyrics, like reading my childhood. I visisted her web site and as usual since learning about AS...thinking...is she AS? Is that how people who have come out of the closet feel ? Trying to tune in the gaydar/aspiedar ?


I think that many people underestimate what children think because they equate words with thoughts and when we haven't the words yet to describe what we think...we are assumed dumb...not to far from how aspies can be percieved?

I recall very clearly before 8 years old thinking...

I am an alian who has been put in this strange body, it's uncomfortable and I can't wait to return home.

Watching my parents put on smiles for people and then talk about them in a bad way when they were gone. I thought the hypocricy was scary...what can you trust ?

After getting yelled at for breaking a glass...."I did not do it on purpose, how can you punish someone for an accident. Make me pay for it and clean it up but what is the point of yelling at me for something that I did not do intentionally."

After my mother told me to stop crying because she was not going to be manipulated by me..."I cry because I am hurting, if it makes you feel like you need to act differently that is not my fault because effect does not equal intention."

After hearing adults talking about how great it was to be a kid and how lucky I was to be one and they wish they could be a kid again..
"I asked myself to never forget that it is not fun to be a kid because you have no power over your life, what you feel or how you show it, what you wear or what you like....I wanted to remind myself not to gloss over that time and think it was "perfect" because nothing was worse to me then having everyone else get to tell you you are wrong for being you.


As hard as it is to be adult....I still believe I was right at 6 or 8 (I only know age based roughly on the house I see myself living in at those ages).....There is nothing worse then having no power to chose when you are tired or hungry or what to eat or what feels comfortable on your skin or what the right books to like. I still think it is crazy adults who create crazy children more then chemicals or brain structure.