Hello, new here

[Jay A]

Hi there,

I never know how to introduce myself.
I've recently been officially diagnosed with Autism and ADHD, and am just hoping to find a good community where I can feel less weird asking questions about things like 'how do I make eye contact with my dad for more than 5 seconds?' lol.

I'm currently in the process of getting a therapist, and it's taking some time, so for now I hope to find some peace by coming to a place like this.

I've just got a lot on my mind right now, and have a lot to figure out.

A little bit about my diagnosis - I went through school deemed a 'gifted' kid from the moment I started, and did pretty well for myself for the most part. I went to college and received a Bachelor's degree, got a job, and started living on my own. I never felt like I really fit in with anyone around me, and the times I did it was often with people who struggled with mental health or others who were on the spectrum. This became extremely evident when I started my career in the field of Architecture - it quickly made me realize how much difficulty I had understanding others and communicating properly.

I have struggled a lot with friendships and relationships in the past, and it wasn't until my current relationship that I was able to truly discover myself. My current s/o grew up around some individuals on the spectrum, and he (very kindly and gently, without offending me) pointed out some behaviors and communicative issues of mine that might indicate me being on the spectrum. I dove into hours upon hours of research over several weeks, which turned into scheduling an appointment with a psychiatrist, and now having received my diagnosis.

It feels good to know, but I am eager to learn more about myself and find better tools that actually work for me.

Didn't know I was going to type so much, thank you for reading.

 

[Binary_Bark]

Allo! Allo! @Jay A and welcome.

It's a wonderful and very helpful place here.

What you've mentioned in your post, I would hazard a guess and say almost everyone here has the same struggles. For me also being diagnosed well into adulthood it could become a bit tricky. You mentioned that you are looking for a psychologist, great thing to do. If I could give my 10c on that, try looking/ googling for an Asperger's psychologist, How I found mine, and she is brilliant.
Her son also has Asperger's, so she knows all too well how to deal with us.

There are many very helpful people here that will give advice when asked and very patient because, well we're all more or less going through the same thing.

As you might reed, I tend to ramble sometimes and jump around quite a bit with my postings.

 

[Thinx]

Hi and welcome. Yes I remember a similar path, but autism wasn't much understood then and I just continued to muddle on, changed jobs a number of times early on but always employed, and did some additional trainings. I went to a lot of therapy though never via a medical route, just to work on myself.

Much later on I came across autism and Aspergers and realised that I fitted the criteria, particularly as they tend to apply to women. I often recommend Jessica Kingsley publishers catalogue for texts by women with Autism and clinicians about this. You will likely find you can relate to some similar experiences.

Mostly people come up against environments where their social communication abilities become insufficient to easily cope. That happened to me a number of times but autism wasn't recognised as relevant then. I just worked on lots of varied issues in private therapy over many years, much of which was useful and supportive.

I would say that I found my ability to improve was limited by neurological differences, though I did find strategies and ways around. In the end I theorised there was something not the same for me, through often encountering others in therapy who improved faster and well in areas I had been stuck on indefinitely. Around that time I was working with some people with Aspergers and their families, and read up on it.

The main issues for me and these are also commonly experienced, are around unstructured social interaction which does affectwork too of course. Micro communication issues, such as I realise now that there's some delay in my processing, so I don't always immediately understand what's being said or may be confused in new environments. I do better in structured or semistructured environments.

It can be funny too, going the wrong way to queue etc but it always made it hard to manage social life, I tended to stay in and read. I also joined classes and enjoyed learning new things. I hope that you enjoy it here and learn more about your particular challenges. I would say remaining silent is a good strategy for many situations, listen and learn, and it prevents me getting into difficulties. Same applies to emailing at work etc. Don't react in the moment, especially not emotionally. Bet that's somewhat true for neurotypicals too.

 

[Nitro]

 

[Crossbreed]

Hello & welcome.

I'm currently in the process of getting a therapist, and it's taking some time,...

See Autlanders, Thriving Outside of the Box: Finding Support Resources in the USA...

 

[watersprite]

Welcome.

 

[tree]

 

[clg114]

Welcome to Autism Forums!

 

[Tom]

Hi and welcome.

For me, I found sometimes I almost wished the tether would break when I was working outside and floating away from the spaceship. The crew can be noisy and the living conditions cramped. And Georgie has really bad gas. He takes pills for it. Did you know they have pills for it? But anyway, space is so peaceful and all the stars so beautiful.

But you know, it's probably only a matter of time that you would land on a planet with even worse people and maybe people sized Tyranasaurus' with even worse gas.

I'm still trying to figure out if I had any point to all this...

But I did have a point, a different one. I also noticed very early on, in grade school, that I was drawn to people who didn't fit in, who seemed to be struggling, etc. Part was sympathy or maybe empathy. Definately one of the pathies though. And part was relating to those feelings, as I had them at times (and still do). And although problems/troubles aren't good of themselves, they do have a silver lining of sorts if they help suppress the ego and pride, and make you more understanding of others.

 

[VictorR]

Welcome!