Knocked sideways

Hello,

I just never expected this. As my bio alludes, life is, erm, interesting right now. Here's the short version:

My wife and I hadn't been getting on too well for a while. Everything seemed to go south when our son arrived some years back, then get steadily worse. Last December, my father died. It was expected, and a much-needed release for him. I was fine.

This year, I walked out of my job for a whole bunch of reasons, fully expecting to find something else after taking a few months off. My employer could not quite believe I was going to go through with it, and seemed to be quietly hoping I would change my mind. I have never really been out of employment before this.

Sorting through some of my Dad's old fishing tackle after the Summer made me realise I am not actually fine at all.

Suddenly, I have an AQ score of 36, have been referred by my GP, have found out within the last week that my adult son from my first marriage was diagnosed with Aspergers years ago, and tomorrow we're going to try to get our youngest checked out(!)

From my reading of the paperwork, I'm likely to get, "Congratulations, you have Aspergers! Goodbye", because I am in my forties.

Immediate questions (there will be others...):

  1. What resources might help out a forty-something laggard such as myself?
  2. Any tips for helping me save my second marriage?
  3. What can my wife and I do to support our youngest? How should we approach our son's school with this?

Oh, and my handle for these forums? It's a Chinese ICBM yielding about three to five megatons, which just happened to be what was on my mind whilst I was registering with the NAS...

Parents
  • It’s a big hit, that point of realisation and it does sound like you have ASD coming at you from all directions. It was June when I realised the cause of all my issues in life and I still haven’t found any equlibrium, not helped I am sure, by being on a seemingly endless waiting list for assessment.  You wrote this nearly a month ago and you are in the right place to find understanding and shared experience as you’ve probably already found.

    book suggestion sounds interesting and knowledge is power, if you and your wife know what you are dealing with you stand a fighting chance of making it work with adjustments all round, figured out gently. 

    I’m female, nearly fifty and in a less than perfect relationship that has limped along for 20 years, if that’s relevant, it has made me sad to realise that the relationship issues are probably largely from me looking at life through a different lens to everyone else (apart from here).

    Hope your New Year has some light in it.

Reply
  • It’s a big hit, that point of realisation and it does sound like you have ASD coming at you from all directions. It was June when I realised the cause of all my issues in life and I still haven’t found any equlibrium, not helped I am sure, by being on a seemingly endless waiting list for assessment.  You wrote this nearly a month ago and you are in the right place to find understanding and shared experience as you’ve probably already found.

    book suggestion sounds interesting and knowledge is power, if you and your wife know what you are dealing with you stand a fighting chance of making it work with adjustments all round, figured out gently. 

    I’m female, nearly fifty and in a less than perfect relationship that has limped along for 20 years, if that’s relevant, it has made me sad to realise that the relationship issues are probably largely from me looking at life through a different lens to everyone else (apart from here).

    Hope your New Year has some light in it.

Children