Hello - newbie here

Hello everyone. Wave

Recently joined this community through the advice of a support worker and I received my diagnosis of HF Autism earlier this year.

I have found the whole process a bit of a roller-coaster in that it has been isolating at times, emotional, reassuring and overwhelming at various stages - not to mention exhausting.  I'd reached a point where I was struggling to accept certain aspects of who I am and felt I couldn't explain what I was going through or relate to anyone around me.  My support worker recommended I turn to this community to see that I was not alone and that other people were experiencing and learning to cope with the challenges I was facing, as well as overcoming them or at least managing them better.

I am happy to say that you all seem a lovely lot who I can relate to well, so for that I say thank you for making me feel less like an alien in a human world! Blush

  • Thanks for the comments and sorry I am not fast to respond.  I suffer with extreme fatigue at the weekends from slogging through a stressful full-time job.

    My partner is understanding and we both realise we are very different in how we perceive the world, communicate and run our day to day lives.  As a result we lean on each other for support as well as drive each other nuts with frustration, but I think all relationships are like that to a degree.

    We are still going through the early days of getting our heads round it all really.  My partner has said all along I am not normal and not like other women, but at the same time that is what he likes about me.  Unfortunately I also come with my quirks that he tries to tip-toe around delicately, such as routines and the way I go about things, stress over things to the most minute detail, obsessively research everything etc.  As mentioned previously I work full-time in a stressful job (I have worked very hard to be where I am today and love my job), which I struggle with day to day, but the bills have to be paid and I like a clean house and good food on the table, so on the face of it, nothing looks odd or out of place. It's the fact I struggle a lot more than most in office environments and unpredictability in the work place, sensitivity issues, feeling constantly overwhelmed and anxious amongst other things that one one really sees, other than my partner.

    The challenge now is understanding who I really am and whether I can show that or not.  I have lived so long pretending to be normal and only being myself in my own company, that the thought of letting my guard down in front of others is terrifying and quite baffling to be honest.

    I have been working on this with my partner, but it is a steep learning curve and we are having to learn fast due to the fact I spend most of my evenings and weekend in shutdown mode, so we both realise that something needs to give or improve if I am to achieve anything at all.

  • Will it surprise you to know that the sillier you are the more I think I can se your pain, it's still funny,  we are here for you too, you don't have to make it ok for everyone else, not on here anyway. Interim answer.... Not sorry Slight smile

  • Spotty...you're apologising again........

  • Yes, it is certainly amaze-balls that we are all still standing....and we have survived out individual journeys thus far......I am just half way through Nerdy, Shy...and annoyed with my partner...and tried to share the section with my husband on having a partner with ASD...but he didn't really get it at all....he read half a page,..as you allude to, ....are we really that unimportant?....

    from his point of view, I cope, I function well, the house is clean, the husband fed, I am the breadwinner, I jump the hoops...so why bother...I'm alright Jack etc.... 

    He is more concerned at the moment that he doesn't get my head space....so why even try...... Disappointed

    And today he has just told me that he has organised xmas with 4 days of back to bsck family time..,,I can see myself sitting in a hedge with a bottle of wine....until new year!!.

    so on a positive note, I have you lovely people to help support the transition between the epiphany of realising I am on the spectrum....and fully processing and accepting it..

    the silliness and playfulness I show online is part of me, for example....but is also part of my mask that I portray to the world...and sometimes the more silly I am....the more vulnerable I am feeling.... (thank you for your patience Former Member

    ...and @Mifit62 etc etc etc.....where is

    very reflective this evening....you ok Spotty?

    starbuck....Have you cut and run?? - we are both lovely btw...and have fun here...but we look after each other on the down days too!

  • Hello Starbuck,  I'm on the 'self diagnosed' waiting for assessment pile too and can definitely relate to the rollercoaster ride of exhaustion and it's only been a couple of months!

    I'm finding it kind of shocking how many are here and appearing who've managed to get (a long way for some of us) into adulthood with no proper understanding of ourselves, just a huge awareness that something doesn't make sense and the descriptions that we've been given of ourselves don't fit.  It is empowering to find each other and feel less isolated as we inch our way forward.

    Do you think you're husband will come around to at least being curious ?  My partner has read Nerdy, Shy and Socially Inappropriate and while he was reading it (painfully slowly) he kept saying that he didn't like her which isn't a great omen!  I'd wanted him to read just one post from the Musings of an Aspie blog and all the comments because I think you get a much clearer less subjective sense of what we are talking about from the multiple voices, but he didn't.  He can spend all day looking at bloody car forums, but no, not that.  Harrumph.

    The other night we were dancing around the issue and he said "But this can't mean that EVERYTHING has to be on your terms".  Cue lots of tears at the chasm in our understanding, all I managed was "Are you not seeing that I've spent the last twenty years doing EVERYTHING on your and everybody else's terms and can we please not talk about it anymore."  Don't think that qualifies as progress...

    How about you Starbuck, do you think you have people who might meet you half way, now you know what you are dealing with? sorry I went off piste! 

  • Hi Starbuck

    welcome to the crew.....hope we can help you feel more supported and less isolated. I have just self-diagnosed over the last month and can agree that it does cause an emotional and psychological shift which can be unsettling....I am reassured that this does past once you've put all your ducks back in a row.,,and checked yourself over...

    i have no support myself at home but have pestered the people here over the last few weeks and not only are they very tolerant (thank you Martian and Spotty, and not forgetting Misfit et al).....but very very lovely...

    don't be a stranger

  • You certainly aren't alone, Starbuck!  Glad you're liking it here.

    If you feel like talking about your struggles anytime, we're all here to listen - and advise, if there's any help we can give. 

    It helps to talk, as we've all found.

    See you around.

    All the best,

    Tom