Hi. I'm Plastic.

Hi all. This is just a brief intro.

I chose the name Plastic because I see myself as a facsimile of a ‘real’ person. Like an Airfix model – fully detailed, but not real.

I’m now 52 and I’m a twin – my brother is neuro-typical so I grew up next to a ‘correct’ version of myself. One that functioned properly - because, clearly, I did not - as it was rammed home to me many times.

For self-preservation, I tried very hard to learn to mimic normal people and got quite good at fooling the casual viewer.

I did such a good job that because twins are often seen as a composite person, my Asperger’s was never identified or just discounted all through my education.

I was always classed as a little bit odd - think Mr Data meets Sheldon Cooper – for being a savant with an eidetic memory.

Naturally, I became a rocket scientist and went on to be a nuclear physicist.

I was diagnosed with Asperger’s at 42 and finally understood the meaning of my life.

Parents
  • facsimile of a ‘real’ person
    fully detailed, but not real
    quite good at fooling the casual viewer

    I was never any good at being casual.

    think Mr Data meets Sheldon Cooper
    savant with an eidetic memory.
    rocket scientist and went on to be a nuclear physicist

    I wish I fitted the stereotype that well, my friends might actually believe me when I tell them I'm an Aspie.

    42 and finally understood the meaning of my life.

    Always nice to have a Douglas Adams fan on board.

  • Hi Trogluddite

    Yep - my Asperger's was all so blindingly obvious to everyone - but no-one mentioned it to me. It would have been useful to have understood the reasons for the way I thought and felt and the way I knew from an early age that I was very, very different from everyone else,

  • I'd place my first awareness of other humans being really, really weird somewhere in lower school; but that's about as far back as my memories go, anyway.

    No-one aside from the professionals on my diagnostic path has ever intimated that they ever suspected I had a "condition", either before or since diagnosis. But I certainly got treated differently all the time, so they definitely knew that something was unusual. My depressive episodes, chronic insomnia, periods of alcohol abuse, etc. did good duty as decoys; you can blame a lot of autistic traits on those. No-one saw the times when I was too messed up to mask myself because I made damned sure they wouldn't by going incommunicado. No-one wanted to get emotionally close enough to me that I would have needed to let them see me sans mask, and I probably wouldn't have let them even if they had. I have totally mastered the ability to hide in plain sight.

    I've known now for about four years. I've had every reaction to disclosure from condescension to rabid denial that autism even exists. Mostly, I'm still the 15 year old computer geek that I've always been. I can clench my buttocks and engage my "adulting" circuits for a few hours at a time, as long as I don't mind it running my battery flat. And I wax lyrical to other people on-line who actually know what the hell I'm going on about sometimes - or computer simulations, or whatever they are! (I'm not sure I'd pass the Turing test myself sometimes.)

  • Hey Plastic. Reading your comments is, in great part, like reading my own story. I'm 53 years old now. Been working on my interface all my life while people kept on judging me or taking profit of my disability. Acting neurotypical consumes most of my energy, so I went into breakdowns, burnouts quite a lot. I quit on the neurotypical acting now because I'm trying to find new ways to exist as myself, whoever that may be. I don't want to have spent all my life bowing to other people's expectancies. I can't anymore. I'm a creative and I noticed that the huge amount of energy I need for my creativity is widely consumed by my draining attempts at fitting it. I'm sitting at home most of the day because jobs have been horrible experiences of abuse and frustration to me but then again, I need to go out at some point. In any case, it so good to find likely minded people who share the same experience. I've been isolated for the greatest part of my life, not knowing what was wrong. An outsider even amongst outsiders. That might be about to change at last. Hopefully now!

Reply
  • Hey Plastic. Reading your comments is, in great part, like reading my own story. I'm 53 years old now. Been working on my interface all my life while people kept on judging me or taking profit of my disability. Acting neurotypical consumes most of my energy, so I went into breakdowns, burnouts quite a lot. I quit on the neurotypical acting now because I'm trying to find new ways to exist as myself, whoever that may be. I don't want to have spent all my life bowing to other people's expectancies. I can't anymore. I'm a creative and I noticed that the huge amount of energy I need for my creativity is widely consumed by my draining attempts at fitting it. I'm sitting at home most of the day because jobs have been horrible experiences of abuse and frustration to me but then again, I need to go out at some point. In any case, it so good to find likely minded people who share the same experience. I've been isolated for the greatest part of my life, not knowing what was wrong. An outsider even amongst outsiders. That might be about to change at last. Hopefully now!

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