Hi,
I'm 40 years old and although not officially diagnosed with Asperger's, I've recently started the ball rolling with the NHS - why are they so slow???
I've always known there was "something wrong" and it's only the past few months that I've been made aware of ASD, never knew it existed and the more I read the more I see myself. The realisation has almost had me in tears because I now know WHY I've done and said things in the past. I now know WHY I've been solitary most of my life. I have a very good and close friend to thank for helping me find this path.
With me, it's not so much lack of confidence, just not being able to keep up with faking social encounters all the time, struggling to make sense of people around me. It's very difficult not knowing if someone is joking or being serious, not knowing how to react. Not knowing how to say I don't understand the instructions given to me.
All my life I've thought in pictures and believed it to be the norm. I seem to be able to mentally model things in 3D in my mind with incredible ease and as a kid sometimes went into trance-like states watching TV, placing people's heads in 3D in my head, rotating the models and adding/removing features. All this in the late 70s before computers could do such things. My older brother is often impressed at the solutions I find like when I was only 6, effortlessly telling him how to change the rear tyre on his bike. First time either of us had seen gears on a bike. He couldn't figure out how to get around the gears & bike chain. I could see in my mind how it all fitted together just by looking at it.
From the age of 7 I've had my head buried in computers as my mind works on logic, mainly programming although it's not where my career went. Like so many things, I get to a certain point in anything I try and I get there so easily then I hit a mental brick wall and struggle to go any further.
Why am I here? Not yet entirely sure if I'm completely honest, although I am trying to locate some sort of group in Devon if one exists so I can meet like minded people. Can't seem to find much in this area, if anything and the NHS is as helpful as an ash tray on a motorbike :)
