Published on 12, July, 2020
I figured it'd be the polite thing to introduce myself before I go blundering about the forums writing random stuff, as tends to be my wont.My reason for being here is, well, I was actually directed here by an online acquaintance after discussing video-games and what-not since conversations seldom stay on topic. Or at least they don't where I'm concerned. So my actual reason for being here is as a "person with autism", though strictly speaking my diagnosis is of Asperger Syndrome, as was. I kinda knew it was significant, and would probably answer a lot of the assorted and creative "issues" that I seem to experience, but y'know, there's time for that later. I guess later has now arrived, considering I'm 46 years old. Better late than never, I suppose.I also have ADHD, just to make things a bit more interesting. Or actually a bit less interesting, as I have no concentration, unless something is randomly interesting, in which case I have too much concentration and growl at anyone who disturbs it. Though the "H" part of the diagnosis went in my late teens and I got fat. So I seem to be spending much of later adulthood trying to lose weight with variable and random success.I'm one of those people who doesn't view Asperger's as a disorder, for me it's just a personality type: sometimes one that's creative, sometimes one that's annoying and limiting, but if there's a "disorder" anywhere I guess I consider it one of society for really only catering for a rather limited set of personality types (or just the one, for that matter, whatever "Type A" looks like. I think it looks like Katie Hopkins. But I digress. Again).Er, was I making a particularly relevant point or just waffling? I forget now. I guess I was just trying to understand what it's all about, and to make life a bit easier to deal with, both for myself and my long-suffering partner who has to put up with my randomness and (usually intentional) absurdity.Oh, and my real name is Christine. I just think Vometia is more "me".I'll stop prattling now. Fortunately I've run out of concentration. Yay.
My concentration has temporarily returned, and so has my blathering. Boo.I was also thinking about the co-morbid conditions that I also get to enjoy along with ASD (yay, I've learnt something already in my brief time here!) which seem to be a bit of a feature of the fabulousity of the condition, though its exact associates tend to vary.I've already mentioned ADHD, or rather Adult ADD as it should be called, I believe. I looked into this in my mid 30s, having realised that my attention span was way worse than would normally be explained by depression alone, "anxiety and depression" being a frequent companion since my teens. It was a struggle to find a specialist, but I did eventually do so and he additionally observed that I appeared to have Asperger's. I'm not sure if he made a formal diagnosis (that came later when I actually needed one) but a few online tests certainly supported his suspicions: a couple of particularly detailed ones highlighted me as "high functioning", which I understand to mean "can blag her way through a conversation even though she often doesn't really get it", especially anything looking suspiciously like a metaphor and non-verbal cues. Seems the rest of the stuff they tested for was fairly low-functioning, or at least functioning with a significant degree of indifference.Then there's agoraphobia, though that is in part due to childhood bullying due to being "different" (not just the ASD: more of that in a moment) but there's also that information overload that I get when I'm out and about, which makes even mundane activities like walking and driving excessively stressful. And I'm reminded of "the incident at Oxford Circus" a few weeks ago, which didn't really involve any more than being at Oxford Circus tube station. At 6pm. Which is about the worst possible place in the entire universe to find oneself when it comes to "argh, millions of people randomly milling about and I can't figure out what's going on. Make it stop!"The other "different" is one that I understand often has ASD as a side-effect which is the slightly thorny subject of transsexualism: I'm of the MTF variety. I never really identified strongly as male, but didn't think much about it until my teens and found my body doing things it shouldn't (no, not that, just stuff like being hairy and growing in the wrong places) and then I realised it all kinda sucked. Anyway, less of the specifics of that (except to say that life as the female I should've been is a lot less bothersome for me) but I have heard at least anecdotally that a lot of MTF types also have ASD. I'm guessing it comes of bathing a female brain in testosterone at the wrong time in its development in particular: I'm sure testosterone is great... where it's intended to be. But putting loads of it in the wrong type of brain is like putting petrol in a diesel engine. And that also got worse during puberty, and only ever got better once I got testosterone-nuking injections and the promise of a more permanent solution. At which point the irritation, stress, anxiety, anger and so on did actually relax a fair bit. I think that oestrogen also helped, but more subtly; I only realise that now that I've had to stop it temporarily, which is most certainly not entertaining.My concentration has just wandered off again. Yay. I may be back when I find out where it's loitering.