McGroo

Hi there, I'm trying to figure out if and where my girlfriend is on the autistic spectrum. The problems she has which I think are related are apparent melt-downs, mainly over food, and other things that seem trivial to me; social overload - liking being on her own reading books; feeling misunderstood by her boss and feeling like she's different to her colleagues at work, also feeling that she's not accomplishing anything at work or in life which is making her anxious and depressed. Also sensory issues such as being startled when I handed her a torch which was switched on, sometimes finding being touched overwhelming. She also adores animals and japanese punk bands. I'm wondering how to broach the subject because she hates labels and people diagnosing eachother with mental disorders. Also I would need to know whether identifying with autism/aspergers would be helpful for her.

Hi folks! I'm probably a bit aspergery myself, which is why I looked into it and joined this forum. But I've noticed one or two friends who are clearly with asperger's, and I'm wondering how to tackle this issue without being rude or insensitive, asides from shouting "Stop being quite so aspergers purleeze!" One of them does not stop talking and he's always endlessly detailing every detail about everything he talks about to a number of decimal places, which at first is quite interesting, but after an hour it starts to make my ears bleed. I can quieten him down if I get him to help me with some programming, or if he's involved with a task that he's good at, then he can be remarkably quiet, focussed and helpful. It's difficult socialising with him because many of my friends find him a bore and complain that he doesn't listen to them. He can also make quite socially inappropriate comments which I can deal with on a one to one basis but with my friends and housemates it can be quite cringing, and to some, upsetting. He does get on with one or two of my friends, and it would be nice if I could see him in a social context without worrying about if it's going to be awkward or not. I think some of these traits are related to Asperger's, so any insight into this would be welcome. Cheers! :-)

Whooooooooosh! Just been doing some quite serious reality checking and realised how far off reality I've been living in with regard to self employment and tax. Basically my brain has just been going tick click clicketty tock, Aha! tick tick tick boinnng! Ahaaaaaa! Now I've got to figure out a way of explaining this... OK well I've just been looking at all my invoices and bank statements, and putting them into a spread sheet, which I've never done before. I was completely shocked by how little I've been earning, and how much I've been relying on granny's inheritance money and more recently, bail outs from my dad. I always thought it was the other way round, with me earning most of my money with top ups from a private income. I'm amazed that I managed to stretch it so far. That puts me firmly into the category of "trustafarian", a classification I've always rather despised because they usually have loads of money and no direction in life, and generally not particularly likable (this impression may be skewed oweing to a statistically insignificant sample size). But I'm one of them! OMG!!! My new year's resolution last year was to make myself financially independent. That started off badly and got worse. I had shingles to start off with, then the bank piled on charges after I paid money into my account a day late, then I had 'flu, then the bank charged me more and more in a cascade effect, which made me exceedingly depressed, and then I tried to find work but couldn't, and then I asked for a rescue package from my dad (granny's money had all but vanished) (bless her!) but the cheque didn't arrive for 3 months because my mum, who has early onset alzheimer's, kept throwing it away when it arrived in the post, and then the bank cancelled my overdraft limit, and then my mum's condition deteriorated because she hadn't been taking her medication, and then let's add some sensible punctuation. Big breath... Dah di dah di dah. Multiply that paragraph by 2 and sprinkle in some scary weirdness from my sister-in-law, and that's where I am now. The consequences of which are that I end up on a debt management scheme and in cognitive behavioural therapy for anxiety. Chapter 2. My New Year's resolution this year is the same - to make myself financially independent. Tax. Having just realised that I've been largely living off my tax deducted granny's money, and earning a bit on the side on all but one year is significantly under the tax threshold of £5000 ish, and as a consequence they're less likely to come down on me like a tonne of bricks and sent me to prison as I had been led to believe (that's how distorted my thinking had become until extremely recently - I kid ye not). Shall I just go straight to them and come completely clean and show them the figures and add that I've been living in a strange bubble of general anxiety and depression and possibly aspergers, which has made my life unnecessarily difficult for myself? And that I'm doing my best to sort myself out. Or do I need to get legal advice first? If I can get that straightened out that would relieve me of a huuuuge burden. Chapter 3. Work. I'm not currently in a position to be self employed as a designer. My computer is 7 years old and I don't even have a printer that works properly. I'm wasting so much time with my computer grinding away... What the hell am I doing? This is ridiculous! I'm charging ludicrously low rates for my services. I haven't quite gotten out of the mindset that I'm not a student anymore. So I need to get my rates at least in proportional to the standards of professionalism that I am capable of. So what am I doing wrong? Taking on work that I can't do. Really stupid thing to do. Bogs you down like crazy and leaves you feeling tragic. If you can't do it then find someone who can do it, but if not, forget it! Don't work for people who spit out ideas all over the place and have no real concept of what they really want. Don't work with friends - they just want cheap labour, unless they state otherwise. Don't work on too many things at once. It' gets way too confusing. Don't collaborate with people who steal your ideas and use them as your own. Absolute nightmarish disaster. I did that with certain drawing and mapping project which became an international success, my collaborator locked me out of the web site and took the idea on exhibitions round the world and left me with a few crumbs, at the same time he completely screwed it up. I seem to be the world expert on what not to do! Let's have some do's: Have a coherent pricing strategy. Keep tabs on hours. Be organised and tidy. Be able to deliver on time within deadlines. If there isn't a deadline, set one yourself and adhere to it. Try not to leave it all to the last minute. Make sure you have the right equipment that's up to the quality for the job. Have a legally binding contract, particularly with larger projects. Have a sensible marketing strategy, including a website and up-to-date business cards which target the appropriate market. Have a clear idea about what you are doing and present it in a way that people know that's what you do, in an enticing way so they might be tempted to use your services. I think there are books written on this which I don't really need to rewrite, but you get the idea. I need to apply pretty much apply all of these and swing them into action. I trust I'm not being delusional thinking I can be a success. Not only am I technically adept with a whole bundle of computer skills. but I have a considerable amount of drawing, artistic talent and imagination which I am not currently making the most of, and I'm sitting on a not inconsiderable portfolio of art which, if applied properly, could become a formidable cash cow. That's not just me blowing my own trumpet, people have being saying that over and over again - they can't all be wrong. If I can be more successful there would be much less to worry about, or at least the worries would have a more tangible basis on reality and with more obvious solutions. I should be out there in the real world having a normal life with things like relationships, family, a house, furnished with wall sized plasma screens in every room, maybe a dog or a pet iguana, or whatever, and not sitting in a garage where I'm living, feeling somewhat threatened and isolated. I really really really x10 to the power of 10^10 want to get out of the situation I'm in and get into the real world where real things happen, so I'm well motivated, but there's some mechanism that probably just needs a few drops of oil and tightening to make me function properly. Normally when I write all this kind of stuff I tuck it away on a dark corner of my hard drive and forget about it. So here we go folks! What do you reckon?

Hi there, I was going to write a long diatribe about this but I thought maybe I should keep it simple to start off with. Basically I need help all three of these issues in varying orders of priority and I was wanting to open up this discussion. In short I'm self employed but I haven't sorted out my tax. I know that tax number 1 thing I really need to do as several people have been saying that I have GOT to sort it out. I'm on the case with mental health, having tried counselling and CBT for overcoming anxiety over the phone, to limited success, and now I've joined a group therapy CBT course for general anxiety. I'm trying to figure out whether I have aspergers or not with confusing answers. And then there's self employment which I can just about scrape by with but I find the paperwork very challenging, even sending out invoices can be really difficult. Which brings me round again to this great big beast called tax which I gather from what I'm told requires a lot of paperwork. And big fines and heady legal stuff that sounds messy to say the least... So I would be really appreciative of some advice here. Cool! I managed to cut that down from a massive wibble to a few coherent statements :-)

Dear Js Mum, Tally, Ian and Trekster, Thanks very much for your help and advice. That's all making a lot of sense. I'd like to talk about some of these issues in a bit more detail but I've got a lot to do now so I'll be back in a while. Hugh :-D

Happy New Year everyone! I had a nice christmas without any upsets- Hooray! And New year was great - had a fantastic full moon party round a bonfire. But now I'm swinging round to reality and having to get to grips with this rich tapestry called life. So where did I leave off? Ok so I've been diagnosed with general anxiety, which is something that I've been dealing with on-and-off through the medical profession and counselling since my early 20s (I'm now 35). I've always had a sneaky feeling that aspergers might have something to do with it, or autism or whatever, but not until now have I looked into it more closely and gone "Aha! - that's like me, so's that and that and that". So what I'm looking at are the symptoms of anxiety and the symptoms of asperger's and realising that anxiety is a sub set of aspergers, so the symptoms are fairly similar. I'm asking what are the symptoms of aspergers which aren't related to anxiety? if that makes any sense... And also do the symptoms of asperger's cause the anxiety? I realise that anxiety has the habit of making things a lot more complicated than necessary, which is why I'm not going into all the details otherwise it would take forever. Cheers ears! Hugh

Hi there, I've just booked an appointment to see my doctor about it on Monday. I am being been treated for general anxiety which has been a really quite persistent feature of my life. I started to take the possibility that I might have aspergers more seriously after finding that the symptoms tick a few more boxes than I first thought. I have been receiving CBT recently and the counsellor I have been speaking to suggested that I see a doctor about it. My main concern is that the doctor isn't clued up about asperger's and that I am going to have to explain to him what it is. All the best with your appointment!

Hi everyone! Thanks for your replies. I've posted a less brief resumé here: http://www.asd-forum.org.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=23014 and I look forwards to seeing what you think. All the best, Hugh :-D

Hi there! I'm new here and I'm wanting to find out more about Asperger's and whether it applies to me. I always thought many of my attributes were due to being a Libra or left handed. But for a long time I've had a niggling suspicion that aspergers might have something to do with it. I was listening to a program on Radio 4 about " " which ticked quite a few boxes, including communication issues and hypersensitive hearing (or cocktail party deafness). Not to mention problems with starting relationships, being considered odd by other people, eye contact, and on a more subjective level, having an inner state that can often seem very different from what is being projected. And having a 'painful talent' struck a chord as well - I'm good at drawing and programming and have a strong interest in science, but I'm very frustrated at not being able to make the most of my interests and talents. What's it called? Self-Actualisation? I read somewhere else about sequencing things to do can very difficult with asperger's - I know I do best in a carefully structured environment; and also problems leaving the house - coat, hat, wallet keys - camera? Oh no I didn't charge the batteries or clear the memry stick... et cetera, so I often find it difficult leaving the house to the point of getting somewhat reclusive. Other things include anxiety and depression which have been quite a strong feature in my life which I am currently being treated for and have been treated for in the past. Recent circumstances have really made me think that I really need to do something about whatever's wrong. I ran into debt earlier this year after being clobbered by bank charges, which on hindsight I could have easily avoided but I found myself getting completely stuck. On top of that my mother has alzheimer's which I've been finding very difficult to deal with - I have been needing to spend a lot more time with the family and it's taken the focus off me trying to sort out and get on with my life. I'm aware that self diagnosis is not particularly easy - for instance you might be feeling a bit paranoid about something and leap to the conclusion that you're schizophrenic, but I'm certainly thinking I'm on to something here. There are of course a number of things that make think I'm not very aspergery which I haven't gone in to. Furthermore I scored 24 (average 16.4, 32+ is autism) on Simon Baron Cohen's 'Autism Spectrum' test, if that's any help. So there we go. That's all I have time to say at the moment. Hope that gives a clear idea about what it's like being me :-) Cheers! Hugh

Hello everyone, I'm in! Hooray! (after a bit of a wait registering...) It seems that some of the problems I've been experiencing match the characteristics of aspergers and I was wanting to find out a bit more about it. I was going to divulge my life story here but at this juncture it might just be better to say Hello! So Hello everyone! Glad I found this forum. Hugh