Tally

In my defense, I was typing it on my phone which has a teenyweeny screen and I have fat, dyspraxic fingers. You should have seen what came up on my first two attempts at "egg!"

tibbish??? I meant rubbish!

It's a tough one Matzoball. Anger sounds like a totally appropriate response. What you need is a safe place to express it, not therapy to stop you feeling it. Life is just tibbish sometimes, innit. I hope the egg helped.

I get lots of ###### in my garden, blue ######, great ###### and long-tailed ######. Frustrating as it is, ###### is a word that spammers search for and having the word on the forum (even when used in an ornithological sense) would attract apammers to the forum.

It's very sensible to take a few notes with you to jog your memory of important points.. But a big list will not be helpful as you won't be able to find the information you want quickly and the assessor won't look at it anyway. The assessment won't just be about self-reported symptoms. Although they will ask you about symptoms now and in childhood, they will also be observing and may ask you to do some tests or activities as well. Their job is to get information out of you, not to quiz you. So don't worry about remembering absolutely everything because it's not just about that.

Asperger's is probably genetic and does seem to run in families. In my family I am diagnosed with Asperger's. I believe my dad has Asperger's. He had an aunt who may well have had it too. I never knew his parents. On my mum's side, my grandma seems to have some traits and I believe my uncle has it. Although my mum is almost normal!

I'm sorry you're having such a bad time at the moment. It sounds like you're really struggling a lot. Normally I would say it's better to get help for the mental health problems first as they seem more urgent, and seek a diagnosis later, as they can't really asses you properly until you're on more of an even keel. But your problems at the moment seem to be connected to the realisation that you probably have AS, so you can't really get the help you need without mentioning AS. I know you're reluctant to ask your husband for more help, but it sounds like he would want to help you access the support you need. Men often struggle with emotional stuff, but prefer practical tasks they can do to help. So maybe he would be keen to come to the doctor with you, help you explain your difficulties and the reasons you think you have AS. It can also carry more weight if someone else is saying they think you have AS, than if it's just you saying it about yourself. You're right that you express yourself well in writing. You might be able to write a list of what's going wrong at the moment for yout GP, or even show him your post as that does explain things very well. Your husband could just come with you for moral support.

Congratulations Auntie Smiley You are going to have loads of babies to cuddle now!

It will take a little while Diane. For Will and for you too. It will sink in though.

It's great you have some answers now. And most importantly, that Will got to his Latin class!

Hello Puppet, and welcome to the forum AS is not degenerative, but it can become more obvious at times of stress when your coping skills are stretched to their limits. Going into new environments can also present difficulties that you haven't yet learned coping skills for. For example, a new job or moving out of your parents' home can need a totally different set of skills than you've ever used before. Most people with Asperger's I've met (and including myself) can still be quite immature by the time they reach 18, but seem to "catch up" by the early 20s. You must be about 22 now, so it would be quite typical for you to be changing a lot and becoming more aware of yourself and the way you come across to others. If it's to do with increased awareness, this is actually a very good thing. It means that you understand your difficulties better, and that is very important if you want to develop skills for coping with them. Although it can be a painful process to realise you have difficulties, eventually it does get better because you learn new skills and actually become more able than you were before.

Yes, it was explained in the programme. The programme followed 3 people with disabilities when they approached a dating agency. There was Richard with Asperger's, a young lad with Tourette's, and a young woman with a brittle bone condition who was very short and used a wheelchair.

A very low key to Glen today! Hope you all have a lovely weekend together.

My only thought is that you should try not to worry But I also know that it's not always easy. You can only wait and see what happens. But if you have known her for 10 years then you probably know her well enough to trust her by now. You can just enjoy being friends with people without having to classify the friendship. Maybe next time you should not say this, because it's only caused you worry.

It's a lovely picture and I voted for it. People can vote repeatedly, but only once per day.

I just watched this on 4OD. Richard's first date seemed to be going quite well until she suddenly left without really giving any explanation. It seemed to be something to do with him eating her chips, even though she had actually finished eating anyway. Maybe she was overcome by all the deodorant! The second date also seemed to go well and the conversation flowed. The rowing/hoeing confusion was quite funny! It's a shame he was so focussed on a relationship that he wasn't willing to pursue the friendship and see what came of it. But maybe there was more to it than what we saw. I thought it was also a fairly sympathetic portrayal of Asperger's. They talked about his inflexibility, but didn't make it look just like him being awkward, they explained about the anxieties he has with changing plans and trying new things, for example, when he agreed to travel a longer distance.

I like to change mine every week, but sometimes only once a fortnight. As long as they don't smell or have visible stains, it's probably just fine

Hi Luc, and welcome. It sounds like you have significant difficulties, which are worth investigating. Understanding the cause can help you find solutions or treatments. There's quite a lot there that does sound like Asperger's/ASD, so I think it's a good idea to look into this further. But there are other things that don't really sound like ASD - none that rule it out, but it may be that you have several different conditions at the same time. Your reading/writing difficulties may be dyslexia. Your difficulty getting things done may be ADD - you don't have to be hyperactive to have ADD, ikt's also about concentration. It may be that you have some depression and OCD as well. It might be worth talking a bit more to your mum about things, and see what her opinion is. With ASD, sometimes we are unaware of how we come across to others, and your mum may be aware of things about you that you are not. So she might be able to help you understand better how you are different.

Glad you know where you stand now.

I hope he'll be more settled by the weekend and you can enjoy spending the day together. A low key day sounds perfect and something Glen would enjoy most. Happy birthday Glen!

Hello, welcome back

I always find it hard to adapt to, and I have a lot of difficulty when travelling on the continent with 1-2 hour time differences, which is weird considering I worked nightshifts for several years with no difficulties and had no jetlag when I recently went to America (8-hour difference). I've never found a solution, but it does seem to settle after a couple of weeks.

Sounds like you have the wrong friends Darkshine. I never have those problems. I find it a brilliant way to keep in touch with people I don't see often, and learn about their day-to-day lives. I only ever add people I know and like. I haven't met all of them in person, some are online friends. I don't very often get people trying to add me who I don't know, and when I do I just reject them. I did have one friend who got annoying, so I unfriended her. My ex tried to add me as a friend, so I blocked him. I also had to block my uncle because he was doing me head in, but he's also upset most of the rest of my family without the use of Facebook, so you can't blame Facebook for that. Some mad woman once set up a support page on Facebook and made me an administrator without my knowledge or permission. I worked out how to delete myself, but for a while it looked like I supported and was responsible for the content of the page. It rattled me a bit and made me feel insecure about using Facebook for a little while, but no harm was actually caused so it was OK once I calmed myself down (and got someone else to tell her off). If people are paranoid or attention-seeking, Facebook can give them a platform to upset a large number of people. But they tend to be quite annoying off of Facebook as well anyway. Some people do seem to post more intimate details of their lives than is wise, leaving themselves vulnerable. If you want to rant about a relative or colleague, you just need to think carefully about whether Facebook is the right place to do that. If you don't want to see it in the papers, do not post it on Facebook. Used sensibly, I think it can be a great tool.

What, you mean like counselling?

Takeaway can be very difficult when you need a strict diet. Fish and chips are out since they cook it all in the same oil they cook the battered fish in, so everything gets gluten in. Most Chinese food has gluten in. Pizza obviously has gluten in. Indian or Thai can be OK. Maybe if you have somewhere local you can go in and ask if they have anything suitable. Some places are very good at marking GF meals on the menu, but others are not so good. But it might help you work out if there's anything suitable. Another option is to buy a couple of ready meals to keep in the freezer for these times. You can check the wrapper at your own pace, to check it's OK for you. Some big supermarkets do have some specific "free from" meals in the freezer section. Or you could cook up extra meals and freeze them yourself. Bolognese, curry, soup and casserole freeze well and microwave easily. You can just cook extra on a normal day, and it's there for you when you fancy it.