Is it possible to not know you have aspergers until you are 59?

[mark2]

Lol...its complicated! Ive just read the thread 'why are there so few aspies on line' (which is why Im here basically...for inf?) and now I see theres the problem of those with hypochondria. Arghh...complications!

 

I dont THINK Ive hypchondria.Ok who does...but this quote from the thread seems more relevant to me 'how can I possibly be autistic? everything seems perfectly normal to me' ie.....Im NORMAL NORMAL NORMAL...and yet things never have been! Mainly its relationships that crucify me...all relationships and especially close ones have always been a problem. Normal peolple date and split up but for me Ive only to get totally happy having met someone and then its like all the carbon atoms in the universe suddenly turn against me and Ive no idea why or how...and 'why me'!. And ok its reasonable to be like that for the first teenage crushes but this never stopped and I seem to have 'distanced' somehow in my mid years...busy with material things and given upon love.I dont know if I can say that really but I was at least aware I had a funny version of it which needed looking after. And im generally very self-reliant.

And then aged 42 I had a massive climbing fall which broke my spine and everything (chest and every other bone almost ) and killed me briefly four days later. It was a very late resuss that got me going again but with loss of oxygen to my brain. That gave me amnesia and a hefty short term memory injury and took me out of socialising for nearly two decades as everything was complete mayhem then unless I was on my own. Since adjustment Ive aimed to be more open to new relationships...same probs as ever... but there was a tragic recent one. She appeared to me to leave me in a nasty way but I liked her very much and she'd been very ill so I followed my feelings and kept in touch and six months later Ive managed to get it from her side. Apparently she had wanted to get back together from the start but I was really rude to her in some texts so she gave up (thats painful tome but as yet it doesnt seem to compute with her that I was in enormous anguish at my end).

Anyway I want to learn from it and what is odd with me and what I can do about it. I first latched on to Aspergers on Google when I saw oxygen deficit was linked...but it didnt seem likely that MID-LIFE anoxia could have caused this...and anyway Id always had it...whatever it is!...but then I wondered if Id had it from birth and somehow created a patch for it...patch in software terms...resulting in this distanced midlife Id mentioned? A patch that was somhow trashed by the big injury and my subsequent vulnerability. In the stm injury peak year for anguish in 1998 I had a savant year where I was undrstanding problems that were hundreds of years old....but it got so I didnt want to solve anything else. Ie 'I wouldnt look as long as the anguish would go away'...a trade? And it did thankfully ...leaving me with a huge feeling of amazement and sympathy for savants.

The only other thing to mention was growing up. Balancing things ws my trait...towers of things...(is this autistic) not ordering them in size which Ive read is a symptom. If I did that I've forgotten it. Otherwise I was reading at three but seemed to lose interest in academic education by around 11 and went for art in mid teens.

Anyway, here I am now just visting unless we think I might have Aspergers. Seeing a specialist through my GP is possible but, in this case, its tactically better to keep my nut down. I have my spinal injuries which medics have been very involved with and also the traumatic stm injury has caused a lot of psychological investigation. All this costs the NHS money and thats a big issue now for GPs Being labelled hypochondriac as well would not do me any favours ! The psychologists have noted a high iq...especially non-verbal... but very low learning capability...a huge gap. And one has said 'its like autism...but recoverable'. im wondedring now if it isnt simpler and that I am autistic. There is a simple test online...30 or so questions...and that says I am.

Edited April 24, 2011 by mark2

[GaryS]

Hi Mark and welcome. First of all in response to you topic heading I'd say I can't see why not, but does it make any difference to you knowing you are, you aren't or you may be. You clearly have led a fruitful enough life without knowing or even considering the possibility. Knowing now may only serve to explain a few things that may need answering.

 

As to whether your injury "caused" this, who knows but don't think it is related to any possible link to reports of oxygen deprivation at birth, this being prior to the brain growth rush common across all the spectrum. I have come across many strange effects after prolonged anoxia mainly in the "near death experiences" but unaware of any long term effects other than brain damage in severe cases. I must say I'm bewildered at your "savant year" and personally hope you'll relate more of this

[mark2]

Hi Mark and welcome. First of all in response to you topic heading I'd say I can't see why not, but does it make any difference to you knowing you are, you aren't or you may be. You clearly have led a fruitful enough life without knowing or even considering the possibility. Knowing now may only serve to explain a few things that may need answering.

 

As to whether your injury "caused" this, who knows but don't think it is related to any possible link to reports of oxygen deprivation at birth, this being prior to the brain growth rush common across all the spectrum. I have come across many strange effects after prolonged anoxia mainly in the "near death experiences" but unaware of any long term effects other than brain damage in severe cases. I must say I'm bewildered at your "savant year" and personally hope you'll relate more of this

[mark2]

hi Gary, Thanks for the welcome and I really take your does it matter point. It largely doesnt...life goes on lol... but it might help to be able to say 'Im like this...and give someone a frame of reference...at times when its very important to be seen to have given fair descrip[tion? Just saying 'I have no luck with relationships to date' can be seriously underrated. I can remember it being taken as a light wry comment before now....exactly what it sounds like. But I guess now Ive passed my autism test (when trying not to, other than being completely dishonest)that might be enough of an indicator that Im not messing about

And no Im not going to talk details of my strange year. That would be against the normality of it really. Generally what it felt like is it came after years of difficult communication...whilst hindered by my stm injury in wording things up myself I was particularly noticing I couldnt understand other people as well. At the start youre so injured you dont notice...but as the cotton wool comes off over the years and youre increasingly trying to interact there comes an almost unbearably miserable time of heightened understanding of poor self expression and contacts. I visualise it like a squeezed brain needing to pop out somewhere!... but obviously its communivcation distress forcing the brain to above normal achievement (well I think so anyway).

NDE is a piddley non-existant subject imho. Its a created-out-of-nothing thing. The really big mantra in that area is the two forms of death. So many cant get their heads round natural and medical death....with 'NDE visuals' slipping out from the false dichotomy. A starting point obviously is youve seen both 'deaths' a few times (or youre just running on dogma?) but even so it seems these two things... like quite and quiet and new-clear and nukeular... some people just cant see!

And once natural death is located conceptually then unsurprisingly given resus techniques a lot of us come back....and the prelude to that death is 'energy in less than energy out' so people are going to be in a low energy state by definition. And thats even enforced too ,in a way, by survival mechanisms? Help me if you can with what the inner auditing mechanism is called? I never knew the name. Its the thing that takes over...body management system? like safe mode is it...Ok that energy auditing system will switch consciousness off simply as a waste of energy 'like flicking a light switch'. So you could ask ...given energy saving is the top issue, why does consciousness come back and I believe myself its a survival tool ...for a check back through the memory for a survival clue... and youre conscious of it. You may just come up with once having heard a tampax can plug a bullet wound...I think its for that sort of reason? Its the memory and if you led a religious life then there would be religious iconography around obviously...and so on but, option a), theres nothing survival mode can find in which case the pressure is off. No-one procreated at this stage so theres never any inherited survival hassle...freedom!... just the beauty of life and death. OR, option b ) there IS some remembered thing survival mode can find in which case it may fail and you will die...see option 'a'?... or it will suceed and you will live...lets say ' option c'?

 

a, b, and c...two deaths and a nearly...have in common a romp back through your memory in the lowest energy state imaginable so unsurprisingly any combined imagery from that lot however amazing is as weighty as dreaming (not a bad analogy?...sometimes you wake up in morning with answer to something?...and can always take it or leave it that an ex-partner/ fiery Archangel told it to you?).

So in summary its like dreaming but less chance of doing anything with it ...2-1 youre way past life by then?

Hence I see NDE as nothing myself. But Ive only been here five minutes and Im bang off topic! Your fault Gary!

Edited April 24, 2011 by mark2

[GaryS]

oops but then again it is your thread

[mark2]

lol

[Robert Hickman]

Hi Mark, to answer your question. Yes it is perfectly possible to not know about Asperger's until later life. There are actually a large number of people like this in the blogosphere, http://www.journeyswithautism.com/ and http://cometscorner-clay.blogspot.com/ for example.

 

Oh, and you don't need to write an essay every post, condense your writing, takes less time to read

Edited April 25, 2011 by Robert Hickman

[mark2]

Oh, and you don't need to write an essay every post, condense your writing, takes less time to read

 

Good point Robert but its already taken. I wont need a site to put down my blog dont worry ..Im already doing short posts.

 

And I wont condense things ...that doesnt fit with stm injury.. Instead of condensing its easier for me to keep the information down but.. o/.

I just had a lot to describe earlier

 

And being here... on what was only my second day ever of knowing I am on the spectrum... was entirely fabulous

For example...

Echo lal lia...?...

...there are words and phrases and people's stories in here telling me more about my life than I could have imagined.

 

Similarly I like the energy of your blog . Its got a radicalism that I remember from being regional organiser of DAN fifteen years ago and you move it on a bit perhaps.

 

"Stuff the medical model...the world is our oyster"

 

You got it/ we get it. Is it a blogs worth? Yes it is... its a good read....and then we have to achieve...to solidly work away from the medical model?

 

 

OK... I can keep it short when I try!...and thanks for the links!

Edited April 25, 2011 by mark2

[Tally]

Hi Mark, and welcome

 

Yes, it's entirely possible to not you you have AS until now.

 

Your situation is very complicated though. A brain injury could feasibly result in autistic-like difficulties. Do you know whether there was anything before the accident or in childhood that might point to ASD? For a diagnosis of ASD it is necessary for the traits to have been evident since early childhood. They may simply have become more evident or you may have lost coping strategies as a result of the accident.

 

In a way though, it is not hugely important what caused the traits you have. If they are like autism, and strategies designed for people with ASD can help, then it's very sensible to use them.

[mark2]

Thanks Tally, Yes I think now I felt it right straight off. I will have lost my coping strategies at injury. Ive had ASD all my life Im reasonably sure now but the psychologist guessed the other option (reasonably). I dont think I can use a diagnosis. Ive been thinking off and on since gary's post and, firstly theres nothing financial at stake, and I get enough ###### as multi-disabled at the moment! I scored 32 in the online little test btw And my guess is its possibly quite mild autism but was worse,more frightening, for being completely naive. Talking of which...and talking frightening!... I remember from aged maybe 11 (1963) a small dark room way down a dingy hospital corridor, a psychologist, and last thing a swinging fob watch! And a weird feel to it! Anyway...now its just marvellous. Yes ok strategies Ill check out now. Mark.

 

PS Theres a weird jigsaw going on here Ive realised I was also sort of hypnotised after injury 1994 to implant my stm injury data. Which raises the possible that a childhood hypnotic fix was dislodged?...but thats a wild wild guess! I dont know how these things work and it hardly matters?...erm maybe! Why on earth???? No idea...but previous to first hypnotism I remember someone finding my eye holding faulty (which annoyed me as intrusive as it is of course!) Does hypnotism for ASD circa 1963 ring any bells with anyone? Did they do that?

Edited April 25, 2011 by mark2