Support thread for women who suspect or know they have ASD traits or are on the spectrum

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Hello, all! As the title says, I hope this can be a support thread for those of us who suspect or know we have some (or many) Aspergic traits; where we can share experiences, stories, problems, worries, knowledge and info, and hopefully benefit and help each other too.

I found a great link a while ago that is very comprehensive in its description of how Asperger's presents in women and how women experience it. Some of it is strikingly different from the male model and how most people perceive Asperger's. Here: ASD in women

I truly believe two things: 1) that ASD in females is woefully misunderstood and under-diagnosed and 2) that our current understanding and the definition of the AS Spectrum is, in itself, rather ASD in its rigidity, and that there is an actual spectrum of traits much broader and more nuanced than the current model, and that there are a hell of a lot of people struggling with some very typical ASD traits, who nevertheless do not have all the traits required to fulfil a formal diagnosis of having Asperger's or High-Functioning Autism.

So, with that rather typically ASD-style long-winded and unnecessarily detailed intro out of the way, let's chat!

Here's an article were a diagnosis helped protect her. DWP pays 70,000 to woman with Asperger's

Hopefully cases like this will afford more protection for people on the spectrum

Jason, I am in my 6th decade of life, and am rather good now at the faking it stuff. I've had lots of practice, fine-tuning the feedback, developing an appearance of functioning and dealing with those social issues. And, I have only to encounter a novel situation and the limitation of that 'learning' is exposed, painfully.

Diagnosis would mean an explanation, and acceptance of those limitations instead of the self-blame that feeds my anxiety and depression. It would mean legal protection in the workplace. It would mean working to my strengths. It would mean an end to misdiagnoses and ineffective medication from the latest new kid consultant on the block.

If I had had a diagnosis as a child it would have made a huge difference to my life.

And, I have only to encounter a novel situation and the limitation of that 'learning' is exposed, painfully.

That's it! Perfectly put. I can prepare myself for scenarios, even new ones, but if something changes without notice, I can't cope.

I think a diagnosis as a child would have changed a lot. Part of what I need is to legitimise how I react to things. I'm not doing it on purpose, I can't grow out of it, I can't react to things how you want me to. I can try to quash my reaction, which I mostly manage, I can try to anticipate and avoid situations that I cannot cope in, but I can't change who I am.

And yes the world should just accept that, and family should just accept that, but it doesn't and they won't. A piece of paper that says I am normal for the way I was built would free me.

Well done Chris for taking that first step. I read a couple of books about being a woman aspie that helped me compose my list of 'evidence' for the doctor. I really, really like the duck/swan analogy, especially because of how a swan appears - looking graceful, swimming along but underneath paddling frantically to keep going!

Kanga I think it's healthy to let it all out. You definitely don't 'deserve' abuse and it's not your fault. I think it's easy as an aspie to end up with those kind of dynamics because people take advantage of the fact that we aren't programmed to understand that that isn't the norm. We have no idea what the norm is! Recognising that you might be aspie is the first step to changing things.

Thanks Faith :)

I've tried to note down things, but I'm not really sure how long I should be making the list.

Is it worth putting in what I scored on the RAAD test?

Is FuckYouChrisAndThatHorse and FuckYouChris the same person?

Jason something you might not have picked up on is that for women the social pressures and expectations and masking stuff is all far greater than for men in so many ways, gender nonsense means women and girls are less likely to be taken seriously and more likely to be written off as neurotic or anxious.

I had no idea about this.

Aye, I am both, sorry for any confusion :)

KangaR

I really am sorry, please don't feel you are over emotional, you have every reason to be.

It's threads like this that make me fully realise how lucky and accepted i am by all my family, there are times when i absolutely and true feel hate for everyone of them, unduly becuase each and every one would bend over backwards for me.
sometimes it takes a thread like this to put into perspective how privileged your own life has been.

Is it worth putting in what I scored on the RAAD test?<

I don't think I would, it may !wrongly! look as if you've researched the type of answers you'll need to be referred for dx. Some clinicians are very dismissive of some online tests.

Just put what you've put on here, how you feel so out of synch in social situations, emphasise the anxiety, paraphrase the triad of impairments if anything strikes you as apt and go for it.

Thanks blank, that was my thinking, "oh no not another self-googling obsessive!"

I will stick to describing me as best I can

Xpost with polter :o

I can always mention it later

Kanga I really know how you feel thinking you are a fuck up black sheep. I have also been in abusive relationships so please don't blame yourself anymore. I do encourage you to try and get a diagnosis as it is important to free yourself of all the blame.

TwinkleDust such a brilliant post to sum up how a novel situation can cause the current constructed self to fall apart. Sometimes I feel that I have never really had an identity my whole life and am just tentatively creating me albeit a lot older.

I just want to say how lovely it is to have this place to come to and follow each others progress. Polter I have read all your posts from the beginning so I am following your journey.

FYC I totally understand about the NHS diagnosis being needed for protection in the workplace. I think being my age and coming up for sixty it was the thought of waiting years and being placed at the end of a queue that made me seek the private. Hopefully I will never have to work with a group of people again! ;)

PS. I am happy to drive locally but my brain turns to mush at junctions and roundabouts with lots of lanes. I think it is all the lines, panic and worrying about being tooted at! If anyone sounds their horn I think it must be at me and I jump out of my skin! Saying that I do believe I am a safe driver who deserves to be on the road. I just like familiarity.

Maybe we are all swans in the making, just havlng to wait a little while for the feathers to turn white. Your son sounds amazing. I know I felt very different to others when I was his age, but I thought I was all wrong and there was absolutely no recognition or support.

Thank goodness kids nowadays have parents who have a lot more knowledge about these things and can be there for them. I want that confidence too! :)

How do people put stuff like this behind them:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2197507-leaving-apples-on-the-ground?msgid=49811072

It affects me way too much. I've been crying on and off throughout the day and never want to step foot outside again. In fact I want to move.

LiverpoolLou do you remember something that made you really happy and giggle?
Take that thing and fix it at the front of your mind right now, put it in your garden, think of it instead of the apples.

Tomorrow try and face those apples, go out with your son, so you have the courage, and make up a game while cleaning up the garden. seeing how many you can throw in the bin for example, Putting one somewhere and watching how it rots, point it out to him.

I've finished reading the whole thread. Thank you for your contributions.

I am almost 29 years old. I am certain as I can be that I have AS though I have no diagnosis. I have a long history of depression and anxiety and spent many years with agoraphobia because I avoided social situations so much. The last couple of years I have gotten a lot better at coping.

This year I came across this: Girls and Women who have aspergers

I didn't know how AS presented in girls before I read it (my idea of AS was the popular one and I feel that I do empathise - perhaps too strongly with others so I couldn't have AS right? ) and I read it for information because I'm interested in Feminism and how different or not the sexes are (I've read the Gender Delusion), I had no idea I'd read it and recognise my life from it.

Things which particularly resonated with me were:

• rehearsing conversations (with important ones like GP appointments I can be talking the conversation out loud when I'm alone for months before making the appointment - it rarely goes the way I expect though )
• escaping into fiction (as a young child I read so much that I was told off for reading at the table, or when visiting relatives, reading was (and is) a major coping mechanism for me +Specific mention of Harry Potter - I've always known I was a Harry Potter geek, but it made me realise that even other fans don't necessarily reread (or listen to) the whole series repeatedly sometimes back to back several times before reading something else. I often refer to parts of the story if I'm trying to explain something. It occurs to me it might be an 'obsession'.
• Collecting toys and setting them up more than playing with them.
• Books, drawing and animals were my interests as a girl.
• I was completely baffled by the way other people conducted their friendships and relationships, I'm a very straight forward type of person - I couldn't understand why a female friend wouldn't tell the guy she crushed on for YEARS - that she wanted to go out with him. Surely it would have been more logical to find out if he reciprocated or not and move on. (I found my DH online through shared interests and he has AS traits too... both very straightforward about things). Looking back at that situation as an adult and with the knowledge that the guy she was crushing on later came out as gay, I wonder if he was just a 'safe' person for her to have sexual feelings for, like some young people apparently have celebrity crushes.
• Not interested in fashion, appearances, going out, drinking, etc which meant I didn't have much in common with most girls at school (and a lot of women now).
• Being hypersensitive the emotional atmosphere of people, being anxious about what they are thinking/feeling and it being exhausting trying to puzzle it out. +going back over conversations where I think I said something not accurate, and trying to get it right to make myself understood properly.
• WRT eye contact the more stressful the situation the less eye contact I give. When I'm trying to be friendly I'll tend to realise "Shit, I haven't looked at the person in a while, better give eye contact" and its fleeting... I presume this is not how NTs converse...

Anyway, that's not an exhaustive list. I've identified with a lot of the things said on here too. I have never learnt to drive and am hypothyroid. And my executive skills are appalling.

I like books. They tell you how someone else is feeling and thinking.

I'm not entirely sure about the one of the triads of impairment, because I've always thought I was good at empathising... though now I realise it's something I put a lot of effort into and my tactic is actually to imagine that whatever has happened to the other person has happened to me and to test how I think I'd feel, which is maybe not how NT people do it, and explains why I cry at sad movies that others don't and can't watch horror movies or very violent ones

My strongest memories are of times where I have felt a strong injustice at not being believed when I was telling the truth -or at least being genuine even if I had the facts wrong - I wonder if the reason those injustices seemed so deep and hurtful that I still remember them was because I thought if I knew I was telling the truth then the other person ought to know too - because I couldn't understand they didn't know.

If I don't have AS then I think it is very likely that I share many of the same problems as those who have it. My dad was emotionally abusive and shouty and unpredictable (sometimes he is fantastic) and so I had a lot of stress in childhood trying to predict his moods and figure out what I had done to cause them. CBT has helped me, and having my own child and realising that I would never want to treat a child the way I was treated has made me come on leaps and bounds. I have been able to feel angry at my dad rather than just guilty about myself and I have been cultivating my self confidence since DS was born. I'm starting to build a life for myself that suits who I am (have just registered as self employed and will do art, design and writing from home in evening and weekends, I'm a SAHM in the day).

It's hard to know whether I have AS-like symptoms because of having an unpredictable and emotionally abusive parent or whether I was treated the way I was and struggled to make sense of it because I had AS and my dad didn't know how to cope (which isn't to take away his responsibility in not being a shouty git). My mum seems open to the idea that I might have it, though it was my little sister who got teased with perhaps being "asparagus" because of her dislike of change and 'fussy' eating habits.

Getting a diagnosis on the NHS around here appears to be difficult. At the moment knowing that I am likely to have AS has made a huge difference. As soon as I realised... it was a relief. I tried to think about the difference a diagnosis would give me at the moment, and most of it was about self acceptance, and I have decided that I don't have to wait for a diagnosis to accept myself. Whether I have AS or not, I can accept that social skills and executive skills are something I'm not naturally good at (without guilt or shame) and that I have to work around them to achieve the things I want.

I think a diagnosis would have been very helpful when I was in the middle of depression and agoraphobia. And one might be handy in future if I decide to study or apply for jobs. Right now, I'm not going to push for one because I would only use it to feel justified in joining AS groups online and stuff (and vindicated that I am right in my guessing! ) If I won money, I'd get a private assessment, but I don't want to have a battle with my GP and psychologists about whether I have it or not right now. Hopefully if I do go for assessment in the future, there will be more understanding of adult females with AS.

At the moment, I'm happier in myself than I have ever been and that is enough for now. As both DH and I have AS traits (he is not interested in a diagnosis at all - he reckons he is who he is and how would it help) we'll be looking out for signs in our DC/s. I think support at the right time could help young people - I don't think I would have got depressed if I hadn't been socially isolated and unable to complete uni due to agoraphobia.

^long rambling posts trying to make sure I am properly understood. Is that AS or just me :)

Jason, your posts up thread... I think it is right that it is a fault of society for expecting everyone in the pond to be ducks and not swans and we should try and change that. But on an individual level, knowing you are a swan can be helpful and liberating.

(apologies for those who can't follow metaphors very well for continuing the NT= ducks ASD=swans undxASD=confused swans who think they are really rubbish at being ducks analogy)

I remember as a child, on our way to the Airport for a trip to Disney World, my older sister was told off for "taking the Mickey out of me" I was so upset, I thought they meant "Mickey Mouse" and she had made it so I wouldn't enjoy Disney any more.

I thought (because I'm good at English and enjoy writing) that I must understand metaphors and it was silly to think I might not. But then I remember stuff like this and I only figured out the "having your cake and eating it too" one in the last year or so and I have to think about "a stitch in time saves nine".

That strong desire to appear competent and want to appear to understand can mean it's difficult for me to tell a doctor what I don't understand and have difficulty with.

Sorry, I'm monologuing, sorry about your problematic neighbour with the applerage x