Sunday 3 May 2015

Post #1 - How I Guessed That I Was An Aspie

I was always a strange child.  Growing up in the late 1970s/1980s in probably the most obscure suburb that London could ever muster was difficult because everyone conformed.  They still do.  I did move away for a few years but I returned, pulled by the lure of reasonably priced property, excellent housing stock (the largest preponderance of semi-detached housing in the UK apparently) and having family in the vicinity.  Never mind, it's quiet and I have a house with high ceilings plus my third bedroom's a good size.  The picture below isn't my house by the way....


I won't bore you with my life story, because I can't really be bothered and it doesn't hugely matter for the sake of this blog.  Needless to say, that I was an odd girl, growing up as the middle child and only girl sandwiched between two brothers (not literally, sliced loaves are never that big.)  My policeman father died when I was five-years-old and my elder brother was to commit suicide when he was twenty-one.  Yeah, tragic I guess.  Add to the mix a mother with a brain tumour and other sad events then you've got the makings of a misery memoir, but I'm not a fan of wallowing in it.  Plus I was never whacked around the head with a spade.

I was a solitary girl with strange interests and an introverted nature.  I shouted at worms and was obsessed with breeding guinea pigs alongside many other pedestrian pastimes.  Friends were a bit alien to me and I enjoyed my own company and quite frankly, I still do.

Fast forward to the year 2013.  My only child, Edward, known as Ted, had previously been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in 2011 when he was four years of age and later with ADHD.  Myself and my neurotypical husband were wondering where it had all come from - maybe from his side as he had a physically and mentally impaired brother?  No, apparently.

My husband had an accident with rendered him on crutches so I had to attend the School Christmas Concert alone.  It is held in a large church located close to the school, so I got there early.  To cut a long story short I decided to question another parent's use of a 10inch iPad to record the whole thing on, thus blocking the view of other audience members and it all got a bit heated.  The school wanted to take action against me, but my husband explained the background to it all.



Later on we decided that I had ASD and completed all of the online tests.  They emerged in the clinical region of the condition.