Hi Zer,

I am also a depressive. I also had a fair amount of abuse as  a child but it has
taken a toll. I did therapy for it and i got much better still i had problems in
the world. Problems with a different focus. It's good to know someone diagnosed
even later than i was. Still i first had major problems in grade school so it
was 37 years before i was "bipolar" and then 19 until i became Aspie. I think
before that they had me on borderline personality or the like. I collect
diagnoses like baseball cards. LOL

My uniqueness is both fun and painful. Sometimes the rest of the world seems
like its on crazy mode and at other times I just feel so isolated in my little
Aspie world. 

One of my BIG problems is that i have only once been able to hold down a full
time job without getting fired or burnt out. I also tend to be tired a lot.
Entry level jobs bore me to tears and the managers tend to be I want to say
cretins but I really don't want to be that unkind. Think of a better word and
replace it with that.

I have had lots of time in Junior College lacking the bravery to move up to the
big time. I have certificates in ornamental horticulture, HTML, web design but
can't find a job since i live in a rural city. so i am doing a course in AutoCAD
with a certificate in engineering. My brother is an engineer, his wife is a
cartographer and my brother in law was a patent attorney so geekiness runs in
the family. But then so does depression and alcoholism.

I am really loving the AutoCAD but not so much the stupid math part of the
thing. I'm getting there though. I will look for the book too as i read about
anything. No romance novels though. My idea of romance is a good adventure
story. In some ways i am not very girlie.

Good to meet you and I'm looking forward to reading up on the group.
Take care, Nora

--- On Sun, 9/21/08, Zer <zerendipt@...> wrote:
From: Zer <zerendipt@...>
Subject: [Aspies-Anon] Welcome, Nora...Happie Aspie to you...: NEW in Oz
To: Aspies-Anon@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sunday, September 21, 2008, 1:49 AM











Nora, for 35yrs I had anti-depressant meds offered to me, frequently

by MDs who were doped to the gills themselves. One psychiatrist was a

narcoleptic whose eyes rolled up in his head as I talked - and he

refused to admit that he was slipping away, probably reacting to my

Aspie (undx'd at that time, but surely evident in my deadpan delivery

of childhood horrors that I'd survived, in a manner of speaking). Now

that I have claimed my own Aspie dx, my social worker tell me that my

clinical depression is "in remission" - and I let her get away with

that, as she and others at my HMO failed to notice that I was simply

NOT depressed. I met truly depressed people in 35yrs of attending all

sorts of therapy groups and workshops. I could never explain how I

was able to do things they felt were beyond their reach, like get a

job, get out of bed, go to work. At 60, I was led to read an autism

site that recommended a book, a novel by Eliz.Moon (Speed of Dark)

that convinced me that I had found a dx that fit me like a glove. As

soon as I finished reading the book, I dialed my social worker and

asked her to set up an assessment for an official dx. She did so.

She is case manager and knows me well for many years, with files that

go back years before she came aboard at the HMO. So she was a rich

resource for a psychologist who met with me for an hour. I now have a

paper they created so that I have documentation for my Asperger's dx.



I cannot express what a massive RELIEF it has been for nearly 5yrs, to

know that my behavior, my Aspie traits, my outside-the- box thinking

and processing, is all part of Asperger's. As I heard myself saying

to the social worker who has been a support for many years, I AM NOT

BROKEN... scared me to hear that word, but it captures precisely how I

feared that I had been irreparably damaged by childhood trauma. Turns

out that Aspies tune out some abuse. We re-frame what hurts us, so

that it becomes less painful, more bearable. Kaleidoscopes do this,

allowing colorful pieces to fall into pretty patterns. I've always

loved kaleidoscopes. Now I understand why. They reflect my world

view, my habit to re-frame (a NeuroLinguistic Programming or NLP

concept) what is painful. I also now understand how I slip away, how

I manage to remove my tender psyche from events that my body cannot

escape. I just let my body manage as best it can, while I slip away

and hide out Elsewhere. Now that I'm 64 and aware that I'm Aspie, I

am working hard to stop slipping away and leaving my body to cope as

best it can. I am becoming a better advocate for my neglected body.



It's not easy. But I think it is worth learning about setting limits

and boundaries that I never learned to establish - or to honor.
























[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]