Beginning the Journey - Discovering you have #Aspergers

I've had a hard life.  I've made more than my fair share of mistakes, and have had to learn many things the hard way. However, recently I've begun a new journey to understand myself after several insights have come to life after years of being in the dark, and quite ignorant  as to who I really was.

The first insight began in earnest when I got very sick 5 years ago with a prostate infection, that triggered a whole bunch of other things. It took a long time but eventually found a doctor who could identify the acute problems I had, as well as deal with the chronic pain which he diagnosed me with fibromyalgia.

The second insight began in my childhood, but was only in the last month that I have been brought to seriously look at my childhood. I am discovering more and more about myself and my childhood as I look through the lens of being an aspie, and having Aspergers Syndrome. I have just recently been diagnosed, and it makes so much sense than all the other labels that I have been assigned throughout my life.

The immense difficulties with reading body language, and subtleties and non verbal stuff that everyone seems to have except me. Being told constantly when growing up to "use common sense" to which I would frustratingly retort "if it was so common, than I would have it!"

I have a lot of analytical skills, I get obsessed with things at at a very deep level, I get so focused on my thoughts, that I totally miss people talking to me, or what they are saying when I am in the middle of a conversation with them. I tend to monologue instead of dialogue.

I think in pictures, and find it frustratingly difficult to retain things aurally. I map out in my mind everything that I am thinking about, and sometimes I find it difficult to use words to describe my thoughts and a wipe board is my best friend.

I am just sharing my thoughts as I go through this process, this journey into learning who I really am. Living with fibromyalgia effects my physical life, and living with Aspergers effects my neurological and behavioural life. The effects of both bear on my psychological life.

Now that I am aware of myself as an aspie, perhaps I can learn how to relate to others, but also understand that some things are just the way I am made, and that is ok.

I hope to write more as I go through my life and the journey of understanding and dealing with Aspergers and Fibromyalgia.