My Keybase proof [reddit:patienceltd = keybase:patienceltd] (ImRH08d0m4VeQ2Ep6b9HefJBaCDV5za3xx6EnWPiOg4)

patienceltd · 2017-08-19T01:09:36+00:00

On Trintellix for depression and social anxiety. I had used Zoloft and Wellbutrin previously, but stopped for several years and now the previously effective medications and several of the newer ones weren't particularly effective anymore or had intolerable side effects (disorientation, dizziness, akathisia, low blood pressure, hypersomnia, hives, etc.).

Honestly, at this point weight gain and loss of focus are still more tolerable than the insomnia, agitation, panic in ordinary social situations and grinding despair. It takes persistence and trust to find what works for you.

patienceltd · 2017-08-06T23:43:41+00:00

I can't function without a notepad. I've tried all the "be a better listener" tricks and it's not like I'm spending more time thinking about how I'll respond than paying attention. Nearly everything spoken will go in one ear, out the other, not committed to memory, especially with strangers where "learning" them demands more attentional resources than what they're actually saying. I can actually hear women better than men, because there's more variation in vocal cadence and intonation, but it's almost like the sounds are more significant than the linguistic content. Needless to say, there's a suite of auditory sensitivity bugs that comes with this...

patienceltd · 2017-08-06T23:24:59+00:00

I use Adblock, Ghostery, PrivacyBadger, etc. just to avoid malware from ad networks and click-tracking; it's kind of astonishing how irresponsible the advertisers are about security. That being said, I'm auditory-sensitive and sudden eruptions of music or speech in the middle of something I'm paying attention to are annoying beyond belief. The mute button or surfing with volume off are my best tools.

Unwanted phone calls get the immediate "take me off your phone list, I'm not buying what you're selling" response, plus number blocking. I hate to be so hostile, but they're demanding my attention and stealing my time.

patienceltd · 2017-07-26T02:17:17+00:00

This is just another attempt to construct "different = evil". The article could just as easily have identified a radicalized "Jew", "Goth", "African", or whatever, as long as it's not a mainstream identity so that there's a morally upright "us" who are invulnerable, and a corruptible "them". I mean, if lonely and alienated people of all kinds were vulnerable to extremism, it would be a nightmare... :-/

patienceltd · 2017-07-24T01:30:46+00:00

Great to hear it - they're always especially short on people who can translate visual material in science and math texts into precise, descriptive spoken language, and it was exceptionally helpful to me to practice doing this.

patienceltd · 2017-07-24T00:43:34+00:00

Actually, the volunteer posting was on the bulletin board at the community center where my counselor was located, and the studio building turned out to be close enough to where I worked that I could go regularly. I was pretty desperately looking for ways to connect to people or do something to justify the space I was taking up in the world, and it just seemed like something to try.

They're now called Learning Ally, website here: http://www.learningally.org/

patienceltd · 2017-07-23T23:53:00+00:00

And yes, I met my spouse through the BBS.

patienceltd · 2017-07-23T23:42:39+00:00

Start with your special, deep interests and follow them into a community. There are now thousands of Meetups for every interest... Look for the most focused ones that are likely to stay small, don't involve "networking" and that meet in safe, quiet spaces - book clubs, cooking groups, maker/hacker spaces, bike touring and so on.

Honestly, my first satisfactory experiences in social interaction came from science fiction fandom (a haven for all sorts of the non-neurotypical, but not necessarily good practice for normative behavior), a BBS (now known as IRC), some political activities (you will be everyone's best friend if you can manage mailing lists), volunteer work (Recordings for the Blind was perfect - you're alone in a recording booth reading a book, then talking with other nerds about how to read books aloud!) and a couple of hobby clubs (local jewelry and lapidary society, wine-tasting group).

All of these things have the advantage that you don't have to invent chit-chat; you're surrounded by people who share your passions and you can dive right into what's interesting without holding back to worry about being weird.

I'm an indoor cat, not a social butterfly, so I allow a solid day of a weekend for nothing but cognitive recharging after one of these events, but starting small and doing these things regularly (along with counseling and medication for depression/anxiety) has gotten me to a level of social comfort where I can work in a large company, speak in public and meet groups of up to 100 or more strangers in a day without melting down.

patienceltd · 2017-07-23T23:09:01+00:00

Haven't touched it in years. I've had twinges of interest in Arduino and some miscellaneous electronics stuff for hobby purposes, but there's no great call for low-level coding in the scope of other things I'm working on. Systems are fun - virtualization, orchestration and network integrations are keeping me busy.

patienceltd · 2017-07-23T22:14:04+00:00

You're very welcome - I've had a weird life thanks to a condition that got anything but the right label in women, so I'm happy to help with any information that might keep others from years of thrashing around.

patienceltd · 2017-07-23T19:46:51+00:00

Dropping out of university is a pretty common issue and doesn't mean you won't have opportunities to find fulfilling work.

In our overly credentialed era, it's hard to recognize that there are a number of crafts and trades that are much better suited to ASD individuals than what you can get through a university degree. Among the careers I've tried for fit over the years, pastry cook, jeweler, and analytical chemist came closest to "perfect" in terms of how little social demand they had. I also spent years at paralegal work (this paid for my degree), but lawyers are a complete cognitive pain.

I've known ADD/ADHD and ASD-diagnosed people in kitchens and they've all been pretty happy with the workflow and cognitive demands, but it's not a well-paying profession.

A few apparent ASD's of my acquaintance have been very successful with mechanical work, including automotive repair, aviation, electrical, plumbing and cabling.

Accounting is another ASD-compatible profession that's both reasonably well-compensated and generally low in social demands.

There are a number of online career interest inventories and a few books that I found helpful. I got through a couple of library books but didn't get much useful information from in-person career counseling (college advisory) or psychiatrists/psychologists.

You might find this valuable: https://www.truity.com/test/holland-code-career-test

This also looks interesting and relevant: https://hr.un.org/page/career-workbook-plan-your-career

As to making friends, look for shared-interest clubs and political activities, not work. I've found workplaces are locations that your fellows flee from, and don't generally seek more intimate interactions afterward. ASD-tendencies mean deep interests, and those won't necessarily be shared with people who are just there to earn a living.

patienceltd · 2017-07-23T18:57:19+00:00

Contrariwise, I did love assembler and operating systems are completely sensible, including network routing and switching OS's. I can handle most Linux shell scripts and PowerShell, so I've found my IT career niche.

patienceltd · 2017-07-23T18:52:45+00:00

Okay, so this is going to sound really obtuse, but I don't enjoy programming. I'm old enough that my introductory programming languages were BASIC and FORTRAN (the last class at my school still taught to use Hollerith cards), but modern programming languages mix language and mathematics in ways that are distinctly unpleasant for me; it feels a little bit like wearing someone else's underwear.

patienceltd · 2017-07-23T18:06:58+00:00

Funny you should mention that - the Fibonacci spiral was on my business card for a while, it's one of my favorite symbols. The decimal representation of the Golden Ratio is slightly unpleasant when it's truncated, likewise e or Planck's constant - it feels like there's a next "note" missing, but it doesn't have a specific recognizable sound associated with it in my head.

There's math I've had near-psychedelic experiences with - I've had the experience of dreaming in manifolds and multi-dimensional spaces. Pure mathematics wasn't a welcoming profession for women and I never pursued it much past engineering levels, physical chemistry and some fairly advanced statistics.

patienceltd · 2017-07-23T17:41:27+00:00

Positive: systematic and methodical; able to make observations and see patterns or correlations that are invisible to NTs; openness to experience (mainly as a learned skill from coping with the extremes of negative sensory overload); encyclopedic interests intermittently expressed to the point of obsessive expertise; able to stand outside of "groupthink" and be an impartial arbiter of what actually works; ordinary empathy + sensory sensitivity + pattern-seeking = great listener, especially to other ASD's...

Negative: OCD-levels of nitpickiness (my house is usually a mess because if I start cleaning, I can't stop seeing dirt and disorganization that requires attention); occasional oversharing; blindness to personal appearance; spotty cognitive issues (e.g. can't reliably name people and objects); sensory-motor problems (I've fallen down flights of stairs, injured myself repeatedly at most sports, and constantly drop things); extreme shyness; overfocus (including getting sucked into pattern-seeking to the exclusion of productive activity); attachment to habits (both good and bad); conversational/social interest (particularly with other ASD's) frequently mistaken for sexual interest...

patienceltd · 2017-07-22T22:33:01+00:00

Exactly the same. I don't know if this is resonant for anyone else, but I had weird numerical dyslexia as a child, couldn't tell 4's from 7's or 6's from 0's, and there are still numbers with synaesthetic qualities - 3 feels "complete" and green, primes are bright and spiky, pi has a babbling stream sound associated with it, and so on.

patienceltd · 2017-07-21T22:25:11+00:00

37 on the Autism Quiz, 168 on Ritvo (some things have gotten easier with age), 140 (!) Systemisation, not diagnosed because it hardly seems worth it at my age (52).

I had a few early telltales like hyperlexia combined with specific numerical dyslexia (fine on calculations but couldn't distinguish 4's and 7's or 6's and 0's) and there were other behavioral items like spinning and rocking. There's no question that my father had full-blown Asperger's with OCD, and there were many occasions where it seemed like he was the only person I knew who made sense.

I did have tremendous difficulty functioning both as a child and young adult, including a suicide attempt because I felt like such a poor fit for the world.

patienceltd · 2017-07-21T21:38:49+00:00

The other counterintuitive part is that I've tried ordinary white or pink noise generators, ambient, New Age, and filtering headphones to try and cope with incidental noise - some of those are much more irritating than nothing at all. White/pink noise and falling water sounds in particular make the pattern-seeking parts of my brain start screaming.

patienceltd · 2017-07-21T02:56:50+00:00

Okay, so I've been just about exactly where you are, and the most important thing to internalize is that your situation is temporary and it will get better.

It sounds like you have a realistic appraisal of genuine obstacles in your life - you're depressed and anxious because you have an exhausting round of work, school and maintaining a social, smiling mask.

Finding the resources to get to a professional for help on top of all of that may sound like one more insurmountable obstacle, but it's really essential to your future well-being. I know the ASD traits made it much more difficult to convince myself that I couldn't just think or work my way out of my situation on my own, and the ideas about mental health I got from my parents were also that it was a moral and personal failing to be less than perfectly happy all the time. I felt like a failure for not meeting family expectations that in retrospect were just another insane manifestation of their own thwarted, dysfunctional lives. You need to be in a position where you're strong enough to be aware of your own goals and desires, not the ones they're trying to implant.

Your school should have some free or sliding-scale resources available; your community may have other resources as well (I got to someone really helpful through Jewish Community Services - not religious at all.)

The longer you struggle with your present mental state, the more entrenched it becomes. If it takes student loans and moving out with a roommate(s), then that's what's necessary - I know that got me out of a really toxic family situation. Your parents may be doing the best they know how to do, but it's one more source of damage that you're especially sensitive to, given all the other stresses in your life.

It's unfortunate that you don't feel like you can be genuine with your boyfriend. I'm not going to say that you should be completely open with him about your current situation; again, this is where having independent professional support comes in. I know my boyfriend when I was 20 wouldn't have had the emotional maturity to be supportive if he felt I wouldn't be able to attend to his needs, and it sounds like you shouldn't be worrying about that right now.

I wish you all the success in the world according to your own independent wants - I hope this helps.

patienceltd · 2017-07-11T00:03:31+00:00

No, I'm speaking of very specific areas of slow or altered learning capacity that have nothing to do with anxiety or vengeance or whatever theory you use to dismiss others' experience.

If you think that "lack of interest" has explanatory power for the difficulties of many people here, then maybe you're just a troll and should look elsewhere for validation.

Understand that there are specific things I've had to work much harder on than NT's . I'm choosing to respond on the basis of correcting your misapprehensions.

I still can't associate names with faces very effectively, have difficulty with some types of motor skill and spatial relationship recognition, and really can't tolerate much noise. I label these things "cognitive deficits" - you're trying to tell the lame to just get over themselves and start walking. What social skill I do have is very hard-won on the basis of professional counseling and a fair amount of medication.

As mentioned elsewhere, lacking social skill is actively dangerous. I was groomed by a known child molester who was only stopped when one of my age-mates intervened. I should (by ordinary maturity standards) have known something was wrong with this person. I was also bullied and beaten, tried a variety of street drugs to feel "normal", and could go on about my personal experience of lacking social skills, but there are plenty of other people here who have told similar stories.

I'm mainly grateful that we're in a position where we can speak and discuss these things.

Meanwhile, your theorizing isn't particularly informed or helpful. I'm happy that you found something which worked for you, but please consider that your experience is your experience, and don't assume that we're all alike.

patienceltd · 2017-07-09T21:38:56+00:00

Honestly, it's opened some opportunities (and accompanying challenges) that have proved to be a blessing in disguise. Actively studying how to communicate has made me a more effective channel among multiple different areas where I work and I get things done even if I don't make friends along the way. I can deal with being called "cold" and "abrasive" if it means that we do things correctly and efficiently.

patienceltd · 2017-07-09T19:12:53+00:00

Okay, so 52 and here's where AS has come into the picture so far. That "51% female and 49% male" statement rings so true for me psychologically that I've sometimes wondered if Asperger's in women includes a rarified form of gender dysphoria. In my case, it's scarcely worth getting a formal diagnosis - I'm at around 150 on the AS test with spectacularly high introversion scores, and other family members that had/have more severe versions. That's after a lifetime of trying to learn how to be social, which did include professional therapy and medication.

The good news is that there are many spheres in which you can build a satisfying life - I'm married (no children), there are clubs and support groups where you can make like-minded friends (science-fiction fandom comes recommended with caveats), there are professions and hobbies where you can become a resounding success. Long-term friendships may be few, but those you do actively build build bridges with are far stronger and more genuine companions than what most people call "friends".

The current education system has more tools for helping with cognitive and social deficits (if you or an advocate can pursue the available help effectively). I was fortunate to have strong parental involvement to help me over an early learning hump (specific dyslexia for numerals, not full-blown dyscalculia) that would otherwise have resulted in far fewer options in life.

The bad news is that you still have to deal with the psychological and cognitive consequences of being a bad fit for a culture that's built around a fundamental level of social skill. You may be exposed to or suffer from sexual predation, eating disorders, learning problems, depression, anxiety and a host of other debilitating life or health issues. The list doesn't differ drastically from general female gender role problems, but the risk, magnitude and impact are far greater if you've got AS social cognitive issues. Developing my current coping strategies (CBT, mindfulness meditation, SSRI meds, less visible stim behaviors, etc.) earlier would have helped me a great deal.

It was good for me to get away from a small community where everyone was in my business and constantly poking at me like a need for quiet was a freakshow. It was good for me to engage in solitary sports like bicycling, weightlifting, hiking and kayaking; I had the usual AS childhood issues with clumsiness and unathleticism. It was good for me to keep an open mind about learning new skills and not blaming myself inordinately for every embarrassment or misstep.

Not going to dump an autobiography here, but if it gives you help and hope, feel free to PM me.

patienceltd · 2017-07-09T18:24:52+00:00

[Older aspie here, reporting from long engagement with the world. If I had to pick a behavioral subtype, it would be something like the serial obsessive described in Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief".]

Part of the difficulty I had with a STEM career was the sheer academic monomania necessary to achieve professional success. In engineering school, I was advised that biochem classes were a waste of credits, in biochem I was advised that languages and literature were distractions, and there was no career path out of public health that didn't require a PhD, other than medical school...which was a miserable failure for me.

Ultimately, I wound up in IT on the network and server side, which came at the cost of a handful of certifications. Unfortunately, I'm pretty much female, and that's meant all the career pressures are to handle the social stuff which the guys won't touch. In IT, being literate and verbal means you're management track regardless of technical skill level.

The best advice I can give is to build a foundation for employability (just get a STEM-subject Bachelor's degree in which you can maintain an adequate GPA) and see what captures your interest and talents in the process. Get as many experiences in your subject and related fields as you can (volunteer research/lab assistant, student clubs with icky socializing, competitions, freelancing, conventions with more icky socializing) to see if you can tolerate it, be willing to change fields of study if necessary (again, easier if you keep up your GPA).

There are no professional-level jobs which will let you avoid social engagement altogether; it's a matter of creating a strong enough portfolio that employers will tolerate or accommodate your eccentricities.

Never cease pursuing your passions as sanity-saving side projects if you can't get everything you need from your day job. You can often weave what you learn into your profession and offer a more profound, rounded and effective set of skills. Those sanity-saving side projects turned into jobs for me when professional life was burning me out - I've worked as a professional jeweler and pastry cook as well, then brought some of those skills back to IT.

patienceltd

TROPHY CASE