Dealing with it

I was keen to start this blog because I’ve felt for a long time that writing is my most successful mode of communication. I find that I can really express my thoughts and feelings well this way – that my written words tell the story the right way. I was building up a lot of thoughts about my newly discovered AS, and had no means of expressing them. The thoughts were building up because AS had become one of my Special Interests – and Special Interests need attention – they need to be thought about and explored.

This blog has become my mouthpiece for explaining my Asperger’s, and as I’m still dealing with the discovery, at times I find I’m writing things that end up feeling quite uncomfortable.

That’s happening quite a lot right now. I’m having quite a hard time coming to terms with things I’ve always done, and ways I’ve always felt. In the past they were just me being me, but now they are so obviously very different from the norm. I’m feeling shocked.

I’m also feeling a good deal of background anxiety at the moment, which keeps sticking it’s head above the parapet and giving me a bad day. Anxiety is my big co-morbid condition, and I’ll write more about it at some point.

I’m feeling strangely blind – how could I spend 35 years being aware that I was different, yet not seeing how profoundly different I was? Did I really not see it, or did I just do a good job of burying the uncomfortable truth? Or maybe the anxiety is just beating me up about it.

I know the uncomfortable days will pass, and that if I take a couple of days away from thinking about AS that the anxiety will ease too. Ultimately, I feel that I have to push through this to make sense of it. I understand a lot about Asperger’s these days, and some about how it affects me. One day I’ll make sense to me, without the anxiety and without the feeling that being different is bad. I know this is the case because I spent 35 years feeling that way before I knew what AS was.

My point in writing this is to show that coming to terms with Asperger’s isn’t always easy. I read a lot in other blogs from people who have recently been diagnosed as adults, that suggests that they are finding the adjustment easy. Maybe they are, or perhaps they just prefer not to share the difficult bits. My desire to express my thoughts via writing and my anonymity in this blog mean that I feel able to express the more difficult aspects of my condition with relative ease.

If you are discovering your Asperger’s right now, then you have my best wishes. If you are finding the road to be a rocky one, then I hope you can take comfort in the fact that you aren’t the only one. I for one, feel safe in the knowledge that in time the road will get get less rocky.

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