thank you for this space.

and hello!

I'm 33, diagnosed with AS in 2009. Not sure that's all that's going on, but the more I hang out at my local AS group and read -- especially the increasing amount of stuff on *women* and ASDs, I am definitely dwelling somewhere on the spectrum.

I also have diagnosed Central Auditory Processing Disorder. Mainly, I can't filter out background noise, trouble distinguishing between certain words especially when the person is talking quickly, and I seem to have "below average" sequencing memory.

That's all I know so far with all that. I'm exploring more.

I'm Canadian, and recently married someone I met on a group discussion forum over 3 years ago. I recently immigrated to the US and got my green card this month! I'm adjusting to the big changes all of this involves, but not quickly or all that well. I feel a great deal of stress and I am currently working on advocating more for myself and getting supports in place.

I am really depressed and I know that some of this is changes like moving to a new country, trying to navigate a totally foreign health care system, adjusting to living with my spouse (we didn't really get a good go at living together before marriage, which is not necessarily bad, but it's challenging. We're in counselling). But I'm also depressed at a deeper level with all the stuff I'm discovering about disabilities I have and what feels like the "loss of my potential". I feel pretty worn down and exhausted, and seeing how my social and communication difficulties have impacted my life has been overwhelming.

I used to be this "gifted, genius-level, talented, quiet but quirky nerd" person who had so many choices, and yet I see how the traumas in my life, my being so quiet and good masked my problems. Especially the silence, isolation, and depression I felt from being "smart" but "trapped under glass", having to work so hard to do what came so easily to others, feeling like something was wrong on some deeper level but having no way of verbalizing it. I think I had depression from age 8 and in grade 5 a teacher expressed concern, that perhaps I was bored or something. I got a second gifted assessment, but back then the idea of being gifted (which I was, maybe at the low end) and also learning disabled wasn't on the radar. Aspergers definitely wasn't. I guess I'm kind of grieving the person I thought I could be. Rather unproductive, but it's where I'm at.

I fit the "typical" bill of the AS girl who has less narrow and intense interests than the diagnosis suggests, and is highly sensitive, intense and emotional (which now makes me a neurotic and drama kind of woman), had a few friends, and didn't cause any behaviour problems... My adolescence feels like lost years, as I fell into a hole because of abuse that happened (and if it didn't happen, I suppose I wouldn't have developed typically anyway).

Gah. I could go on, but I will move to some positives: I am a quiet person who cares a lot about other people. I'm a great yoga teacher, artist, and lover. I get along well with kids (up until about age 8). I am insightful and empathic in many ways, even though I can't understand social nuances and subtexts. I love music, but I can't hear the lyrics, so my experience sometimes feels like it resides in the purest realm of sound. I love the thick, buttery sound of a french horn. I love dissonance and resolution. .

I took (and loved) anthropology in graduate school and I love contradiction in ideas. I sometimes think in black and white, but I love the grey. I love the messiness of life, the discomfort that happens because everything doesn't fit neatly together. I love disruption. Right-wing thought, or any 'camp' that tries to define the world in absolute terms, in good and bad, demonizing the alternative viewpoints as lies) disturbs me because it does not seem to account for realities existing in opposition to one another but still existing. I love Foucault's notion of power. I love the idea of "power with" instead of power as a zero-sum game. I like poetry even when I don't understand it. Kind of like music, in that sense. I love the musicality of words. But I also love poetry that speaks something. Stuff that drips with all kind of things that aren't explicit. Things that I can't put into words, necessarily, but I grok them all the same.

And what can I tell you my brother, my killer
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I'm glad you stood in my way.

If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me
Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.

Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried.

--Leonard Cohen

~Aurtist
(taking trouble from my eyes, or at least trying, so it's not there for good)