A New Direction, Not Entirely Unexpected

I haven't gone back through this blog to see if there are any posts that dealt with a particular moment in my life that should have sent alarms blaring, but now I can see it for what it really was. 

Starting in 2009, I began to suspect that I had Aspergers. At least that is when I began to suspect again; as Tracie pointed out, I felt I had it long before, but somehow forgot. 

No, the event that should have sent alarms blaring was in early summer of 2007. I was being moved to another job in my contract position, one that had the potential to become a real, permanent position. This was not in the technical support area, where I was far more comfortable, but in a retirement and benefits position. I graciously accepted the position, as in the early 1990's I did a similar job when I worked for AT&T. This should be a piece of cake.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Even though the source material wasn't really that difficult, I struggled. For some reason, I just could not wrap my head around all the nuances of the position; the variables, the terms, the numbers. It was so very confusing to me. In the end, I completed the training, but barely, and soon found myself doing a job that made me feel panicky every day. Ultimately, I contacted the placement company, and they found another job for me, back in the technology support area. 

The panic I felt in with that class and position I had felt before, many years before, when dealing with algebra. For some reason, even though I love science and use plenty of maths, algebra is something I simply cannot do. This goes back to high school. When I applied myself in other maths, I succeeded. Never with algebra. 

I put the failure of both the algebra and that position to many things; the trainer, the instructors, the fact that, at least where the benefits job was concerned, silly human variables were involved. 

Surely, it couldn't be me. 

But to be honest, I knew better. 

Being and appearing fairly bright are really two different things. There are some things I absolutely excel at, what my childhood neurologist called "tunneled interests". There are things I'll good at, such as language. Then, there will be things that I simply am not interested in, and things I will simply struggle with, even if I wanted to understand them.

Never did it enter into my mind that those struggles were due to a disorder. Even when I began to suspect that I might have Aspergers it didn't, though I suspected the problems with algebra were probably in some way involved.

In actuality, there are many things I struggle with, and always have. 

Since September of 2014, I have been officially diagnosed. Aspergers is no longer a diagnosis; I have an autism spectrum disorder, with serious comorbidities. Knowing now what I do has made looking back an interesting exercise, and I can now see many instances when it was certainly the undiagnosed problems at work. 

These diagnoses existed in some form or another since my childhood. My doctor was hinting at that. But an Aspergers diagnosis would not exist until the 1980's, after I graduated high school. Many of the struggles I've had my entire life can be traced back to this. If only I had known then, I might have changed what I could have, and certainly would have been better prepared for others. 

There is more, and I will talk about them.

Here.