Wow is all I can say...

Wow. I will never doubt my AS diagnosis. Yet a new revelation into myself. I went to a new doctor. A doctor that has been here forever, a very well respected man. We started talking about my Asperger's diagnosis and the amount of medication that I have had to take. He said that he is very suprised at the amount of Seroquel that I take, and as such, and in his reviewing of my file, and after a long string of questions and answers, he told me something that I never would have guessed. He thinks that I have co-morbid bi-polar disorder. Usually I would dismiss any doctor that makes light of my AS diagnosis. See, when one doesn't suffer from very low depressive states, they assume that they aren't bi-polar. However, he stated that the AS characteristics are there, however, the night terrors and continued anxiety that I face, despite the high doses of ssri and antipscyhotics proves that we are dealing with more than just AS. True, as in my last post, AS can be manifested in many ways, many that are very similar to bi-polar. But as we started going over my apparent cycles of ups and downs, it seemed to fit. I do have periods of mania that have led to impulsive situations. Overspending, bad relationships, fights, starting things when I feel "up", stopping things when I am "down". It fits, and for some reason, the signs have been hitting me lately, very strong and all around me. I could never understand why I was so up and down, but mostly down. TThe biggest of his concern is that we get this handled or diagnosed, if it is what it is along with AS...because I explained my often thoughts of suicide that intrude my thought patterns. I told him "I would never do it, I coudln't do that to my family". His answer made sense, like my grandmother, after the kids were raised and gone, she killed herself. She was bi-polar. What if one day I did do it? I think of it all the time...but I love life too much. I just know that I need to keep on towards my goals. As my doctor said, I should be functioning in society. And then he told me I was adorable. Gee...that was nice of him. So...I am exploring the idea that this is co-morbid for me. We will see how the medication helps me. I am cautiously optomistic. I will keep you tuned.

Its been a little while since I have updated my blog. I could say that it's because I have been busy, which I have, yet truly it is because I fell into a "non-blogging" funk. Sure, I had two kids in school, one who is in the process of getting an individualized education plan (IEP), I also had a lost and then found dog, lots of paper work due to moving from ID to WA, and a couple of ski days. Yet, really, if I had wanted to blog I would have. Today, though, something motivated me to catch up in my blogging world.

Blogging to me represents what is great about community. While being in my own community I can join Asperger's support groups, or even go to the UW for my kids, yet I don't like to be pinned down to any one group, set of friends, or even a particular mood that allows me to make and sustain a friendship. I have gone into hiding, basically, to everyone but my family. Facebook friends can find me, and maybe I will end up hanging out one day soon, yet I feel better just being alone in my own routine, working on my family, writing, and helping my kids in school. Okay, to go back to the reason I felt like blogging, oh yeah, on Oprah today she brought back the CA family that has the 9 year old schizophrenic daughter. I feel for that family and little girl, because usually schizophrenia doesn't serface until middle age or at least the teen-aged years for the most part.

That show really made me think. I have heard that there are many similarities in disorders such as Schizophrenia, Bi-Polar, OCD, to Autism Spectrum Disorders such as Asperger's or "high functioning autism". Having lived my life with Asperger's Disorder, I truly can understand such similarities. The remaining blog is about how I found this out...

As a child I lived in my own world. Sensory issues bothered me greatly, yet when I could be alone out on the 10 acres where I grew up, I was truly in another world. This world was beyond what one could call imagination. I was so engrossed in this "other world" of forest, fairies, adventures, and imaginary play, that I lived it. Every day was the same thing, it was as if I was a part of this world, yet I knew the difference.

Still, my decisions in engaging in such long hours of imaginative play, sometimes brought negative consequences. Consequences that started small, yet moved to bigger problems as I grew older. What was first fun imaginative play became time consuming obsessive play, in which I had to be in my alternate reality. It seemed that hours and days were lost in such play. My ability to interact with others seemed to only be able to occur when my imagination was involved, dragging them into my imaginative world, and withdrawl pains if I was forced to be in the real world. How true this became when I was a teenager and my imagination turned to pain, as I couldn't really have what I wanted and obsessed about. Reality for me was a mix of imagination and real life, whereby in order to have some sort of a social life, I had to keep my "other world" secret. I wasn't ever encouraged to explore my imagination in my family, yet my first grade teacher helped to bring it out when I won my chance as an author. I won the "young author" award and was sent to a young writers conference. Sadly, no other teachers encouraged my writing, and therefore I didn't continue writing until I became an adult.

So where was I? Oh, I was explaining why these other disorders are so similar to ASD's. As a woman with Asperger's I struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder, I struggle with imagination vs. reality, wants vs. needs, and how to maintain a friendship. I can't control certain things that I am thinking, what I mean I can't always keep what I am thinking to myself. If you spend any fair amount of time with me, you will discover that you will generally hear every detail about my life within the first couple of hours. If someone says something that I don't agree with it, I will literally feel as if I will explode until I set them straight. I can only call or talk to friends at certain times, say after a strong cup of coffee. Otherwise I can't fathom the idea of being social. I feel paranoid often. All of high school I felt as if everyone was pointing at me saying I was a loser. If I say the wrong thing, or God forbid speak too soon, or shoot out an angry e-mail; well, I will obsess about it for days and not be able to calm the anxiety. It sucks! I hate it, however, despite years of hating myself, I have learned to love myself. How else could I understand my world, or my children, if I didn't learn to love myself and see how God could fill the empty space in my heart.

Finally, God did fill that empty space. I have thousands of bad decsions and situations that I have been in and still can't understand. The one thing that I have learned is that God loves me and fills that need. He has shown me that there is a world of people out there just like me, parents with kids just like mine, and women who have lived a life of hurt because they just "didn't fit in." So, if I say you are my friend and don't take the time to call you or email you, its not because I don't care, its just that I just can't always handle "people". Not specific people, but people in general.

More as I learn more about myself...stay tuned.