Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hi, I'm Anneko. I'm 23 (24 come October, year of the Rat!), but people usually guess that I'm much older. I have Asperger's Syndrome.

When I was about eight, my father and I were both diagnosed as having OCD. I was also diagnosed with ADD, sans hyperactivity, but this didn't seem to cover everything. I also suffered from depression, a year of extreme insomnia, and physical symptoms that most adults refused to believe were real.

In third grade (the year of no sleep), I read an article about Autism in Reader's Digest. I took it to my mom and said 'I think I have this'. Since my mother has always worked in education, and almost always Special Education, and had worked with severely autistic kids, she was quick to say I couldn't possibly be autistic.

In fifth grade, the school counselor started asking her leading questions about autism, but at home I didn't 'display autistic-like behaviours', and she discounted it.

It wasn't until after I'd started at college that she found an article on Asperger's. She came home and said to us 'I think you have this'. Since then, my dad, my brother, and I have all been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome.

At first I resisted it-- I was so used to being OCD and ADD, and I guess the Aspie is naturally resistant to change, but the more I read about it, the more I accepted it, and having the right diagnosis has been incredibly helpful. I've been able to better find strategies that work, better explain my needs and issues, and better know myself. And I've found that there are other people who understand a little of what it is I've gone through. People who can help me, and also people who I can help. So now that I've adjusted to my diagnosis, I am proud to be Aspie.

My mom now works almost exclusively with kids on the autism spectrum, and it's her passion as well as her job. Spectrum people are some of her favourite people, and she's been an enthusiastic advocate, resource, and support system.

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Anneko

I'm not really hyper at all-- I was diagnosed ADD-no-hyperactivity because I had 'trouble paying attention'. Sometimes the world inside my head was more real than the world outside, I guess. And even if I did pay attention, sometimes I didn't understand things if they weren't put a certain way. And I guess stimming can look like fidgeting if you don't know what you're looking for...

If someone else in my family was *already* diagnosed with Asperger's, I probably would have taken to it a lot quicker, too, but we had all been misdiagnosed, so it was the first I'd heard of it.

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Anneko

Stimming is short for self stimulation. Like hand flapping, body spinning or rocking, spinning toys, etc. A lot of theories are behind the behavior. I think its soothing, and that everyone does it in some way or another, it just appears more frequently with autism.