Autistic people are not failed versions of Normal!

Great Ted article

I spent most of my life seeing myself more as a failure than as a success. Because somehow my high IQ didn't translate in an MIT degree.  However now that I know that I am autistic and that to function in society I had to work 3-4 times as hard as most people, I'm actually a success.  I always wondered why it felt things so were difficult. I was always told I seem to make things so difficult. Well because for me they were difficult.

I realized recently that the 8 years of therapy I've been doing has empowered me. It has given me the ability to understand my emotions.  I know it seems incredulous that a 50+ year old woman would not understand her own emotions but I didn't. I couldn't identify how I was feeling. I could not understand why I got so frustrated at times or would just blow up.   Now I understand that I get sensory overload.  When I'm overwhelmed anything can set me off to have a meltdown or shutdown.   I  am able to identify emotions and process them sometimes on the same day, or the next day.   Before it could take me weeks or months to process. Sometimes I'd forget about the event instead of identifying the emotions associated.

It explains why sometimes when I relate a story from the past I can get very angry. I never processed the emotion then, each time I retell story I reget angry all over again. It also explains why I can seem to lie when asked how I'm feeling and say different emotions for when I appear to have same emotion to others....

I've realized also that the 8 years of therapy gave me the language to be able to tell my therapist I thought I was autistic and why. I've suspected on and off for years honestly, but then kept thinking... my mom would have known... she was a first grade teacher.   I know when I first read about Aspergers nearly 20 years ago, I wondered how much it applied to me... I knew that I had many male friends around me that would be on the spectrum, especially in computer and BBS related environments.

So proud

I've blogged about my youngest daughter moving to the UK, somewhere in London.  This is the same daughter who was clingy as a child. Until I started working when she was 4, she spend a great deal of time sitting on me or being held by me. I never had to worry about losing her in a mall, she was generally velcroed to my leg, or so it seemed most of the time.

I couldn't fathom why she needed to be so close to me, but I accepted that it was a deep need and figured that if I tried to fullfill it as much as I could, she would grow up to be reasonably independent.

So to see my daughter, first move to the UK and now travel around Europe just blows my mind and makes me so incredibly proud.

I'm proud that she is capable of doing the things that thrill her gorilla. I don't know that I would have had the balls to travel around Europe in my early 20's but loving that she does.

Loving the fact that I have 2 very independent daughters who are following their dreams. I am beyond proud of both of them. I miss them but am so happy that they are happy and living their lives. We only have one life to live and its great to live it to the fullest.