Latest / Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD / My Autism Story (How I Was Diagnosed)

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My Autism Story (How I Was Diagnosed) · Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD

• 0:00
  Hey, my name is Don and I have Asperger's Syndrome.
• 0:03
  So I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome on the 23rd of June
• 0:10
  2013. When I was 26 years old, I found
• 0:14
  that not a shock to be diagnosed with autism, but it was a shock
• 0:17
  to be diagnosed that later on in life.
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  And I feel like there wasn't much available in the 90s to
• 0:23
  diagnose me, you know all my life.
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  I'd been going through struggles like my parents took me to see
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  such a child psychologist. Just took me to see doctors took
• 0:32
  me to see her in all the teachers and the principals and
• 0:34
  the schools to find out what was going on.
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  Why would my grades lacking why wasn't like playing outside of
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  the other kids? Why did I have to have you know,
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  extra curriculum and different areas where parents didn't know
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  what was going on. They didn't understand and they
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  tried their best but there wasn't a definitive answer back
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  in the 90s, you know, when I was in school when I was in primary
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  school, I had such fear of social anxiety.
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  I could barely actually get up and go to the actual school and
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  more importantly I Had a hard time actually getting to school,
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  you know, actually being there in school was difficult.
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  I remember specifically when I was about nine eight or nine
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  years old all of the the clashes who are on a weekly trip to go
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  swimming, but I was so scared of going outside of the classroom
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  and getting on a bus with a bunch of kids and they're going
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  to swimming pool and having the same realization that I'm in a
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  swimming pool with loads of kids that they made reasonable
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  adjustments for me to stay in the classroom on my own, you
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  know was a 90s and so whenever One went to the SportsCenter to
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  go swimming. I was left in the classroom to
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  my own devices and I like that I like being away on I like that
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  peace and quiet you gave me a chill time away from the other
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  kids and I get to just sit in the reading corner and just
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  chill out really that was the idea of what I did and I like
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  that but you know, nobody thought it was that strange
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  because I was always like that, you know, as I was that strange
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  kid. Another time was I remember
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  specifically not being able to go outside in the playground up
• 1:56
  but playtime and three times because you know having to go
• 1:59
  outside I don't be with other kids.
• 2:01
  It's such a difficult thing when it was break time or lunchtime.
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  My parents made a deal with the school teachers that I was able
• 2:08
  to sit indoors and play on the computers because I've always
• 2:11
  been obsessed with computers. So that kind of worked really
• 2:14
  well when I was a kid. I was obsessed with space
• 2:18
  science and computers and Robotics and electronics and
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  chemistry. I was so taken by the idea of
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  trying to make cool stuff and creativity with just like oozing
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  out. With me my parents bought me
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  loads of chemistry kit and modes of like electronic kits so I can
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  make my own videos and then I end up getting really into CB
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  radios. Then I was actually really into
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  robotics. I wanted to build a robot and
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  then a guy that I knew a dyslexic kid from down the road
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  it me and him built like a robot a robot that you would normally
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  see them like robot was you know, it was like basically like
• 2:50
  a an RC car that we kind of adapted added things onto and I
• 2:55
  was always into this. We also created extension
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  Ariel's for them walkie-talkies. Get those like cheap like
• 3:00
  dullest all walkie-talkies in it one pound in the pound shop or
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  he's talkies and we developed an aerial that we can adapt to that
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  that would increase the range by a mile at least which was just
• 3:11
  amazing. And I love that.
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  I was just so so into that and I love computers, but we weren't
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  fortunate out have a computer at home at the time when I was a
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  child. So the only access I had was in
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  school and the good thing about it was not going outside of the
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  playground. I got to play with computers in
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  school. Now when I was in that primary
• 3:27
  school age, you know between the ages of like five And maybe ten
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  my parents took me to see child psychologist and they said that
• 3:33
  I had you know dyslexia. They also said I had like
• 3:36
  short-term memory loss. That was just quite an intense
• 3:38
  kid. I was overly shy I had
• 3:40
  agoraphobe Iya. There was a bunch of different
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  kind of conditions that they labeled me with but none of them
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  were was autism and other time it was because autism wasn't
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  something that they knew about, you know, it wasn't something
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  that was in, you know, a remote town in Wales in the United
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  Kingdom, you know, it was when Cannon and Asperger were doing
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  his research. Not that was way different
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  timings went to when they started diagnosing it in the 90s
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  in America. So I was left out of that kind
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  of ability to have help or somebody who understood exactly
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  what was going on and I found that difficult but then it went
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  up a notch when I was in Primary School in pain, she still
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  walking to and from school and I love this and I felt a really
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  deep sense of calm when I was in my parents and I like that
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  because I felt comfortable and safe.
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  But as soon as they left I felt like I just been you know,
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  stripped naked and thrown into A nice cold bath of water, and I
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  just didn't know what to do. I couldn't focus.
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  I was so anxious in class that I couldn't focus on my work
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  somewhere greed dipped in and primary school.
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  I couldn't communicate with my peers because like I had so much
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  pent-up anxiety and also the communication and I was thinking
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  about Robotics and Science and my peers want to talk about
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  football and like just I don't know hanging out and kissing
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  girls and stuff, and I didn't care at all for those things.
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  I wanted to just I don't know just do me and just I don't know
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  just just do it. Tonics and do I do know it was
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  just super into science and nobody else was I also used to
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  get in a lot of trouble during that period because the teachers
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  would try and say stuff and I was more educated in certain
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  fields of like, I don't know. I was really obsessed with UFOs
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  and aliens and that led me on to reading what the pyramids and
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  and then science in general and I always used to crack the
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  teachers and because I think in a very logical way and because I
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  was thinking very literal my parents have to keep coming into
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  the school and speaking with the teachers to say like why is
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  dandy Playing this Wise Dan saying that and why is he
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  correcting the teachers and you shouldn't be doing that and
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  yeah, they just kind of felt like they weren't happy with the
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  fact that I was correcting. You know, he is this like seven
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  to eight year old kid correcting your ability to teach and I
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  think they found a took offense that I didn't know what the time
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  is just kind of later on in life when I figured this out.
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  But like I was saying my parents to walk me to and from school
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  which I loved but then I didn't like Saigon of the school.
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  So I was just kind of make up excuses to go home because I
• 5:58
  fell sick and I just want to go Then stuff and I felt way more
• 6:01
  secure my room with my stuff and that's how I always was now when
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  I went to high school there was a different kind of tone, you
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  know, you can't have kids between you know, 12 and 16
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  getting a parent walking into from school when you know, the
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  schools only or two or three blocks away from your house.
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  So this is a difficult time. So when I first started High
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  School, I was in my first home which was a home where I grew up
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  in and it was about two or three blocks away from the house and
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  my parents I couldn't walk into from school because they were
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  working and stand where I work with my siblings and they were
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  only in the school for a year. So it was really difficult.
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  One of the most difficult times of my life was getting to and
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  from high school for a few months in that first year of
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  high school. It was just so overwhelming.
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  I just felt like I can explain it.
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  I don't have you ever seen the movie Beetlejuice where they
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  open the door then the two the two characters are dead.
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  And then they say they want to go outside and The Beatles You
• 6:57
  said you can't go outside. Can you open the door?
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  So I Huge sand pit and the stakes are going to eat you and
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  that's exactly what it's like, you know outside between being
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  in school being in my home. Would you like to basis actually
• 7:08
  being outside in public was like without my parents or anybody?
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  I knew who was just like I was drowning in like this sea of
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  sand and just it was just horrible.
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  It was like for the worst experience of my life to date
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  with the condition. So that was hard.
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  But what happened was my parents are getting a bit annoyed.
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  They were like all are Why can't you just be knowing?
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  Why can't you just go to school? You know, you have to learn to
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  walk to school in your own. You can't be this like, you know
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  worried about going to school. They didn't understand that and
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  I guess it was getting to their the end of their tether and
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  their patients are wearing thin because he didn't know they had
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  no answers. No doctors will tell him what
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  was wrong with me and they were just like, oh, well, you know,
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  this is Dan and it just must really been a half my parents as
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  well. But then some quite interesting
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  happened although traumatic. It was quite good in a way.
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  My my family's lost the family business it imploded and then we
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  lost the house of Living in your parents owned and then we moved
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  into like State accommodation or Council accommodation here in
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  the UK and then you know you hit with welfare.
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  It was like a different situation and then I have to
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  move into a room with my brother and we all like move does this
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  like crazy small house compared to the house.
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  We were living in that we actually owned and then it was
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  just a like a rough neighborhood.
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  But my dad grew up in this neighborhood and it was kind of
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  like he knew everybody in it. So the whole street they were
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  really friendly and it was rough as hell but they they're really
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  friendly they were really nice and they do anything for you and
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  it's kind of Nice, so I got to feel a sense of because my dad
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  was born in that street and he knew everybody in there.
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  It kind of extended my house outside onto the street and that
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  was that was super revolutionary because I was able to learn like
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  go outside and play my bike in the street or like learn to
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  skate bombs right now. I love in the street, but the
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  cool thing was the house was situated back-to-back with the
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  high school. So this made the commute to high
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  school very very easy. I just walked out of my door
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  jumped over the back wall of our house and I was in the school.
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  That's how close it was the glittery the School boundary
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  wall was the wall to my garden. So it was really good and that
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  changed my life for the my relationship with school.
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  And without that change. I'm not sure how I would have
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  dealt with school. That was really good.
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  I loved I love that. We have the ability to do that
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  when we had, you know, making light of a dark situation, but
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  you know, that was cool and I managed to actually not thrive
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  in school, but find my Niche I was able to then go into school
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  and play music and I started playing music with some people
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  in. Cool and music was to me like
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  numbers is like music and numbers are so the same and I
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  love music. So I taught myself to play like
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  I don't know seven or eight just different instruments and I
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  joined a band and I started singing in like I'm love music
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  so music became my passion because we're science.
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  I couldn't get it academically because none of the teachers in
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  the school understood. My need are my Educational
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  Learning type. They couldn't teach me something
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  so I missed out on all the science stuff I wanted to do so
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  that was kind of difficult. But then if we fast forward,
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  Right to my mid-20s on my late 20s.
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  I was actually trying to I was actually trying to figure out
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  what was going on in my life and I'd a huge meltdown in in work
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  and then because they changed my desk around basically we had a
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  desk or all the same. It was the first proper big job
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  I had and you know grown-up kind of job and then they changed my
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  desk and then we're moving everything and I got
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  overwhelmed. I had a huge meltdown like a
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  huge breakdown and then they were like, oh my God, and what's
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  going on with Dan and then they sent me for therapy and I'm a
• 10:27
  therapist and my girlfriend's mother.
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  Actually who is a mental health nurse suggested?
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  I had autism and then somebody else.
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  I know who has a kid on the Spectrum also said hey, you
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  know, you may be on the spectrum because of this so then I was
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  finally diagnosed with Asperger syndrome OCD ADHD and dyslexia,
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  the dyslexia one came earlier than the others but they all
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  kind of came into this nice little package that was
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  revolutionary. It changed my outlook on what I
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  needed to do because now I had an idea of what I needed to
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  conquer, you know, what is orders and what is us because
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  our one and then I had a basis of Was going on.
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  So then able to I was able to kind of try and Conquer stuff
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  like starting this YouTube channel.
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  Did you channel that you're watching this video on right now
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  was the result of me wanting to help educate people because when
• 11:08
  I was diagnosed, I went online and Googled like helpful
• 11:12
  Asperger's in a what is Asperger's Syndrome for some of
• 11:14
  the traits of Asperger's Syndrome other Asperger's people
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  that I don't know of you know, that live close to me all the
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  stuff and I can't really find information on it.
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  So this is why I made the ask me world YouTube channel.
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  So in a nutshell, it was quite liberating getting a diagnosis
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  and I think it helped tremendously.
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  And from that diagnosis I then went on to do an access to
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  science class or at least the maths and the science and then I
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  got accepted to do a degree in chemistry and I am now a
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  Bachelor of Science in chemistry.
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  I did a degree in chemistry and I loved every second of it and
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  it was just amazed my life took me in kind of like supercharged
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  speed after I got my diagnosis because I was able to focus on
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  things and I wasn't worried about why I was different and I
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  feel like that is super important for anybody who may be
• 11:54
  going through the same struggles.
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  I am now, so if you suggest that maybe you have autism or what is
• 11:58
  also the mode. I just wish you could share this
• 12:01
  video with somebody who may be able to find benefit from this.
• 12:04
  I may be able to find comfort in this to know that they're not,
• 12:06
  you know, weird or different are just just wider bit differently,
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  and that's cool.