ASPERGER'S

I have asperger's.  I am self-diagnosed.  I am 60 years old.  There is not much I can do to change at this late date.  However, I can share my symptoms.

Losing control.

I can lose it.  I do not know when it will happen.  I don't recognize what is happening until it is over.  It is like having a seizure.  For example:

A month a go, I received a seat belt ticket.

I lost it.  I was yelling at the cop.  I was volunteering to go to jail.  I didn't care what happened to me.

After the police left, I sat there crying and yelling.  I got out of the car and walked toward a bayou.  I was not in control.

I sat in the car and cried and screamed.  I waited to calm down.

When it was over, I was exhausted.

I went home and slept for several hours.

I was not suicidal although those thoughts did run through my head.  I was not violent.  I was defeated.  I was willing to go to jail.  I was tired of fighting the system.  Everything wrong in my life went though my head.

One thing I can say that is different from the psychologists' descriptions I have heard since the Newtown shootings is this---I always place the blame on me.  I may be angry at others, but I blame myself for the mess I am in, for everything negative that is happening to me.  I do not blame others!  I never have!

And through this self blame, I destroy my confidence.  I have a great IQ, a college degree.  But, I destroy myself by being insecure, by knowing that one person will make my life miserable--on the job, in a volunteer group.  I am often bullied!  I never fight back.  I internalize it.  I blame myself.  I do not have the knowledge to fix it.