It still seems so strange to me to realize that I was right about myself for so many years, but I thought I was just being lazy. Now I’m realizing how difficult it is to even do simple things, depending on what’s required of me. My family thought I was being purposely difficult when I told them if they wanted to plan any family activities I have to have 2 weeks notice, and then be reminded 3 days before and the day before or I wouldn’t be able to come (my memory is really bad about stuff like that.) I’d spend most of that time trying to pep talk myself and build up my reserve tolerance levels and trying not to completely freak out about the overload that ALWAYS goes along with seeing my family. Even just the other day Hubby was getting frustrated at my mother and commented to me “Doesn’t she realize that if you do major projects (shopping, yard work, etc.) one day that you need to take the next off?” It made me feel really good that he recognizes when I’m hitting overload, apparently even before I did.

In some ways it was easier being a lump….

After a year in Holland, I had to take a test to get my Dutch license. I failed it. At the time I was livid (did something wrong on two-lane rotundas, which my driving instructor should have taught me), but ever since, I’ve been secretly thankful. So glad I no longer have to drive. Friends and family are always urging me to go get my license, but NO WAY.

I am so blown away by your posts and many of the comments, which so perfectly describe me, too. I am especially grateful for the ones offering an explanation for why things I used to be able to do easily are now so hard, and why I am at an impasse, at 42, in which I can either decide to drop “passing” in a big way, or die–literally. I cannot continue to live the rest of my life the way I’ve lived it up to this point, rewarding as that has been. I did what I most craved as an awkward little girl: I learned how to fit in with the rest of the world. I’m socially adept. But the cost; oh, the cost. There’s nothing left over for the real me, the inner me. And that *has* to change, to save my life. Literally.

Driving is an escape for me. The kids are restrained in car seats, and I can plug in my iPod and listen to whatever flows with my mood. It calms me enough that I can focus fine on driving. Still, I know what you mean, and I definitely experience my own resistance to certain things. Shopping, or being in any noisy and crowded situation, is an absolute sensory nightmare. I can only focus on select things at a time, and I am always afraid of screwing something up.

I am a lousy driver,a nd because of balance and vestibular issues i lean into the centre of the car and drive with my body on a complete slant so my head is aligned with the centre of the car, just below the rear-view vision mirror.

I am also feeling incredible relief around a cessation of this old adherence to an ideal of “normality.” i never achieved it in any way, but my head was filled with self-expectations of somehow taking on a normal life with a normal load like other people.

It’s been revelatory to go to an ASD specialist and to start carving a life suited to ME. i am actually starting to feel good,and like Rachel – hello my friend – I am starting to understand it is not just ok but VITAL i say no to the kinds of things other people take in their stride.
My whole household/family is currently being educated about my ASD and we are all learning to live with it and accept it, rather than fight it and wrestle with it and berate it, which is what i and others did for years in order to IMPROVE me to a state of normality!

Yesterday i did my usual Friday thing where i see some people. i do this in a very structured manner once a week. i come home completely exhausted from interacting with people for two hours. On arrival home, I now i factor in rest time after any out and about stuff in the world. Just down time with diaphragmatic breathing, some stretching and quiet. It makes such a difference. In the past, i would battle on and feel as if I had a cacophany of clattering sounds and white shards of mirror in my brain and i would persist with home life and have a huge meltdown with throwing things and screaming and terrible shame and guilt afterwards. I would scream and flap my hands about my head. I would frighten my son.
all that is changing. I am getting a bit of peace here and there. it is new, strange and belatedly welcomed in my life. It is a gift for me and those around me.