When did you know you had a problem?

[hedgehog]

I think one of the biggest mental health issues is identifying illness since some varieties (depression and anxiety) are so good at masquerading. I can look back now and realize that i was fighting off low level episodes pf depression/anxiety back when I was about seven or eight, but I never got treatment until I was about forty or so. I can't really remember what the precipitating incident was. I do remember taking those newspaper quizzes and shrugging them off because I thought that everyone felt that way.

[Deja Q]

1. I've known most of my life I was different...

And not the bisexual thing either.

But an official name was given to me back in April: Asperger's Syndrome.

[mrgorth]

2. Signs

I dropped weight like crazy. I didn't want to eat. I didn't want to drink beer. I didn't want to do anything. When I went into work all I wanted to do was lay down. It was all I could do to perform a menial task. As tired as I was I couldn't sleep. My body ached all over.

[hedgehog]

5. It's interesting that you mentioned the body aches

I noticed that one of the drug companies is pushing body aches as a diagnostic in one of their ads. On the one hand, it's educational. On the other hand, it's so blatantly trying to develop a market that people will continue resist using medications thinking that they are just another money making flim-flam.

[shrike]

3. I always knew I was different

I suffered from depression at a very early age. I can remember wanting to do myself in while still in grade school. (However, because the black moods descended upon me when I was so young, I learned quickly how to deal with them. How to detach myself, looking at me from a distance. The side effects from that, I think, is my lack of sentimentality: I have NEVER cried at a movie or book. EVER.) I was different in other ways, too. Never seemed to fit in, never seemed to GET the social scene. It was like everyone else knew something I didn't. I assumed it was my fault, of course.

Unfortunately, I grew up in an age when children were supposed to live entirely happy lives. I was diagnosed with depression at 35. At 45, this year, in fact, I was diagnosed with ADHD, after my young niece received her diagnosis. I remember the great relief I felt -- there IS a reason for this.

BTW, I know what you mean by thinking "everyone" felt this way. I assumed the same thing. I also assumed that everyone was better at handling it than I was.

[bertha katzenengel]

4. Summer 1986

Looking back I see the signs, but living it, I had no idea.

I guess my problems were visible to everyone but me and getting worse. Two women came to my rescue from out of the blue, and within 3-4 days of each other. I worked with one, and the other was my boss's boss's wife.

The one I worked with, Fran, took me aside one day and said "I want you to go see my therapist. He's expensive so here's $80 for the first session." (There was a lot more to it than that; she wasn't cold or even that straightforward.)

The boss's wife, Joann, had sort of taken me under her wing, offering attention and TLC that I didn't know I needed. She began to talk to me about hospitalization (WTF?) and one day after she'd taken me to lunch, she said "If I had the authority I would take you there myself. Right now."

About a week after that I went to see Fran's therapist, and three weeks & four sessions after that, I checked myself in.

[DemExpat]

6. I knew I was different when I was little (about 4)

and felt incredible sadness for the injustices and cruelty that I saw in the world. I felt kinda weird that I seemed to be the only one so upset about it....

When I was 10 I remember being on a Girl Scout camping trip and walking off up some wooded hills and thinking I could just walk on and disappear.

After my first love dropped me at 16 I went into terrible depression and never really came out until much later. My diagnoses are anxiety disorder, depression and Borderline PD.....but I resist labelling my experiences as disorders or disease, and see some major aspects of my sensitivities as a real gift. I also do much better without medication than with at this stage of my life.

Some of my family and a few select friends truly love me as I am, my kids love me warts and all....so I feel blessed...sometimes. :silly:

DemEx

[MN ChimpH8R]

7. From the time I was a small boy

I knew that I was "different." I was bookish and not terribly interested in boisterous "boy" things other than baseball. I preferred thecompany of adults. Loved the educational part of school and hated the social part of it, especially sence I was accelerated two grades beyond my age level. Being the smartest and smallest kid in class is a bad combination. I was a bully magnet.

After two nervous breakdowns (as they called them back then) I had an OK 9th grade year, finally with kids my own age, but dropped out of school to avoid the social world of high school. Eventually went to college and to Harvard Law, but never fit in anywhere I worked. I've been unemployed or under-employed most of my post-university life. Never had a date in my life much less a relationship. I could never understand ulterior motives, non-logical thought/actions, body language or hidden meanings in spoken communication. I can't multi-task and hate dealing with people other than a small circle of friends who make allowances for the way I am.

Like HypnoToad, I finally got my dx this year - Asperger's.

My current 1-year appointment as a law clerk is ending, and I have zero employment prospects. I will have to sell my house, and the best scenario I can imagine is living in trailer on permanent partial disability. Life sucks.

[Trigger Hippie]

8. I didn't realize I had a problem until my mid 20s, a few years ago.

I don't think there was a specific moment when I realized I was sick. I just realized something had to change with me or my life would be wasted because of the fear and sadness I felt constantly. But looking back, I was always depressed/anxious since I was a little girl. I just thought that was the way everyone was, that I was normal. I just didn't know there was anything wrong with the way I felt until I could barely take care of myself because of severe depression.

[TrogL]

9. Junior High

1. My best friend was going through puberty and he'd break into a sweat, start stuttering and walking into open doors when girls walked by. I'd break into a sweat, start stuttering and walking into open doors when he'd walk by. Oops.
   
2. People started calling me "wierd", "strange", "fag" etc. and I no longer cared. School went from an adventurous pleasure to a nightmare. My favourite activity became reading in my room and responding to queries with grunts. Crying at school became a daily occurence, which only made matters worse.
   

[shrike]

10. Hi, Trog

Off-topic, but how are things going for you?

Anything new with your ladyfriend?

[skygazer]

11. I didn't know it was a problem but I knew I was different

Or at least I thought I was. But then I wondered if everyone felt like I did but just handled it better. So that made me feel like I must be weak.

I was known as the "odd one" when I was a kid. I was a loner, I was moody, cried over nothing, didn't cry when I should have cried. Never felt like I fit in anywhere.

I didn't get a diagnosis (bi-polar) until I was in my 30's. It was such a relief to know that I wasn't imagining it all and that there was a name for what was happening to me. That alone helped so much.

Christmas is always the hardest time of the year for me. I have nothing but bad associations with it and no matter how I try, they all come screaming back every year and threaten to overwhelm me. This year I'm working until 1 in the afternoon on Christmas day and my SO told me he was going to go hang out at his friend's house until 6 or 7. I don't normally dictate what he does or doesn't do but I nearly had a panic attack at the thought. I told him that if I was alone on Christmas, I would realize it was Christmas and that I was alone but if he was here, I'd know it was Christmas but I'd also know I WASN'T alone. Thankfully, he understood.

I can't wait for January...