Asperger's

In my senior year of high school (17 years old) I was diagnosed, among other things, with Asperger Syndrome. Since I have been misdiagnosed several times prior to that- I rejected it along with all the other things. I had been taking medication since I was 14 years old for PTSD, Bipolar Disorder, PD, OCD, among other things. Then, after forgetting to take my medication several times (while in the "system" I was always called to take my medication, and so after forcibly emancipating myself at 18 by means of AWOL -nothing to do with the military, although the meaning is pretty much the same) I realized that I felt better than when I had taken it. I then decided to continue not taking it- and, after a relatively brief period of withdrawal, most of the symptoms disappeared. Only some symptoms of Bipolar Disorder, and OCD remained- the others illnesses disappeared entirely. I concluded that I never had them in the first place, and that the symptoms were just the product of high stress levels at the time. Since things were better without the medication- I must have been used as a "lab rat", the medication actually being the cause of the problem.

One more recent diagnosis was Asperger's, but since the rest was mostly wrong, for a while I was not concerned. But my curiousity got the best of me, and I eventually researched all I could on Asperger's, although primarily from the Wikipedia article on Asperger Syndrome. From that information I easily concluded that I indeed had Asperger's. However, after considering that I tend to hyperbolize things (turning minor details turn into exaggerated issues) I backed off the issue and gave it a speculative status. Then, after re-analyzing things, I confirmed that I do indeed have it- with the primary confirming symptoms being:

1. My primary interests have and are in the fields of mathematics, computers, science, music, and writing. All of these clearly fall under "Aspie-friendly" topics, because they do not require social interaction- and tend to go better without it.

2. I don't have any friends, and lack social empathy and awareness.

3. All of my interests are very specific- with my knowledge of the general areas being relatively poor.

4. I perform excellently when it comes to that which I am interested in, while I lack motivation and perform poorly in areas that I'm not.

5. I find it difficult to establish common interests, and tend to engage in long conversations with others, regardless of whether they are interested or not. I also find it difficult to talk about things that I am not as interested in, even though I might have a good knowledge of those areas.

There are of course other symptoms that I have that would contribute to confirming my diagnosis, although note that I do not consider it an illness. Actually, I think it's far more likely to be the next step in evolution. Very few people have Asperger's, and it wouldn't be inaccurate to say that society considers anything outside the norm an illness. Therefore, it's only natural that Asperger's is considered to be an illness.

There actually is a stereotype that is very similar to Asperger's- I might even go so far as to say it's synonymous. You might already know what I'm talking about- yes, I'm talking about Geeks. Well, perhaps not all geeks have Asperger's, but I think it's safe to say that all those with Asperger's are geeks.