"Girls show Asperger's differnt than boys do. VERY differently from what I remember."
Susie, that is news to me, too. Although with easy child 2/difficult child 2 I can well believe it. Any more information you or anyone else has, I would also welcome it.
A few things I would like to share on our experiences.
easy child 2/difficult child 2 was originally believed to be genius-level easy child and on that basis we fought to have her accelerated into school. She was talkative, had an amazing vocabulary, was outgoing but inappropriate with it (would have gone home with a stranger, especially adult bearded male; always wanted cuddles often at the most inappropriate times).
She always had friends but could be very emotional. Attracted friends from different age groups (as did I when very young - I see a lot of parallels in myself).
easy child 2/difficult child 2 was into EVERYTHING. As a result we didn't pay a lot of attention to what has turned out to be Sensory Integration Disorder (SID) and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) signs early on. We can look back and it was all there. But at the time it seemed to fit with her intense interest in everything.
She's not done as well in school as she should have although she slid by. Now she's studying to get into teaching somewhere somehow, and still not achieving to her academic level I feel, although doing brilliantly in some areas. If anything she is more emotional than she used to be, almost to the point where I wonder about BiPolar (BP). She can be VERY difficult to live with, very argumentative and moody. Obsessive, meticulous, telling US how to parent difficult child 3 as if she is the only one who knows how! She lectures him, gets into meticulous didactic mode and then wonders why he explodes.
I'm trying to get her to take herself to the psychiatrist - she's overdue for an appointment, she had to cancel the last one because her work schedule clashed and has not yet made another. She will run out of medications soon if she doesn't do something, but I can't make the appointment for her if I don't know her schedule.
Her attitude to therapist (who she also desperately needs to see) has been, "I can't see her until I've moved out. And I can't move out while I'm so stressed."
I explained that seeing therapist could reduce her stress to make it easier for her to cope and then find accommodation, but we were stuck in a Catch 22 loop. Now she has moved out, she is too busy to organise appointments right now; every spare minute she's not working she is shopping, she says. They need this, they need that. Actually, they do not - it's just tat she is obsessively setting up house. I fear it's going to be one long series of "I can't do this right now because..."
She's not trying to make excuses; it's just that for her, life is a series of obstacles each of which must be completely overcome before she moves to the next task. As a result, she is repeating mistakes and going around in circles.
I've been concerned for some time that her behaviour and moods are swinging extremely. She seems manic at times especially with her friends. At other times everything is a disaster, everyone hates her and she bursts into floods of tears or sobbing tantrums if you so much as ask how her day has been. And I can't get the psychiatrist to see it.
She's insistent on routine and habit. She also needs to keep her hands and mind busy (not easy, when she works as a checkout chick with little mental stimulation in her job). Incredibly self-centred these days although has demonstrated great compassion and empathy (so has difficult child 3 - don't assume Aspies and autistics aren't capable of it).
This is where we are at with a now-adult probable Aspie. If she is different because she is female it would explain a great deal. Because this is NOT normal. And it's driving me crazy!
She is otherwise compliant, a rule-follower (by HER rules) and meticulous. As a checkout chick she is in high demand because her till ALWAYS balances. She thinks she keeps a running tally in her head of exactly how much she has in her till. She thought everybody had that capability and was getting very impatient with other staff for never balancing their till at the end of the day.
Does this sound familiar?
If female Aspies are noted to be different, I need to learn more. So does she - she is happy to accept the Aspie label. She already gets support with study because of her ADD label and hypermobile joints (which also seems to link in to Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) in some ways).
She was also hyperlexic, not quite to the same extent as difficult child 3.
How we have coped with her in the past - with a lot of patience. 'Explosive Child" came into our lives too late, but we've been using it on her as we can and finding a lot of benefit.
We've worked to keep her calm, to help her learn self-calming techniques, to help her accept and even value the oddness in her (we've done the same thing with the boys). Whatever she was interested in, we supported and helped. For example, her circus performing and street theatre. As a result she's been in a mini-series, a feature film and a number of short films (one as the lead) as well as done a lot of kids parties and street fairs. With a kid like this you just don't know what is going to happen next. It can be exciting, frustrating, interesting - but never dull. Everything she tries to do, she's brilliant at it. She perfects it, then moves on to a new challenge.
Myottb, does this sound familiar?
Marg