After I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome on the afternoon of Wednesday 31st May 2000 the main emotion I felt was relief. I didn't celebrate. I didn't put any banners outside my house proclaiming in big black block capital letters on a white background, "Whoopee!! I have been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome" for everyone to see. That's not me. That's not my style. I'm not a "Oi, everybody, look at me, aren't I wonderful?". I'm not the so far up my own arse I could make a circle type. I am not a narcisistic, attention-seeking, exhibitionist. If I was, I would be a contestant on Channel Four's Big Brother.
When I was diagnosed, I didn't burst into tears, weep or sink into a period of deep depression. I had accepted my fate eight, nine months before and had sought and battled to get diagnosed myself so it would have been very, very odd if I had reacted to my diagnosis in that way. If I did feel anything, it was vindication in what I had suspected had been proved to be correct.
The main emotion I felt after getting diagnosed was relief. The diagnosis put my entire life into perspective and gave me peace of mind. It also resolved and explained pretty much everything. Not knowing that I had this condition made life very puzzling to me but getting diagnosed was like finding the missing piece to a jigsaw and after that, everything began to make sense.
As said elsewhere on my website, the main emotion I felt was relief, and this lasted until throughout June until mid July 2000. It then began to evaporate into anger. Not because I have AS. That's a fact of life. The feelings of anger were caused by no-one spotting the problems that I have experienced throughout my life and that were so glaringly obvious to everyone, particularly when I was at Primary and Secondary School.
Anger can be a useful emotion if you channel it in a positive way and fashion but it is a dangerous and destructive emotion if you channel it in a negative direction. I decided to do the former and vowed I wouldn't take my anger and frustration for what had happened in the past out on other people who hadn't done me any harm or who in fact, had tried to help me during my life. That is the way of those who have no insight whatsoever, and I believe I did, and still do, have insight into my life and condition.
My anger had to go somewhere. I couldn't let it fester and burn inside me because if I had done so, I would have become ill, either mentally or physically. Perhaps because I designed this website is one of the reasons why I have so far stayed sane. Also, as well as possibly making myself ill, having let my anger fester inside could have meant that those who let me down, or those I have crossed with in the past had won, and there was no way I wanted to give anyone the satisfaction of having made me ill, and they haven't done it (not yet anyway).
Instead, I would find that "somewhere" before long, and that was by designing my own website.
