Knowing I am an Aspie has helped me so much

Knowing that I have Aspergers, even without getting an official diagnosis from a doctor, helped me so much. I now know why I struggle so much in certain areas and seeing it explained by others helps me to understand my own feelings and know a bit more how to explain it to others too. It is no longer just something spiritual that I haven't overcome yet, and it doesn't mean that I am dumb or slow because I haven't figured it out yet. I am actually really smart in other areas, mostly having nothing to do with social stuff. It is something that I have struggled with for years and exhausted lots of energy trying to cope with it when others deal with it naturally and seemingly effortlessly. I have people that I can discuss it with and I can learn this stuff, it just takes longer and I need someone who knows and understands me to teach me this information. It will be a life long struggle, but I can get better at learning how to cope with it instead of living in constant defeat.

Knowing more about my strengths and limitations has helped me know where to push myself to grow and where to ask for help. In areas where I know I struggle; I can ask someone else to take charge who has strengths in that area. Teaching/training new people is not my strength, because my brain processes things differently than most everyone else, so that is one of the areas that I defer to others when possible and they know why I ask them to do it for me. I can do it if no one else is available, but they are better suited to that task and the new people are usually better able to learn if someone else is teaching them instead of me. I am still available for the new people to ask questions, because answering specific questions is much easier for me than trying to figure out how to train them from scratch. I knew that a promotion at my job would give me more stress and anxiety than I need to deal with. I was happy where I was, and I am good at what I did. I didn't need to try to move up the ladder and God will continue to take care of my needs, just like He has done in the past.

I know that I can offend people without trying, so I can work at making sure that I check with them regularly to make sure that I haven't hurt their feelings yet. I have others who are Aspies like me or are people know me and my struggles and I don't have to worry about offending them inadvertently because they know and understand me and that my intentions are not to hurt them.

God brings certain people into my life when I need them most. When I learned that I was an Aspie, I was currently working with one Aspie and a bunch of NTs. That Aspie was used by God to help people at work understand me and the way I was even before I knew I was an Aspie, and she was there to help me start my journey of learning about Aspergers. Soon after there was a massive turnover of employees and she left, but soon I had a new coworker who had majored in psychology in college. This gave me someone that I could ask all of my new questions and get knowledgeable answers from. This helped me a lot as I learned about myself. About a year or so later she left, after buying my old house, which was also a God ordained event, and I was learning to be more open with people, both at work and outside of work, about myself and my struggles. Later, I got another couple of Aspie coworkers. It was great having that bond that comes when you understand certain people better than you understand most of the rest of the world around you. Also, around that same time was when I started getting involved in an online Aspie group and I have formed some friendships there as well. There was a bit of crossover between my in-person Aspie friends and my online Aspie friends, which is really nice, since this is the first time, I have ever really had online friends that I have never met in person before. Having this group of friends is helping me grow and stretch myself and learn new things and be able to help others as well. God has had a perfect plan for me, and I am getting to watch it unfold in my life. I wonder what is next in this plan that He has for me.