I'm new to this......

As a teacher of nearly 35 years experience, an avid reader and a bit of a thinker ( friends have questioned which bit and how big the bit really is ),  I have felt a sudden urge to share my opinions about all those bits and pieces which I've thought important, contentious or just plain intriguing.

Over the next few weeks the big issue in my life is my wife's upcoming interview to try to get an Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis.  It's one of those events which will change nothing but change everything. The very fact that she feels she needs this diagnosis to explain all the difficulties she has felt throughout her life means, I think, that she warrants it.
When we watch Butterflies on DVD, I want to know how the family works: will Rhea get with Leonard &c? Annabel wants to know where the door leads to from the kitchen. If a friend walks past her and ignores her, she is convinced it's because she has upset her. Causality and rules are at the centre of her universe.
If a piece of litter is dropped on a pavement, it bothers her for days because people should not drop litter. And as for any drivers infringing the Highway Code........car journeys can be pretty rancourous!
Aspergirls* are so good at pretending to be good socially ( unlike their male counterparts ) that they often get labelled as "Quirky", "Eccentric" or "Different". All these adjectives have been used by friends describing Annabel. Indeed these attributes were and are the facets of her character which I fell and fall in love with. These and her intelligence. How else could you possibly rehearse conversations, try to predict responses and organise your life to try to fit in with a confusing world?

The bizarre thing is that I have worked with Autistic spectrum children, off and on, for nearly twenty years, found that I had a real affinity with the ( mostly ) boys I worked with, and found their different world view intellectually challenging. I could communicate with them, and not necessarily through language: music was good, and mime too. But I completely missed Annabel's difficulties as being ASD related. Boys had Asperger's, not girls. Besides, her anxieties, depressions and anger were due to a whole host of external issues.....weren't they? In fact we laughed about her Autistic tendencies. Then, one night during one of those three o'clock moments, Annabel googled "Autism in women" and came up with a whole cascade of sites which summed up her difficulties and achievements. We sent for various books which other women had found illuminating and useful, saw our extremely sympathetic GP who referred Annabel to the psychiatric services and now we wait.......

*See the book of the same name by Rudy Simone.