Future Me Scares Me

   That's it, though. Precisely it. Past me scares me because presast makes perfect. The arrow is aimed of the past and let loose of the present, and we can see the trajectory of the future. If my past was so frightening, I don't know what I've got the potential to be. I was a terrifyingly bright child, with a relatively low IQ for someone with an IQ that high. I must have been le enfant terrible at that time, only as a supergenius mastermind. Though, nope, testing from that period showed a low disposition for... well, for disposition. "A personal weakness for Planning," that was it. I've never been very good at strategy. So, thank goodness for that. I'd hate to turn into Arslan or something.

   No, wait. The Planning test, while it did show that as my personal weakness, showed it as being in the low averages. This was labeled my personal weakness, as my other scores were Superior, (or high-ish Average on the Attention Scale.) Hmm, we're going to have to delve deeper into this. I've got the report in front of me now. Date of Examination: October 7, 2002. Examiner: Stephen F Jackson, M.Ed, Ed.S.. CONFIDENTIAL PSYCHOLOGICAL REPORT. Shoot, maybe I shouldn't be sharing this. Ah, well, I'll try not to quote it directly too much. Though I did already do so with the "personal weakness for Planning" thing. And don't I, as the subject, at least have some right to divulge it here? Well, I guess I'd better explain the Planning Test, at least.

   The Planning test on the CAS (at least at that time) comes in two parts: Matching Numbers (whereby, in order to become efficient in finding the matching numbers in gradually toughening challenges the student has to develop strategies to find the numbers) and Planned Codes. This is publicly available, so I feel alright sharing that much. Now, Planned Codes itself comes in two parts. In the first part the student has to complete a simple repetitive task, and in the second half the student has to override the automatic responses used in the first half, exhibiting higher order cognitive control. I appeared to be "lost" during the second half of that test, and "responded to the test in a random manner." A-ha. How interesting. I don't know what this means (or what I was thinking,) but it's interesting. At that time I was also evaluated by a psychiatrist (J. Zenoa "Dr. Zen" Meservy, MD, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, it would seem?), and that's when I was diagnosed with Asperger's Disorder.

   "Though Eric does not show the typical repetitive, stereotyped movements, usually associated with Austism [sic], Eric's tests results are similar to the state definition of Autism:

   "The pupil has a spectrum disorder which significantly affects the verbal and nonverbal communication and social skills of a person and is often characterized by repetitive and stereotyped movements, resistance to changes in environment or daily routine and responding to sensory experiences in an unusual manner, is usually apparent before the age of 3; and adversely affects the educational performance of a pupil causing significant delays or irregular patterns in learning or both."

   2002, October. That must have been third- no, fourth grade. Let's see, the Towers fell in September of second grade, so, yeah, that was third grade. I've always considered that to be a good year, so maybe it was on account of special treatment of that diagnosis? I had always thought it was because of Matt. It seems like they knew or at least suspected autism before that, though, going back to 1999 or sooner, but the diagnosis was set at Asperger's in 2003.

   Thank goodness. I'd hate to get stuck with PDD-NOS.