Aspies For Freedom

[hmm... I should never have learnt to touch type; my posts are always too long now.   Sorry about that!]

Hi,

I recently took an online test that suggests I may have Aspergers.  I've since read several of the diagnosis criteria and I honestly don't know how well I fit into them.  For starters they are mostly directed at children, and I'm now 24 so it's difficult to place me.  I've also always really tried hard to learn how to respond socially so I'm a lot better than I used to be.  I've listed some of the things below that I think may be traits of Aspergers, and I would appreciate anyone who could help clarify if these are Aspergic or not.

CHILDHOOD

• I didn't cry much as a baby; I just used to frown!  
  
  
• Apparently my parents were never sure of how I was feeling because I didn't really change my facial expression.  This has changed quite a lot now.
  
  
• When we were out and I got tired, I would just sit down and refuse to move.  My parents would pretend they were just going to walk off without me and they would actually walk off out of my sight.  But I was never bothered about them leaving.
  
  
• As a child I was extremely quiet.  I used to find conversations interesting, but I didn't really know how to respond to them.  When I tried to interact I often said the wrong things.  This put me off trying so I happily just stopped interacting and listened.  I was fully comfortable with this until some one brought it up and the attention was put on me.  This would make anxious.

ONGOING AND PRESENT

• I have trouble just accepting social norms; I have to question them.  I had trouble understanding why we had to wear clothes when it was warm, for example, or why we had to sit on chairs rather than the floor.  The floor thing was quite recent, actually.
  
  
• I do several things when I'm alone that I avoid in public because I know they are silly.  For example: I like to put my body in funny positions.  I especially like to get into a position like I'm going to crawl, but then rest my head on the ground and just stay there.  
  
  
• Again, if I'm alone I like repeating stuff.  If words come up on the TV screen I like to read them aloud.  Sometimes I like to read labels on food packets or machines etc.  I say them out loud, and try them in different voices.
  
  
• If I hear certain noises I like to mimic them.  If I hear a car horn, for example, I'll go 'beep, beep'.  Again I think I only do this when I'm alone; although sometimes it slips out in public!
  
  
• I practice conversations when I'm alone.  I'll go over a conversation I heard earlier in the day (real or perhaps on television or radio).  I'll analyse the conversation in detail and practice different responses.
  
  
• Quite often someone will say something to me, and I'll think about it and forget to respond.  
  
  
• Sometimes people remark that I make the wrong facial expressions.
  
  
• I've had lots of trouble with facial recognition.  I'm much better with male faces now, but female faces are much harder.  I used to have trouble following movies because I couldn't tell characters apart.  For example I used to confuse Robert De Niro and Al Pacino, but now I realise they look completely different!  There are many female faces I still have trouble with.  This can be really embarrassing if I've met someone several times and then don't recognise them.  This confused them as much as me.
  
  
• I get anxious when family members come round. (not immediate family, but cousins, uncles, etc)
  
  
• If I have plans to go out, I can't stop planning it for the entire day (sometime several days) prior.  I'll try to think of responses to things I think my friends might say.  This is totally useless, however, because they obviously never end up saying what I predict!
  
  
• I don't have to have a routine; but I prefer one and if it gets disrupted I get confused and don't know what to do.  I'll often just get confused and start wandering aimlessly trying to figure out what to do.
  
  
• I'm completely undiplomatic.  If someone looks like they don't feel well, I'll tell them they look rough.  I try to be more diplomatic, but I also like to tell the truth and I couldn't bring myself to lie.  Since I can't stand people trying to protect my feelings by not being blunt, I expect everyone else to feel the same way.  Obviously they don't.
  
  
• I can't stand being the subject of attention.
  
  
• When I am in the middle of a conversation I often become distracted with my own thoughts, or perhaps something like a shadow, and forget I'm talking to the person.  
  
  
• If there are two conversation going on at once I will often try to listen to both of them and get really confused.  Then I'd find myself completely lost and not sure how to get back in the conversation.  Or I'll even struggle to decide which what to try to concentrate on again.
  
  
• I don't like small talk because it seems pointless. Also, I don't know what to say.
  
  
• The one that has really bothered me of late is that I don't miss people.  I've been anxious when I have been away from home in the past because the situation is different, but I never felt like I wanted to talk to my mum or dad.  I just wanted to be back in the home routine.  And I feel really bad about this, but I never have any desire to see my friends even though I like being in their company when I do see them.
  

There are a couple of contradictions that I am unsure of.

• I've read that aspies don't tend to pretend.  I've always loved pretending.
  
  
• I think I can read emotions quite well.  I'm not sure if I've gradually learnt this or not.  What I lack is an understanding of why people would feel a certain way.  I also feel empathy when I am around someone, but then it passes the instant I leave their company.
  
  
• Until recently I've not had that one subject that I was obsessed about.  I do now have an intense interest in intelligence, but that has only appeared in the last few years.  Instead I've always been fascinated with every subject I encounter.  I can only think to compare myself to a robot!  If my attention is diverted to something I'll become obsessed with it until I'm distracted with something else.  I used to forget to eat because of this.  If I pick up my guitar, for example, I will keep playing it until someone somehow makes me stop.  When I learnt to juggle a few years ago I learnt it by practicing non stop for a couple of days.  Obviously I stopped to sleep, etc, but I carried on at the nearest possible opportunity.  Another example is room tidying.  Now I'm quite tidy most the time, but I used to be quite messy.  But every now and then I would decide to tidy my room.  It would really only take a couple of hours until it was tidy, but I couldn't stop.  I've spent days tidying an already tidy room and doing nothing else but eat and sleep.  And then I'd have to go back to school or more recently uni, and so I'd be distracted and stop worrying about tidying.  So these aren't ongoing obsessions, I just have trouble switching tasks.

Okay, that's all I can think of.  This is the first time I've felt like I've found another group that thinks like me so I'm quite excited.  But I'm also worried that I may be convincing myself of something in order to find some kind of identity or something.  

Other than for reasons of feeling a little more normal, I don't feel I need diagnosing.  I've been training myself for many year to deal with social situations and I'm getting much better on my own.  I can be quite witty in my own unique way and I now don't have a problem with giving presentation or talking to large groups of people (it used to make me shake really badly).  I can't do small talk still, but I will learn it if it helps me fit in.  At the moment I'm really focusing on remembering people's birthdays.  I don't understand the point of birthdays and hate my own, but people were getting offended when I forgot theirs so I've been working on remembering.

Okay, I've typed more than enough.  I would be interested in hearing from anyone who knows if it is possible to have the above contradictions.

Thank you.  Sorry for the long post, but this is kind of important so I didn't want to be more concise.

Alan

Hi Alan, have you had a look at the online tests for aspergers? They are posted in this forum and some people find them helpful.

And welcome to AFF  :smile:

Hi Amy,

Thanks for the welcome.  

I found one of the tests a few days ago, and the score and the questions were what got me thinking.  I'd looked into this a few years ago and kind of decided that I had a Social Anxiety Disorder and that I also just had a strange personality.  But that doesn't really explain everything.  I don't know if it is possibly to have those contradictions.  I like pretending, I can obsess over anything, and I can understand other's emotions even if I don't understand why they should be feeling a certain way.  

I think I could fit in here even if I don't have Aspergers, since I connect with so much of what people are saying.  I'm just not sure if I quite fit the mould and I'd really like to know.   If I was, wouldn't someone else have brought it up?  

I'm just surrounded with question marks at the moment.

I dont know how old you are, but there is still not a great deal of awareness of aspergers so it wouldnt surprise me if someone never mentioned it.

I'm 24. A few years ago I knew someone with Aspergers, so wouldn't he have realised?  Although, I actually thought he seemed quite normal (except he was more interesting than everyone else!), so maybe he thought the same about me.

I also know someone who works with someone who has Aspergers and she hasn't made the connection.  But maybe it's because he shows it in different ways and is also younger.

You said that the people who you knew who were Aspie/worked with an Aspie haven't 'made the connection'.  Maybe they have.  Maybe they just haven't told you?  

I'm fairly certain one of my neighbours is Aspie, but I haven't mentioned it to him, because I guess I feel it's quite presumptious of me to mention something so personal, like I've made an informal, unqualified psychological assessment of him.  If, however, he ever raised the subject of autism or AS with me, I might ask, 'Have you ever wondered about yourself?' but I wouldn't want to raise the subject myself.  Also, he's more of an acquaintance rather than a close friend, so it's not really appropriate to talk about such personal stuff, I think.

Maybe your acquaintances are the same?  Maybe they have noticed the similarities, but unless you had mentioned some difficulties or presented your traits as a problem that they could helpfully help you 'solve' by mentioning/suggesting your aspieness, then people are unlikely to mention something like that, I think.

Also, I think it's an even more sensitive subject because it's currently classified as a psychiatric condition and there are huge taboos surrounding that.  If a friend presented with some physical symptoms, like a raging thirst, feeling really tired like exhausted, feeling faint, but they pick up again once they've eaten or drunk something, you might say to them 'hey, go and see your doctor and get that checked out, because you might have diabetes or something!'.  But if your friend presents with all kinds of aspie 'symptoms' and you're suggesting they get a psychiatric referral and a diagnosis of a psychiatric condition... well...

Also, about the pretending thing, I don't think that rules out diagnosis at all.  You don't have to meet *all* the criteria.  And I too think that's one of the flaws of the diagnostic criteria, practitioners seem to believe that they are set in stone, and that the way a child presents will always be the way they will present in future.  

But if that's so, then why do they invest so much time, effort and money into therapies to change and modify behaviours if we're so 'set in stone'?

I also believe that we change and adapt and learn as we mature, so that while we may have met a particular criteria when a child, as we've grown older we've compensated and now don't meet their criteria.  I think some practitioners lack the insight to explore what our 'default' settings were/are in their assessments.  The way I explain my learning processes is that I learn through fuzzy logic.  I have my default position, which I then change/adapt, but I probably do it too much, then I remodify, and continue like that until it's just right.  This means that the older I get, the more 'fine tuned' my responses and attitudes are.

I can think of two strong examples of when I've been pretending.

* When I was about 19, I had a full time office job doing administration, but I needed to save some extra money to go and study, so I got a part time bar job.  I'm naturally quite shy around strangers, but I just got my head around the problem by assuming a role, adopting a new persona I guess, like I was acting.  By day I was a fairly mousey administrator, by night I played the role of 'bubbly barmaid'.  I wouldn't have normally been able to walk into a pub full of strangers and have conversations, but (a) because I had a reason to be there, i.e. serving customers and (b) because their expectation was that I would be friendly and sociable in between serving, I kind of adapted and 'pretended' to fit that role.  I would chat about the weather, whether they'd had a good day at work, chat about television programmes people had watched, chat about the music playing on the jukebox.

After a while, it kind of became natural, like second nature.  Even now, more than a decade later, I'm still not sure whether I'm still 'pretending' or whether I've actually changed.  Give me a couple of alcoholic drinks to loosen my natural inhibitions in a bar or at a party or whatever, and I can become a fairly confident, chatty, sociable person.  No one would know I'm Aspie.  That's why I really relate to the title of that book written by Lianne thingymajig 'Pretending to be Normal'.

*  Another example is, say, when friends or acquaintances suffer a bereavement.  I don't really feel anything if I didn't know the deceased, but I know that in polite society, you're supposed to empathise and to care.  So I pretend to.

Hi Lulu,

It's a possibility.  If it's true then it's really annoying because I like being told things straight up.  Wouldn't my friend Aspie have been blunt with me? He was blunt about other things :grin:. He was not shy like me, so maybe he just didn't make the comparison?

I'm not sure if my friend's pupil (she works in a school) has AS or some other form of autism, now I think about it.  Anyway I've mention a few things to her.  For example I tell her I never think to get in contact with her because I'm so absorbed in my own world (all my friends tend to contact me). I keep telling her that I never miss her or anyone else for that matter, and it bothers me that I don't.  But she just tells me not to worry about it.  :?

Yes, I think bluntness can be an aspie trait, but again we learn to modify our behaviours as we grow older and adapt to the 'rules' and 'norms' of society around us.

If my neighbour ever mentioned autism/AS I would likely tell him quite bluntly that I thought he met the diagnostic criteria.  But I'm not going to just blurt that out a propos nothing at all.

I guess it's similar to even NT children, we're just a stage behind in development terms, because it's not so much a disability or nonability more a developmental delay.  

For example, a small child out with their mother will point and stare:  'Hey mummy, look at that fat lady/that boy in a wheelchair/the scar on that man's face'.

But as they grow older, they learn it's not acceptable.  We do too, I think, although like I said, it can take a little and in some cases a lot more time for things to sink in.

I can't just pretend to be sociable because I don't quite have the skills; but I'm getting better.  But where I have developed the skills I pretend like you do.  I find it hard work though, so if I can't get into a real conversation with someone pretty quickly I start to zone out.  I could probably keep it up if I focused, but I don't want to as it's hard work.

The bereavement thing is interesting.  I can detect someone feeling sad and I don't like that, so I will be sad in accordance.  But I don't really quite grasp why they feel sad.  I was hoping I would feel sad when I experienced my first family or friend death, but I didn't.  I'm not sure if I was not close enough for it to affect me much.  The first was actually my dog (and I really loved my dog).  And the second was my Grandpa.  At the funeral (my first), seeing other people upset made me upset, but as soon as they looked happy again (a brave face?) I was fine and my normal happy self. I actually quite enjoyed the funeral experience (especially the singing). And that's the kind of thing that bothers me.  

Your insights are very useful, thank you.

I think NTs are too careful about being blunt, and so no progress gets made.  If someone tells me something about me that is negative (some kind of annoying habit, say), I don't particularly like it but I'm glad I've been told.  Everyone else seems to like blissfull ignorance, but I think that is too much of short-term outlook.  In the end they will have to suffer for their ignorance, whereas those that are more aware have made changes.  How many people think that being fat is okay because it is taboo to bring it up?  They'd prefer to keep to the easy life in the short term and then forget about the consequences until they have a cardiac arrest.  

I'm not saying we should all be rude and and point at people and say 'you're fat' because that would be an insult on their intelligence and a pointless conversation.  But why can't we bring it up for a more informative discussion?

I just took the long Aspie-quiz and I got:

Your Aspie score: 158
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 35
You are very likely an Aspie

On other tests I got 26 where over 25 was Aspie, and 36 where over 32 to was Aspie.  I know these don't mean anything concrete but that seems like quite a strong indicator.