Aspies For Freedom

That makes sense to me, Lili Marlene. I was asking more out of curiosity about the tests, espcially since I kept getting such high scores on them.

I am certain I am an NT, since the high scores can all be easily attributed to other factors.

I guess though that many of them are meant to act as screening devices, so they will get some false positives.

It's not so much that my current job is difficult, though I do freeze up when asked to do something new or outside routine.  But I don't want to live &  die as a low-skilled worker!  I am smart but a slow learner of new skills and I don't know where to go from here.  Even on ADD meds, which do help, I have trouble staying tuned in and "extroverting myself" into the world; my tolerance for customer service is only decreasing, I am lousy at training & supervising, and above all I just don't know what kind of future I'll have with my slowness to catch on & adapt.  I'm NOT lazy, but I do need careful instruction to master new skills, and I don't know who will tolerate that...even at my current job, people sometimes get frustrated with me.  They don't understand how I can be smart AND slow-learning; neither do I!  I've been trying to figure it out since my teen years, I'm now 40, I've only ever had one foot in the "real world" anyway, and I don't know how to reprogram myself to be the kind of fully-present, focused, efficient person I keep thinking I SHOULD be.  Most of my intelligence seems to go into maintaining my private inner world of imagination.  Someone posted, either here or on another AS site, something about how some of us are always separated from others by a plexiglass shield.  I would say that sounds a lot like my experience.  The trouble is, with no dx there is no "good reason" for my difficulties; people probably see---as my parents, teachers & even I did---someone who just stubbornly (or lazily) refuses to work.  I wish I could explain that I am not highly invested in my so-called real life, never have been, always felt somewhat detached from it even as a child, and don't know how to just will myself to be different.  I will never try to fake a dx; I just wish there WERE one so I could understand WHY I am such a misfit!  This is not meant to be self-pity; I know I have the option of saying, "OK, I am happiest in my own little reality, so I'll stay in it as much as I can, do only the minimum to stay alive, and die as a penniless oddball who never used any of her potential."  Either accept that, or somehow push myself to change (haven't figured out how ).  I understand that I am not ENTITLED to have both my own little reality AND success on the world's terms.  I just would like to find some way to USE the intelligence I was born with.

HI KALO!! :grin:

Thank you for replying to that long-winded rant!  I just get so frustrated trying to figure out what's "off" about me.  I have never been suspected, by myself or anyone else, of having learning disabilities such as dyslexia or anything like that.  I laerned to read early & have always written & spelled well, no problems there.  As far as I know I had no delays in speech development either.  I was the classic book-smart-but-underachieving kid.  I am in the U.S. and going to a vocational-rehab center for placement help.  My counselor there says they could have a psychologist there test me for AS, but in light of my scores on the online tests (I show more NT traits than AS), I'm not sure there's even any point in pursuing it.  Whatever quirks or differences I have all seem to be at low levels so that I may not belong to any particular diagnostic category.  My slowness to learn new things has been attributed by some people to a lack of "common sense."  I understand the frustration people feel dealing with someone like me who "should" be able to learn because there are no specific learning disabilities.  For years I just believed what others thought about me: That I was book-smart but spoiled, overprotected, useless; that my sheltered middle-class childhood had somehow rendered me unable to "toughen up" and cope with life.  Class prejudice seems to come into the equation; if people see a fairly privileged person who STILL doesn't achieve, they assume the privileged upbringing itself is to blame, that it has caused weakness of character. :evil:  I'm so frustrated by my own seeming stupidity, so embarrassed whenever I have trouble learning some simple new skill that I see kids 1/3 my age picking up immediately; unfortunately, there is no clear diagnostic explanation in sight.  Anyway, I will keep asking around for more info...sorry, it turned into another rant.  Maybe now I will visit the rant thread! :?

Thank you Kalo!  I just posted a big ol' rant in the rant thread in "Time Out."  I think I will get tested as you suggest, and I'll tell them all this stuff.  I imagine the doc at my vocational-rehab place will have seen others like me...after all it IS a place for the hard-to-place! :grin:  I've already had general testing for learning disabilities at this same place & nothing was wrong there, but maybe we can still get to the bottom of it.  I have already been helped so much by this forum, just reading other people's stories and comparing & contrasting their experiences to mine.  As I said in my rant, I feel overloaded by the world too, but it isn't in my physical senses, more in my mental space.  I sometimes think I was born with an oversensitivity to invasions of my mental space, and that I had my defense system (distancing myself from the world through my imagination) up & running so early that I never even understood what I was doing.  I feel very close to understanding the problem, even though I rather doubt that it would be considered AS...I love this forum & so appreciate being able to post here despite my NT-dominant personality!   Well, talk to you soon...ROCK ON!   And thank you AFF! :grin:

I CURRENTLY ATTEND A SECONDARY  SCHOOL I AM THINK I AM ASPERGERS.

FOR THIS MY REASONS

MY HEAD MASTER THINK I AM
THE HEAD OF THE SEN THINK I AM
I CURRENTLY ON THE ONLINE TEST

ON THE AQ TEST I SCORED 36 OUT 50
ON THE ASPIE TEST I SCORED 127 OF 200 VERY LIKLY A ASPIE

I AM IN THE SPECIAL EDUCTION NEED AREA OF THE SCHOOL NOT FOR BEING ASPERGERS BUT FOR DISLEXIA IN WHICH I AM ON A RATIO 3-5

I DONT NOT KNOW WHAT I AM SOPOSSED TO DO PLEASE GIVE ADVICE

thank for your advice  :smile:

I have another question about the Aspie Quiz.  My score on the "nonverbal IQ test" portion was 10 out of 18.  What does that mean? :?

hi i have looked at thre trait in the officail dignose i think i have most of them

but my parent dont think i aspergers

i dont know what to do

the only problem is that it would mean a miniamal of 3 years to get dignosed as i am 14

I liked the Cambridge autism test by Baron-Cohen at first.  But now, I'm not so sure...

Firstly, I find the trouble with tests in general is in trying to make them fit my lifestyle.  For instance,  the wording "Other people often tell me...".  Erm, no they don't.  I actually don't like being with other people very much.  People don't say I often do this, or often do that.  I live a fairly reclusive life.  Maybe I need to rent a group and ask them to state 'what I often do'...?  Most tests seem guilty of this assumption, as they do in asking about job interviews when not everyone has ever been in an interview scenario.

Okay, I'm nit-picking, so far.  The only big question-mark I have over the Baron-Cohen test in particular is that the score awarded to 'strongly agree' is exactly the same as the score for 'slightly agree'; likewise, the score for 'slightly disagree' is identical to 'strongly disagree'.  I suspect that, in at least a handful of the questions, there should probably be a difference which remains unaccounted for in this test.

For example, the question: "I prefer to do things the same way over and over again" with an answer of 'slightly agree' might or might not indicate an Aspergers trait (it could equally demonstrate a usual NT pattern of behaviour or a simple lack of imagination too), yet someone who 'strongly agrees' shows a more definite positive on this criterion.  I would therefore expect the score for 'strongly agree' to be greater than 'slightly agree', so I'm not sure how accurate this test might be.  

If it is, I'm a 44 out of 50 - even without people 'telling me' what I'm like!  :lol:

Hi, mememe, I have exactly the same problem!  I fit all the criteria, but all I have to do is say, "Autism" or "Asergers" and my parents flip out and refuse to listen!  This is actually the second time I have self-diagnosed myself as aspie, the first time I was twelve and my parents convinced me I was wrong, but now I am sure that I was right.
btw, I am also fourteen.