Aspies For Freedom

I was hesitant to reply at first, as I've not had a formal diagnosis yet, but so many things in your post are things I relate to as doing myself.

I just wanted to comment on your doubts.  Have you ever considered that some of these things are learned actions?  From my understanding, as we progress through life, we learn to become somewhat like chameleons - blending into social situations as best we can.  I know I also appear "normal" to most outsiders, though people close to me get to see me unwind and become myself.  It's no longer even a concious thing, to appear "normal".  I've done it for so long now that I'm almost on auto-pilot at times, though rarely is my mind engaged in the social situation.  My outward appearance maintains, while I go off on random flights of thought, wishing I could escape.

I'll leave this now for someone with more experience to comment.

Welcome to the boards.

I just want to say I read your entire post, enjoyed it, and can relate to a lot of it.

I wanted to quote one part though:
"My predominant obsession is my PC. If I can’t be doing anything with it (bored of the games, bored of creating anything, bored of programming), I’ll just pointlessly click on icons and move folders around. I often hate being away from my PC. "
I do this exactly. When I run out of things to do, I will organize directories, desktop, play with settings, or download stuff with no idea what it does. Nice to know im not alone on that! If I am away from my computer I feel, lonely, and lost. Its very odd.

A lot of what you mention seems to fit the criteria I have read, but then their is also the fact that none of us fit everything.

Anyway, im doing the "its 5am and im still on the computer" thing..so my brain isnt really engaged to reply how I would like. I just wanted to say hi and such.

Justin

well..I do that too. I feel like I need to be with my computer...I think its one of those addiction things I hear about. lol

oh well..it keeps me happy. And I have nothing better to do.

I am the same with my computer(s).  In fact, I even sleep with my laptop on the edge of my bed, just in case I wake up and feel the need to poke around on it a bit.

At least it keeps me warm at night.   :neutral:

Most of all this stuff, you have lived with all your life and it does not cause you too much problems?

The problem might be living with someone else.  So you can work on the time aside for them and the cleaning up part.  You can draw up a regular schedule for cleaning:  weekly.  That keeps everything from getting too bad.  You can also have some "date nights" on the calendar to keep everyone happy.  

the communication part
"My partner finds me hard-going in communication because I ALWAYS misunderstand what is being said. I often assume I am ‘to blame’ for something or other, when it later transpires that no-one was being blamed for anything. I tend to be overly defensive."

You two could talk about (or write if that is easier) the way you both communicate.  If nagging "you always make a mess in the kitchen" is causing grief, it can be changed into a request "Would you please clean the kitchen tonight?"  or better yet - it becomes a habit to clean the kitchen every night.  Then who ever cleans the kitchen (it is their job) gets a big thank you/ appreciation in the morning.  

Anyway, with two people living in one space - one of the two are usually to blame for something - why waste time deciding who is to blame for what - and why?  Blaming does not clean it up.  

You are used to being defensive because you are used to being blamed and abused by other people?  Also bringing up past wrongs "last week you did not clean the kitchen three times" should be taboo.

Hi, to me you sound that, at very least, you have aspie traits.
Don't think you are being selfish or lazy, you sound like you care a lot about your partner, and not realising or not remembering something is not the same as not caring. :smile:

Without a formal dx you may never know 100%, but if you have traits that is enough to say 'I am aspie-like'. If that helps you to understand yourself better, then I think that's good.

Hate to further complicate things, but with a formal diagnosis it's hard to be sure. The psychological community is very bad with Autism. If you pass the regular criteria, you can be about 90% sure. From there it depends on a few other factors.

Stimming usually isn't voluntary. Some people are more aware of their own stimming than others, but you don't have to realize you're doing it.

Moonwind wrote

I would say that a lot of what you write here applies to me too, but I still consider myself to be an aspie. I have a problem with the idea that ritualistic behaviour counts for an autism diagnosis. I think this stuff is actually OCD, which is sometimes found in autistics, but is really a separate condition. I think they list ritualistic behaviour as an autistic characteristic because the NTs who wrote the diangostic criteria can't tell the difference between a stim and OCD compulsive behaviour.

If you take a careful look at the DSM criteria for autism and AS you will notice that you don't need to have all of the autistic characteristics to qualify for a diangosis. If you have a look in the DSM at the diagnostic criteria for the condition "Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS)" then you will see that one does not need to have many autistic features at all to qualifiy for a PDD-NOS diagnosis, but PDD-NOS is still considered to be an autism spectrum condition. So it follows that one does not need to have a full range of autistic traits to be officially diagnosed as being somewhere on the autistic spectrum. So why are you splitting hairs about your self-diagnosis? You are being much more careful about this than many clinicians are, I'd bet.

Look at it this way; you are obviously very different from the norm in the way your mind works. What, if not autism, is the correct label or explanation for why you are different? I don't think there is any other explanation.

With your IQ score in the bright/gifted range and academic failure at school, I think at the very least if you were a child going through the system today who was correctly assessed, you would be identified as intellectually gifted and also learning disabled or autistically disabled. I think the term for this is "doubly exceptional" or "2E". One fact that you won't read about in the DSM is the fact that autism and intellectual giftedness appear to be "comorbid" or are somehow associated with each other. There is a small amount of research data supporting this link, and heaps of anecdotal evidence for a link between high IQ and autism/AS. All of my kids are in gifted programmes, and they all also have significant autistic traits.

Moonwind wrote

It is true that there isn't any specific autistic trait that all autistics have, but I personally don't think a person is autistic if they claim to be socially normal and fully socially confident in every way. I'd expect anyone who is autistic to have some history of being bullied or socially excluded at some age in some setting. I'd expect an autistic to not be a great social perfomer in job interviews. I'd expect there to be some conflict or coldness in some relationships with neurotypical family members. I'd expect some kind of social oddness or disinterest in personal presentation (fashion, grooming, conversational skill).

Moonwind wrote

You might find that if you go and get your auditory processing tested by an audiologist (this is different to getting your hearing tested) you have poor auditory processing, or maybe even have Central Auditory Processing Disorder or Auditory Processing Disorder. If you do, I'd advise you to be sceptical about "cures" for this condition.

I got myself tested, and my auditory processing is borderline between the normal range and the "questionable" range. I have trouble keeping track of fast-paced multi-speaker conversations, and I can't follow a lot of the fast-paced dialogue in movies and TV shows. I think this could be due to slow attention-shifting and poor auditory processing.

A lot of the auditory processing problems in that list in the preceding post are still problems for me as an adult, and were even worse problems for me as a child, to the degree that it made things impossible for me in some classes in high school, seriously impacting on my academic performance.

But it is definitley not true that these auditory processing problems necessarily cause problems with literacy. I'm very literate and a good speller. All of my kids are good at literacy, and one has an almost savant or hyperlexic ability in reading and writing. I think this is due to genes for good systemizing of language, or hyperlexia genes, having more influence on our literacy development than verbal language ability. Many so-called experts in literacy and education believe that verbal language is the foundation for written literacy, but this is complete nonsense.

:lol: Thanks for your replies,can relate to the 'unemotional' part! My dad died back in November,spoke to my brother(typical cash/posession obsessed NT),he accused me of being a 'cold fish' as i wasn't weeping and wailing down the phone! Just found out he's trying to rip off my mother who suffers from Bi-polar disorder for proceeds of the house....i may be Aspie,but i'm not stupid! My dad was very straightforward,well-read,and described as 'a little quirky'(to me he was just dad!),and wouldn't be pleased to know what was going on if he was still here,so i'm not having the best of times at the moment.   :evil:  It's good to talk,apologies for rambling! Glad you guys are around!

I think there can be a lack of feeling in family relationships because they just aren't genuine relationships. Just because someone is your sister or father it doesn't automatically make it a relationship. Within families there can be bad relationships, and there can also be psuedo-relationships.