Aspies For Freedom

This is from the Aspie quiz:

Your Aspie score: 112 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 64 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie


I'm a 23 year old male from Holland. I found out about Asperger's because someone in an IRC channel I go to has the syndrome. When I read the wikipedia page about it I was astonished, because I recognized so much of myself in the symptoms.

I have very bad motor skills. My parents and teachers noticed this when I was young (8-9 years old), so I got training for this as a kid. My skills really improved, but I'm still quite clumsy, and when I have to write a lot my hand starts to hurt very quickly because I press very hard on the paper. I also suck at most sports.
I tap a lot with my fingers and feet. I also tend to jump up from my seat, run or walk a short distance through the room for no reason, and go back to my seat. This happens especially when I'm excited. I also move my head from left to right repeatedly in bed before I go to sleep.

I have quite intense interests, and I somehow cycle through a lot of them. There are a few interests that always keep returning, but I can't pay attention to more than one at once. My interests are: Techno music and especially synthesizers from the 70's and 80's (and other electronic music equipment such as drumcomputers), graphic & industrial design (particularly Dutch design), conspiracy theories (that includes pseudoscience such as UFO's/aliens and paranormal stuff), the Tour de France (although only when it's happening, and only that race, other bicycle races don't interest me at all). As a kid I was obsessed with computers and I wanted to become a computer programmer. Until I realized I sucked at maths, when my interests primarily shifted to creative arts.

My social problems:
Although my social skills have gotten a lot better as I grew up, I'm still having some serious 'problems'. I don't have many friends. I think I can say that I have 2 friends, but I'm not sure who I can consider a friend and who not.
I have never been in a relationship. I've never even kissed a girl before. The closest I have been to sex was when I was drunk and ended up in bed with a girl who only let me touch her. I know this is weird considering my age, but it's not bothering me greatly.
I have trouble keeping up my social network. Friends have to call me, I never call them. So the only time I'll see them is when they either contact me, or when I bump in to them.
I don't like eye contact. I never look someone in the face in a conversation. I don't use non-verbal communication either. I learned about non-verbal communication during a social skills course in school, but I don't use any of those tricks. I also talk in a monotonous voice.

'Mind' problems:
These are the problems that bug me the most and what's keeping me awake right now
I have trouble concentrating. I'm very easily distracted by noises and things I find more interesting, but I'm particularly distracted by my own thoughts. In my head I have conversations with people, or I give presentations about things that interest me. I also 'fantasize' very normal everyday things in my head. This is getting very annoying lately because I'm getting aware of what I'm doing and it gets tiresome.

These are roughly the things that make me think I have Asperger's Syndrome too, there's more that I can't think of right now, and there are certainly things that don't apply to me. I think I have a pretty good idea of when something is insulting or rude for example. I also sometimes enjoy being in a group, and I get along well with a lot of people (although I have to get used to them first).

I'm still thinking about going to a psychologist or something to get an official diagnosis. But first I want to tell my parents and ask what they think of this. They know a lot more of my childhood of course.

Thanks for the replies. And yes Batman, our stories are very similar

And I do think NASA put people on the moon. The evidence that suggests all the photos were taken in a studio is pretty weak. I do think NASA is a very interesting agency. Werner von Braun was a nazi and Jack Parsons was an occultist. Parsons invoked the god Pan before each rocket test and he used to practise magic with L. Ron Hubbard. I think the NASA is covering up a lot of UFO encounters and maybe some more occultist stuff involving Freemasonry and Illuminati.

Well, I just talked about this with my parents. They were very surprised that I brought this up. My parents agree that I'm definitely 'different' from my brothers. However, neither of them know any more of psychology than me. Except for my mother maybe, who is a doctor's assistant and has quite some medical knowledge. She admitted that when she first heard about Asperger's, she thought of me for a moment. They know about my tics, particularly one when I was very young, I used to bump my head against the wall repeatedly when I was in bed. They also told me that I needed to be motivated a lot for a lot of things, including calling friends instead of waiting for them to call.

They said I should make an appointment to get tested as soon as possible, and I will.

Yay, my mother found out that the hospital 5 minutes away from my home can test adults for ADD/ADHD, PDD-NOS and Asperger's. I'll be on a waiting list for 8 weeks probably, so that's doable.

W00t. I just received a letter in my mail from the hospital. I've been put on a 10 week waiting list to get tested for autism

AS? Autism? HFA? ASD? The battle of the 'experts' rages on! Who cares! Been here a couple of days and I feel I'm in the right place (at last).

I'm sure this has been said before, but I thought of this last night:
Most doctors and experts don't know their AS from their elbow (ho ho ho!)

I'm getting asessed at a university medical centre. I'm pretty sure they have psychiatrists who know about these kind of things. And it's very important to me to get an official diagnosis. I want my own suspicions to be confirmed...

Sorry if I was too jokey, just don't get your hopes up *too* much. It can be a loooooong process and we don't always get what we want, and sometime when we've got what we thought we wanted we realise that's not what we wanted after all!
[blushes breifly at revealing inner insanity]

If you're like me, you may have many questions that pop into your head before the appointment. I use many notebooks scattered around the house and collate these into (hopefully) some sane questions to ask freinds before the appointment and to ask the torturer, sorry, doctor on the day.

I know what you mean. I'm well aware that I might be tested 'negative' on AS, particularly because I'm actually quite social (although I had to learn over time, and I still feel awkward in a lot of social situations). I've been preparing a lot of conversations in my head (that's what I do a lot, seems to be an aspie trait) but I know from experience that in reality the conversations will go totally different...In my head people just shut up and listen to me, lol

I am similar, though I replay conversations etc in my mind to try to understand them (I'm one of those that can repeat a convo word-for-word 6 months later... usefull but annoying).

*EQL*

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Can Someone PLEASE read my thread "Need Advice" and give me a reply/opinion!!! I would really like to know what people think! Thx

Well, their website is quite clear: They can test adults for ADHD, PDD-NOS and Asperger's. They ask me to bring a parent because they want to know if I had the same problems before I was 7.

Yep, I had to write down a list of those endless examples to convince 3rd or 4th doctor to refer me. Eventually they did. I got a letter back from the "specialist" telling me I was an alcoholic without them even seeing me, so had to go through the whole thing again, again, again.

Any one else here get deja-vue?

Man I am having some serious problems with proofreading, or not proofreading, of late.

It's odd.  I wonder if it's the way the text appears on the screen, or something.  But 75% of the time I'm forgetting words.  That's not like me.

In Usenet, I'm 99% perfect.  Here it's a lot different.

Thanks. I don't think it's weird myself, I just realize that I'm quite late with this when I look at other NT people. I was supposed to have my first kiss when I was 14 and had sex for the first time at 16 or something. And brag about it. That's the norm in the real world I think. But I guess I never really cared about it. Especially at that age I was very aspie (I'm a little more social now, I can even get along with girls nowadays).

I find lots of distraction in computer games, movies and tv shows. And I don't have it when I actually talk to someone. Most of the conversations I have in my head are really 'presentations' I'm giving to a group of people about something that is on my mind at that moment.