Aspies For Freedom

If you want to read something about personality types/disorders, go here:  http://www.ptypes.com/

In a suspected case of adult Asperger's Syndrome, how do you draw a line between a list of dysfunctional traits seen in personality disorders (for many of us, either general anxiety or social anxiety, preference for solitude; in some cases social isolation and mild paranoid thinking, etc.) and the actual ASD (autistic spectrum disorder)?

I can say that I am definitely not Schizoid Personality Disorder.. I have no doubt, despite my need for solitude.  I come much closer to Schizotypal Personality Disorder, but I also have a lot of similarities to Borderline and Compensatory Narcissistic.  I appear to be a combination of all three, but then since my social anxiety is so pervasive, I could also be Avoidant Personality Disorder (but then how many of us suspected/DXed Aspies on here don't have avoidance issues?)

So my point is, where do you draw the line?

Sorry that I posted this twice.. I was going to add something and hit the send button instead (not thinking).. read the other thread instead folks, or moderator, just delete this one?

To make it simple what the difference is, people with AS have sensory issues, obsessions, like routines, dislike changes, have patterns in behavior, people with perosnality disorders do not. That's how I know I'm on the autism spectrum.

Yeah, that's why I was asking.  There's a close correlation in subjective behavior between AS traits and some personality disorders, esp. Schizoid (from what I have observed), but also others.

Some of that, I just don't remember.

But I can tell you that obsessions (esp. strange obsessions) were there, heightened sensitivity to facial expression (esp. eye contact), a lot of self-help problems and dyspraxia, and a lot of social comprehension problems.

I was sensitive to bright lights and esp. loud noises (yelling was like death for me) and I was fairly hyper (not constantly like a real ADHD kid, however) and if I remember right, I did have lots of fidgety mannerisms, like hair-twirling and finger tapping and other things.  I would get lost in daydreams all the time.

I also hated wearing certain kinds of clothing because of the way it felt on my skin.  I wouldn't know what to wear by myself, or even care, for the most part.  I had no concept of trendiness, at all.

I usually wouldn't know how to do things unless someone told me specifically how to do them, you know, on a literal/direct level.  I would misinterpret "padded" information; in other words, information that needed abstract interpretation.  I just couldn't do that.

I did have friends as a kid, in fact I had a couple really good friends, and I wanted to be around them often.  But all of these social things started declining quickly, around fifth grade (I think partly because my friends were developing socially, whereas I was not.)

My interests were very narrow/limited and obsessive in almost all cases, and they occurred to the exclusion of other things.  Eventually some of these interests became repetitive.  For example if it was video games, I loved to examine all the details and take it all in...  the moving colors and all such things were fascinating to me.. much more so than a regular kid.  I was lost in my own world.

Thoughts?

In most photo's from childhood I am on my own or at least not standing close to others who are standing close together ( like family photo's ). In most pictures I am doing the same activities which were mostly to do with cars or motor racing. This pattern of being distant has always been part of me. I always have the feeling of being alone even when I am in a crowd.

On one photo of my sisters wedding I am stood apart from my family, only about a foot, but I remember the photographer asking me to get closer and I couldn't, that was 1997 when I was 20. Also in photos my head is often 'back'. Often people comment that I'm aloof and I think that could be part of it.

But of course the latter are just feelings (subjective), whereas the photos show it is more than just that

Other things to look out for are what you are wearing esp. as a small child - are you always wearing the same clothes? (Sameness and sensory issues)

Are you often wearing just tights or no top even when the weather would suggest it was too cold to do so? (There are many photos from Christmas of me wearing just tights rather than pants while stacking up my building blocks, I was about 3 then - I hated the feeling of pants over tights and always took my pants off as soon as possible)

Object you hold are also interesting, is there a favourite item you carry around a lot, or a toy that you have held onto for a very long time (as in, age 2 through to 12 or older) etc.

Yes but why did you do this? I asked you about sources from whence you could provide more reliable information than vague recollections, since you stated above that you didn't remember the kinds of things I listed as possible ways of differentiating.

I did not ask you to provide more subjective reconstructions of how you possibly did something because you might have thought X Y or Z at the time, and how you think you were and how you interpret yourself nowadays.

What I did ask was whether you had access to certain sources of information.

I also suggested ways for you to find out the truth about the parts of your life that you said you didn't know anything about, i.e. asking people who WILL know about these things, consulting documents from childhood and looking at photos of yourself.

No. What's subjective is that you are still talking about emotions and social perceptions that you are reading into your behaviour as a child. Those are not facts because they are based on your analysis and speculation about why you "suppose" you must have done or felt a certain way.

Facts are usually observable and can be reconstructed, and if you want to know what really went on, you need both sides, not just your subjective perception of yourself.

Not for ME but for yourself, do you understand that?

Read my answers above & to Michael1.

Yeah, we only got a video player when I was about 12, so no chance of videos of me at a young age and none at all made by my parents.

I envy those people who have tons of videos of themselves as kids, because a lot of my own memories of that time are very sensory on a basic level (textures, colours, how something felt in my mouth, movements, spatial/kinetic maps of my environment), and then later revolve around a few limited activities I enjoyed, with only a few "shreds" of memories of interactions I had with people.

"Thankfully" families have this tendency to bring up "embarrassing" anecdotes that usually tend to revolve around such interactions when they are out of the norm, but again I think it would be so amazing if you could just look and listen back on yourself at will, like a window through time

Be cautious about taking family stories about you for "facts." They are often more subjective than your own sketchy memories.

Once the family decides you're "the odd one" that tends to become the thesis of all the stories, and the narrative is shaped to illustrate the oddness.

And, BATMAN55 -- that's a fascinating site. Thanks for the link.

You asked me, but I haven't gotten to work on it yet.

I am not yet working on constructing objective data on my case of AS, outside the internet, as yet.  I am still exploring on here and looking for commentary on certain things, and getting multiple angles from different people, and it helps to see things from the perspective of other Aspies.. even if the Internet is an unreliable source.

I think what I have given you in recent posts is more-or-less objective data, because I find no reason to lie about these things.  It is still my interpretation, but it still counts, as well.  It would be fully objective were it not that it was only my analysis.  You're right that I need both sides, both my recollection and other's, but for the purpose of exploring AS on the Internet, I am going to use my recollection.

You aren't qualified to judge my AS but I can always use your commentary, and anyone else's.  I know I need to find objective information for myself, not just for you and those on AFF, but I am still in the process of exploring Asperger's on the internet and you know me, I am not one to work on things pragmatically.

I hope you understand a bit better, now.

Previously, you also said I should put more objective examples of things from my own childhood, instead of just "I am like that, and I probably have AS", well I am trying to be more objective.

I know I shouldn't be doing that just for you, but read above.  I am still exploring AS and other's AS on here.  I like to gather as many angles/details on things as I can, first, before I decide on anything.  My gathering of details is pedantic and in some ways, unnecessary, but it is my preference for doing things.  I hope you understand.

Maybe you shouldn't have snipped the sentence following that quote, as it explains that I agree with you that my interpretation is a liability.

I said I can use your commentary on my statements, I didn't mean to imply what you said here.  Even if it may seem so.  The point of that quote was that I am always looking for commentary on these things, from you or anyone else.  Unless someone is being a complete distasteful jerk, which is rarely the case on AFF.

I like people to agree and I like attention sometimes (but not so much offline), but then I have not heard of anyone who doesn't like others to agree with them sometimes, and I have also never heard of anyone who doesn't (occasionally) like attention.

My passive gathering of details, staying on here and reading about a lot of different things and comparing and contrasting myself and analyzing things to no end.. this is what I call either excessive or pedantic... NOT my descriptions, or writing itself..  My writing can be pedantic but I have learned to strip things down to essentials, over the years.

I am being pedantic/excessive because I am reading as much as I can about AS, on AFF, and making heavy analysis.. this to an excessive degree.  I am going around central coherence (which would be to construct an objective case for AS, if I choose to get diagnosed) in favor of soaking in unnecessary details and analyzing things over and over.  This is how I do things though, repeating and observing time and time again, in hopes that rote memorization will make up for "obvious" things I have trouble learning.

And you are being pedantic by consistently finding fault with words of mine that you don't think meet the proper dictionary definition, *or* the way you thought the words were defined.

I like to be technical and correct when I can, but I like to use a more vernacular definition of words these days, because otherwise writing would take me forever.

How about you just be nice to me, like you were doing up until about a week ago?  You don't have to agree with me on everything, but how about you just treat the same as you used to.

It may just be me, but you seem "moodier" and more disagreeable than usual.  I could be wrong, but usually I can pick up changes in somebody's tone and I have observed (I said *I* have observed, not anyone else) a touch of "flightiness" in your recent posts.

"There was a kid (me) standing there with a zombie expression, whipping her pigtail in a circular motion....viewers were going to think that weird kid stood there whipping her hair for an entire week.  Dang."

Okay, the situation isn't funny -- it's just a kid being a kid -- but the way you tell it is hilarious!