Aspies For Freedom

Hello.  I'm new here.  First post.  At the age of 51, I am (finally) self-diagnosed as being on the spectrum (which believe me, has finally made my whole life and struggles, etc. make perfect sense.)  I've been reading this thread and find it fascinating.  Particularly where Seven suggests that perhaps someone is partially autistic AND Asperger's at the same time.  Can that truly be?

I ask because that is one of my main confusions right now.  As a child (and even now), I guess you could say not only "internally", but according to the more clinical differentiations between autism (more intensively autistic as a child) and Asperger's, I match and relate more to being "classically" or traditionally, for lack of better words, as "autistic".

After MANY many years of intense study, learning the best I could, and adoption of as many NT traits as I could (I mimic), I appear to present myself NOW more as Asperger's.  It is like I take in information via the autistic process, then convert it to an Asperger's process, THEN try to outwardly present myself as "typically" as possible.

Man...........am I making myself clear at all?  (Hard to know or tell for me.)  Anyway, IS it possible to have BOTH HFA and Asperger's at the same time?  I'm clearly on the ASD spectrum, (even had ECT as a child, before autism was ever widely known about) because I was mute a lot and I screamed, flailed and "lost it" quite often.  Mute because talking was just too hard, and I wasn't "interested".  Until I could find or see the logic or reason for "talking" (and "walking" all that much for that matter), or talking during times of stress (almost always), I just wouldn't do it.  Too hard to make myself understood.  ALTHOUGH I did speak verbally as a "professor" type when I spoke, which is ok now, because I work in the legal field as a paralegal (and have for the past 34 years); at times it is still very tiring, others I'm hyper at talking, and others I have literally no "interest" in talking (or making or having friends) at ALL!

I could write a book of course in order to attempt to clarify and make myself understood and give examples blah blah, but I'll try to make this short.

The results of the testing I recently took (the Simon Baron-Cohen tests, if anyone is interested are:  AQ=43, EQ=7, SQ-R=94

The Asperger's test (the unofficial one on the web) that I took came out:  Aspie score 170 of 200, NT score 32 of 200.

The "eyes" test made me so frustrated that I just couldn't do it.  I could only even BEGIN to GUESS what 5 or 6 of them "might" be (which I did get correct), but I noticed those were the ones the clearly (to me) indicated "anger" type looks.  I noticed I got immediately extremely anxious while taking the test, and totally frustrated, and threw my hands around several times, mumbling to myself "Man, I can't do this!  I have NO clue!"

And I pass as normal (but a bit odd).  Have for years now.  But nobody knows exactly what it took (and still takes) daily for me to do so.  I suppress SO many automatic behaviors (?) and/or verbal retorts or comments (to avoid abuse being inflicted on me), it isn't funny.  Extremely exhausting.

So..............Could I truly possibly be both autistic AND have Asperger's syndrome, too?

Thanks, everyone.

Thanks, Noetic.  That helps!  At this stage of the game for me anyway, (and at my age now), my presentation of which subgroup of autism I fall into would logically be extremely affected by things and/or outward types of behavior, psychology, spirituality, philosophy, communication, and many other "obsessions of the day, week, month or year" I have studied, learned, memorized, "adopted", or just plain "fake" in order to avoid being institutionalized, probably just complicates the whole thing.  

[And yes, at age 14 my IQ was tested and came in at in the 150s.  That only complicated everything; and I say having a higher IQ did not benefit me in many ways, that's for sure.  Economically, yes; I am grateful for that.  But still.......... who is to say what it is that defines "intelligence"?  That in itself is controversial.  The same as who is to say what is to be considered "normal" or not, ya know?

And I agree that I don't need to be cured of anything either.  The medical world didn't think so, either, UNTIL one of them found out (or realized) that autism is the world I live in, and then..........hmmmmmmm......maybe I need to be "treated" after all.  Yeah, right.  After I stop laughing, they can "try".

Oops, or allow me to clarify, the medical world argued amongst themselves as to just "what" I was or had.  They didn't think I needed to be "treated", just probably "institutionalized".  Ah, the wonderful 50s and 60s!  (Gee, it's not physical nor is it any kind of a "mental illness or disease"......hmmmmm.......scratching their heads.......can't treat what we can't find.....hmmmmmm......)  I felt like I was in a Nazi camp most of my life, being experimented on.  I was convinced I truly was an alien.  (I digress........)

Surprisingly, I actually don't hold too much against the NT world, but I could kick myself for not discovering or realizing much earlier that I was and still am AUTISTIC!    (I am finding that the UK is MUCH farther ahead in recognizing, diagnosing and even accepting the autistic spectrum than the U.S. appears to be.)  At least that is my observation so far.........

So, true!  Anyone else with autism here experience the "joys" of ECT?  As I touched upon earlier, they did it to me at around the age of 4 (by golly, we'll get her to talk and quit screaming and crying somehow!), and with my brain/mind being much slower to process things anyway, it did not shut down immediately before it registered "excrutiating pain!" and the ole body started convulsing.  Oh, I remember ECT and exactly what it felt like.

By the way, it did absolutely no good.  IF ECT is still tried for autism today anywhere, I'd personally, for what it is worth, just like to respectfully "suggest" that extreme caution and consideration be employed first.  And they say WE have no capacity for "empathy".

Well.........the bottom line is I sort of feel the most comfortable with Noetic's previous comment, i.e.:  "So you can be classically autistic with a relatively high IQ (HFA) and still have some traits more commonly associated with AS."

That somehow sounds or feels more like me and doesn't cause me any immediate reactions of confusion.  That's a good thing........  

Thanks!!

  No, first they tried to "cure" whatever it was via ECT, then when that didn't work, they suggested institutionalizing me.  (My parents said "no".)  Although, my mother (I was adopted) did derive a perverse pleasure out of holding that over my head as a threat from time to time as I grew up.  Those were the "times", though!  Strangely, I find I can laugh about it now.

First, at the age of about 3, my parents were told that I would probably be in a wheelchair by the time I was about 12 (gross motor skills still weren't very good or had regressed), and I would probably not live past the age of 20.  (Needless to say, my 20s were terror, as I expected to die any day......until I reached the age of 30, and then realized they were full of it!)  

Shows you how far recognition and knowledge of autism has come in the U.S. since the archaic 50s and early 60s, doesn't it?

All of the above came from when I was examined and treated at the University of Michigan medical center (or behaviorial science or child psychiatric units or whatever they were called at the time) - right around the periods of the late 50s and early 60s.  If the U of M ever DID officially diagnose me as "autistic", that was never told to me, and that word was never ever used in the house.  So until two weeks, ago, I hadn't even ever considered it myself (neither has the medical and psychiatric/psychological field since then).  

For the most part, people thought I somehow must be "mistaken" about what little I had been told prognosis-wise (as mentioned above), until just this last week (after diagnosing myself as Autistic), I did find these two quotes from articles, which vindicate me.  Hoorah!!!

"People tend to think the average life expectancy of an autistic is 18 to 21 years," said Stephen Shore, director of Autism Spectrum Disorders Consulting and instructor of Special Education at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA."

"Autism was once thought to be a rare disorder. Knowledge of this condition—its diagnosis, management, causes, course, and outcome—was not considered necessary for most mental health practitioners. It was only minimally covered and discussed in child psychiatry fellowships or residencies.  When I began my child psychiatry training at the children’s psychiatric hospital at the University of Michigan Medical Center, I was assigned five autistic children to treat. I read whatever I could about the management and treatment of such children. In 1960, we routinely blamed parents for their autistic children, and we had little available in our therapeutic armamentarium to treat these children and help their families.  As a resident/fellow, I was advised to help families work through their grief and disappointment at having an autistic child and help them recognize that, in all probability, their child would be hospitalized and/or institutionalized for the rest of his or her life."  Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Research Review for Practitioners, edited by Sally Ozonoff, Ph.D., Sally J. Rogers, Ph.D., and Robert L. Hendren, D.O. Washington, D.C., American  Psychiatric Publishing, 2003, 296 pp.

Actually, I LOVED it whenever I was hospitalized......which was a lot......because I was never really "sick", and when I was in the hospital for "observation", I was finally left alone to my own thoughts, etc. and sensory disturbances were decreased, so I was in heaven during those times.  HAH!  I was always "there", though, even if they thought I was consciously "gone" somewhere.

Hey, you folks have been great in indulging my examination of the differences between Aspergers and HFA!  Can't tell you how much I appreciate it!

You know, I don't know, but I can surmise it was just another one of those non-educated "rumors" that fortunately didn't last too long.  It must have been fairly quickly disproved, but it took a while to get the "news" to everyone.  And lucky me was just fell in that "gap" of wrongful assumption.

Ewwww......You poor thing!  I was blessed with not experiencing ear infections, but my understanding is that it is awful!

(Finding this message board has been a Godsend!)    

Yeah, I tried, also.  Remember, too, though, autism wasn't well known at all until almost about the 80s (in most parts of the U.S.)  And I can only guess that whoever gave that prognosis even knew they were talking about "autism" at the time.  It just uncannily "fits" with my specific medical history.  (Not long ago, I had a prominent neurologist misdiagnose me with having MS and he told me I WOULD become disabled.  I just shook my head and said "yeah, yeah".)  Come to find out, he was indeed wrong, as I knew he was, because I was put through a battery of tests by him, and even with my knowledge of medicine, I saw that I nowhere near met the criteria for a diagnosis of MS.  They always mistake my sensory problems and gross motor skills (which regress from time to time) as other issues (always wrong) or they are just puzzled by it.  

See, that is why my higher so-called intelligence and abilities at compensating for what I lack, work against me.  They just didn't imagine autism at the time because it was too unknown and was associated with mental retardation, and I was too "smart".

Back in the 50s and 60s, they had NO clue what they were seeing/dealing with.  I was just thrilled the other day with finding the fact that even if they DID diagnosis that I was autistic, that the "dying by the time she's 20" thing was NOT my imagination!  (As if I even have much of an imagination in many ways.  And one of my pet peeves of all time is "lying".  Sends me into a fit!)  

Yep.........it was in the 70s (had my first child in 1973) that I finally asserted myself in stopping all of the intense medical scrutiny of me.  It was like "leave me ALONE"!  Everything under the sun (both psychologically and physically) had already been ruled out.

Explains why they didn't catch autism, doesn't it?  The big dummies.    Isn't there a book called "Autism for Dummies"?  I would love to send all of the doctors (that it would even be possible for me to remember) that book.  HAH!

I know, and as we now can see (of course, hindsight is 20/20), that assumption was incorrect.  I'm still the exact same "person" on the inside as I was as a child, it's just the outward conscious and self-controlled presentation that has changed (with development - physically, educationally, etc., and with just plain learning how to become hyper-vigilent and how to "hide".)  And when you see (of course, I'm extremely "visual") everything written down on paper, beginning right from the time I was born, the developmental disorder(s) become plainly evident.  Add in behavior evaluations, thought and mind processes, and the test results I recently took, and BINGO!  You're a winner!  

(Now I just am in the process of figuring out if the "prize" of autism is a good thing or not.)  Right now, I'm actually thrilled!