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Hi all,

I'm a 21 year old male in 3rd year of university and I've always felt something wasn't quite right about me. I've had some "tough times" socializing (according to my standards, I tend to be very critical), problems in school over the years, seen a couple shrinks, been given the whole battery of tests, but never found a satisfactory explanation for my difficulties.

I don't want to force you guys to review my case and offer your two cents, but if you don't mind reading a handful I'd love to hear some feedback/similar experiences.

Some of the professionals I've seen point out that I have some Aspergers traits but never settled on it as a diagnosis because of how few they are and how mild/infrequently they manifest themselves. They also tend to look away from that label because I've always been able to make and keep friends easily (maybe the main problem for people with Aspergers).

As far DISTINCTLY Asperger traits go, I've always been a rocker, I have a pretty monotone voice, I had motor problems when I was a kid(I'm average now but no athlete either).

I have been very empathetic my whole life, never had a problem understanding people's body language(when I was little I absolutely had to hug people who looked sad, or in pain to comfort them)

I have always found it easy to zone out for long periods of time and be completely oblivious to others (as well as what's going on in class or where I am altogether, lol). I also tend to get thoughts stuck in my head and obsess about them(which usually leads me into zoning out) until I am distracted by something else. These issues pretty much describe my social difficulties which consist of noticing but ignoring people's body language/knowing the right/appropriate thing to do but being too distracted/preoccupied to actually do it.

Some of my school problems are also due to this, IE. I get stuck on one part of the lesson, don't let it go and let myself fall behind, or I zone out. I also have a hard time keeping information in my head very long (bad working memory?) learning from mistakes(inflexibility?) and organizing my thoughts to solve a problem/write an essay
(i've already spent 90 min trying to throw together this convoluted message).

I have a cousin on my dad's side with pretty severe autism(he has to be institutionalized) an uncle(no kids) with pretty severe AS or maybe even HFA, and my entire dad's side (including my dad himself) seems to belong to fall under this new "Broad Autistic Phenotype" classification. I'm not surprised that I've inherited a handful of these traits but as I said above they are too few and far in-between for me (and experienced psychologists!) to see, at most, a very mild/marginal case.

If I left out something important, go ahead and ask, I'm here to understand myself better and I'm not afraid to share anything.

Thanks for reading this far if you have, and nice to meet you!

J

Welcome to WP!

Welcome greetings to the Wrong Planet community, yougivinbeef.

Greetings newly arrived postcount contributor.

perhaps you have a poorer short term memory and a good long term memory? those are fairly common traits. i have them as well. in relative speaking, my short term is "average" when everything is great. hmm. we are very similar according to this post.

It's a multiplicity of concurrent trains of thought, not really poor short term memory, in my opinion.

How are you with eye contact, judging the mood of a group, participating in group discussions? They're often points of difficulty for aspies.

To WrongPlanet!! !