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Sorry, my favorite introduction joke.

It is uncertain whether I truly have Asperger's Syndrome, but just reading your posts have given me a sense of belonging to a group that I have never gotten from anywhere else in my life. And trust me, in terms of where I've been and what I've done, I technically "belong" to a few rather select groups.

A little about me... I am a 36 year old male living in the south-eastern United States. I am currently working on a Ph.D. in Atomic Molecular and Optical (AMO) Physics (hence the moniker QuantumMechanic; I had to leave off Certified for the character limit). This is my second career after being a Reactor Operator in the US Navy. I consistently have problems with social interaction and making/maintaining relationships of any type other than professional/colleague and not necessarily good at them either. If it is possible to take an NT person and make them seem to have Asperger's due to their childhood without technically abusing them, I am likely one of the test cases. I have a high IQ (unknown and do not particularly care to know the number) and have moderate professional success. I think Asperger's Syndrome might describe me well since it puts most of my past social history into something that makes sense. I do not seem to have normal emotional responses or an understanding of other's emotions. I also have a few auditory processing problems that seem to be shared with many of you; though mine are more of a communication hindrance than actually disabling.

So, I have been lurking here in the publicly availiable section for a few months now and finally decided to register. The ocassion? I've ocassionally felt the need to put in my 2 cents; and I finally let a psychological professional have a crack at me. While I have been self-diagnosing as Asperger's based on books by people on the spectrum and other online descriptions, my professional's 45 minute diagnosis was Anxiety Disorder-NOS and his stated hypothesis was alexithymia (which apparently has an 85% correlation with ASD). His reasoning? I was a little too facile with language, or to use his phrase, "not geeky enough," to have Asperger's (Possibly because I do O.K. in expected, staged social interactions that have little ambiguity of intent). After reading up on the alexithymia I am not particularly convinced that it describes me very well (match some, but have definite negative on what some consider the most important aspect), but I am open to his opinion. I am still at a 70% confidence level that AS describes me. Whatever comes of that, I still have had a sense of belonging from reading your posts. I have had similar social problems and issues with understanding that many of you here have posted about. I think/hope that I can contribute positively. I have already recieved good insight from your posts that help me see how I am thinking incorrectly about other people's reactions to how I behave; and I thank you for it.

Thank you for reading my self-centered verbosity.

Your diagnostician is not up-to-date on the variety of manifestations of Asperger's. I am extremely facile with language (although, as noted in a different thread, even I can lose the ability to speak easily if I am operating under enough stress) and I have been diagnosed with Asperger's. It is more common to see females with strong language abilities, but there are no hard-and-fast one-size-fits-all gender rules when it comes to manifestations of autism, just overall trends.

Those expected, staged social interactions may be part of a test designed for children, as well. As we age, we are exposed to various social scenarios and get simple rules explained to us either by other people or by books such as etiquette books. Also, some social norms can be learned from reading a lot of novels or watching a lot of movies and observing behavior because things are simplified and spelled out more in entertainment forms than they are in actual life.

So those tests of relatively unambiguous social encounters are not too bad for screening children with AS but fail dismally on adults who have had decades of exposure to social ideas and have had time to learn many of them by rote.

Oh, and welcome to Wrong Planet (I know you've been lurking for a while so welcoming you to the site is illogical, but welcome as a fellow subscriber now.)

Thank you for the support. I do not mean to imply that he was too quick to make a diagnosis, but I felt it O.K. to state his first opinion. He would like me to spend some time with a counseling center and get back to him in a few months. Developmental disorders are one of his specialties and he does see AS all around at the engineering oriented school I am at. Perhaps he will change his hypothesis with more information. Or he may find a diagnosis I find more convincing. He did seem to expect someone with AS to have more of a monotonic, robotic inflection. And the fact that I told him I am comfortable giving professional presentations may be misleading. It had to be learned while I was in the Navy.



Sorry, I implied too much. By expected, staged social interaction, I meant an office visit where I had an informal conversation with him. I seem to know how to interact with a health care professional trying to help me. Since I at least think I know expectations and how to act, I am fine with it. I would still do poorly with actual staged social role-playing tests because I would feel silly. They are often so exaggerated that it is in no way subtle what the expected behavior/reaction is. Or I would be very confused (and still feel silly) if they actually were subtle.



Maybe illogical, but I think it still considered polite to respond to even a late introduction. Of course I have found most "polite" things to be illogical or flat out lies; but I have needed to learn some of them to get along with the mainstream. Thank you for the Welcome.

Look at Temple Grandin for comparison. She was non-verbal in her early years and is comfortable giving professional presentations now and does so frequently. I realize that "for example" is not a proof, but it *is* evidence that at least one autistic person can give professional presentations. There are many more examples: Stephen Shore, Taylor Crowe, Donna Williams, Jim Sinclair, Liane Holliday Wiley, John Elder Robison, Jerry Newport, and university professors Dawn Prince-Hughes, Vernon L. Smith, and Lars Perner.

Just to name a few.



Sorry, I implied too much. By expected, staged social interaction, I meant an office visit where I had an informal conversation with him. I seem to know how to interact with a health care professional trying to help me. Since I at least think I know expectations and how to act, I am fine with it. I would still do poorly with actual staged social role-playing tests because I would feel silly. They are often so exaggerated that it is in no way subtle what the expected behavior/reaction is. Or I would be very confused (and still feel silly) if they actually were subtle.[/quote]

Ah. Well. The doctor-patient relationship is a pretty scripted and formalized relationship. I do pretty well with it myself, except when a doctor breaks the standard script and I'm left floundering, trying to figure out what to say. A doctor did that to me once and then when I was floundering said, "it's not a test, you know." I think she was laughing at me. I'm not sure, though.

But, yeah, for "high-functioning" people you have to step outside the standard scripted interactions to ascertain our level of impairment.

Welcome to WP!

Welcome to WP, QuantumMechanic! I was a lurker for a long time, too.

What Sparrowrose said made a lot of sense. When I was much younger, if there had been a diagnostic test for AS it would have shown I had it, no doubt. Over time, I have learned how to deal with social situations, so it's not always that obvious. I self-diagnosed about 7 months ago and have chosen to go no further than that.

I have never done "staged social role-playing tests" but it they sound like they are NOT accurate reflections of real social situations.

Another example of something like that is this test: http://glennrowe.net/BaronCohen/Faces/EyesTest.aspx

I scored surprisingly high because I had a lot of time to carefully examine each one. In real life, you have to assess such expressions much faster.

"Monotonic, robotic inflection"? From what many people here have said, and from my own experience, not necessarily (or even usually).

Again, welcome to WP, glad you decided to join.

Welcome to the WP forums, QuantumMechanic.

To WrongPlanet!! !

[quote="Sparrowrose]Look at Temple Grandin for comparison. She was non-verbal in her early years and is comfortable giving professional presentations now and does so frequently. I realize that "for example" is not a proof, but it *is* evidence that at least one autistic person can give professional presentations. There are many more examples: Stephen Shore, Taylor Crowe, Donna Williams, Jim Sinclair, Liane Holliday Wiley, John Elder Robison, Jerry Newport, and university professors Dawn Prince-Hughes, Vernon L. Smith, and Lars Perner. [/quote]

The first hint that my social problems might be AS (and not just "Can't get a date-itis" or "I am a grumpy person" as I called them before) was when I read John Elder Robison's Look Me in the Eye. I found nothing unusual in his thinking, even felt some empathy for him. At that point I started reading online and thought maybe this describes me. Then I read Temple Grandin's updated Thinking in Pictures. Dr. Grandin is clearly further out on the "spectrum" than I might be, but I still completely understood her thoughts, worries, and approaches. There were also a few surprises for me with links to minor auditory problems I have and ASD. I cannot solve the "Cocktail Party Listening Problem" where it is normal for people to be able to selectively understand one voice among two or more (Term is from signal processing refering to the difficulty of programing a machine to do it; I have never seen it put that way for ASD, but it is clearly the same problem.). Even at two, both signals become unintelligible to me. I am moderately noise sensitive to the point that a room filled with the noise of conversations makes me want to flee. At some point I shut down verbal communication because it is pointless for me to try. Even in a fairly quiet setting, I ocassionally get an effect like the volume is suddenly turned down on one ear to be replaced by ringing. As I said earlier, none of these are particularly disabling, but I was surprised to find they correlate with ASD. I am not yet familiar with the others you listed. Currently I would place myself on the "spectrum" as near John Elder Robinson.

I put "spectrum" in quotes above because I find it imprecise. It is just me being nit-picky with words, but it just strikes me as not quite right. To me it implies a one dimensional trait as if people with ASD can be described with a single number. I find the people here to be much more complex than that and if it is necessary to assign numbers, you need multiple dimensions. I think instead of spectrum, I would choose to describe it as a continuum with a currently unknown dimensionality, but greater than one. What those dimensions are, I don't know. I have taken personality tests (Briggs-Meyers and some dating sites, E-Harmony, etc.) and it is clear that their dimensions do not apply well to me. I suspect they would also fail to varying degrees with anyone on the "spectrum."

Last edited by QuantumMechanic on 13 Jun 2010, 12:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I do not think I have done them either; definitely not as part of a diagnosis, but maybe in some group counseling thing a long time ago. I have seen depictions of them, but may have only been in movies and televisions shows and thus highly inaccurate. Any role-playing makes me feel silly. I can dress up for Halloween parties and renaissance festivals, but I cannot get into character.



I have seen that test posted here before and have been meaing to give it a go.

I did the Broad Autism Phenotype Test that Scientist posted. It came back:

"Autistic/BAP
You scored 112 aloof, 82 rigid and 97 pragmatic

You scored above the cutoff on all three scales. Clearly, you are either autistic or on the broader autistic phenotype. You probably are not very social, and when you do interact with others, you come off as strange or rude without meaning to. You probably also like things to be familiar and predictable and don't like changes, especially unexpected ones."

Finally a personality test where the results make complete sense to me.

Thank you for the Welcome

@ Tim_Tex, JetLag, and richie

Thank you for the Welcome.

[quote="Sparrowrose]Ah. Well. The doctor-patient relationship is a pretty scripted and formalized relationship. I do pretty well with it myself, except when a doctor breaks the standard script and I'm left floundering, trying to figure out what to say. A doctor did that to me once and then when I was floundering said, "it's not a test, you know." I think she was laughing at me. I'm not sure, though.[/quote]

Let us just assume that she was laughing at the misunderstanding and not at you personally. I have had a number of misunderstandings that I find hilarious. Though the other party often finds my hilarity inappropriate.

Welcome here.

Welcome to WrongPlanet, and welcome to my 60s time warp.

I've said the same before, myself. It's too multi-dimensional to be a linear spectrum. More like a cloud, except even that's not quite accurate because one person can have two traits that come from two different quadrants of the cloud of traits/intensities.

Let us just assume that she was laughing at the misunderstanding and not at you personally. I have had a number of misunderstandings that I find hilarious. Though the other party often finds my hilarity inappropriate.[/quote]

I try to assume the best of other people unless they indeniably prove otherwise. At least in relatively safe social situations. When walking on an empty street late at night, or when traversing a bus terminal in a large city, I tend to assume the worst of other people.