First post here! Recently found out I'm likely an aspie...

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Hi everyone. I'm not sure if I will frequent this forum very much, but since I have very recently been made aware for the first time in my life that I am likely an "aspie" and am doing a lot of reading up about it (as most aspies would, apparently ) So, I thought I would introduce myself and see if I can learn something here.

Here's my story:
I just turned 31. I have a mild case of Tourette's Syndrome (diagnosed at the age of 5) and spent my childhood until around adolescence dealing with mild but bothersome tics. They entirely disappeared by high school, but there has always been little doubt in my mind that there was something else. Many of my difficulties and quirks as a child were far beyond what tourettes could cause. I have been seeing a therapist in recent months, and she told me that based on what I had told her about my childhood, I might have Aspergers. I have long since had a good understanding of autism, but I honestly had never heard or read enough about Aspergers to have any real idea of what it is. However, as soon as I started reading up about it.....WOW. For the first time in my life, I discovered a condition that included the things I have always wondered about myself all in one! And yet, many of the telltale traits of Aspergers have never applied to me at all, although aspies evidently tend to vary greatly from person to person. Here are some of the many things about me that are very consistent with Aspergers:

* As a child, I always had very intense, obsessive, and often strange interests, about which I would read extensively and become highly knowledgeable. (I still have this tendency now, but it has broadened greatly.)
* As a child, I fixated on minor components of things, such as the fins of fans, the individual crystals in the digital displays of clocks, the balls in ball point pens, etc.
* I have always had exceptionally acute senses, particularly auditory, and I have a rare level of absolute pitch.
* Awareness of non-verbal communication and social expectations has always been difficult for me.
* Until well into high school and even occasionally beyond, I had a bouncy walk, and often walked on my toes.
* I talk to myself a great deal and often experience slight echolalia, but as an adult, I have long since learned how not to do it aloud when anyone else is around.

Some other things, though, don't fit:
* I have never had any difficulty remembering or identifying faces. I'm quite exceptional at it, in fact.
* I have always had an extremely eclectic sense of humor, and never any difficulty recognizing or enjoying irony or sarcasm.
* My speech has never been the least bit monotone. (Hardly surprising for a professional musician and singer!)
* My eye contact when speaking to people seems to have always been quite normal.

Perhaps my case is somewhat marginal, but I can't help be feel certain that I have finally found the answer to countless questions about my life, based on all I have read so far. What do you all think? Does it sound like I am probably an aspie?

only a battery of discerning tests can determine for sure if you have the preponderance of traits which mark AS. at the very least you have some AS traits. but you are probably in the very highest functioning category, well above the lions' share of folk with AS. have you ever had melt-downs? are you ever lost in the corridors of your mind?

BTW, welcome to WP

To stargazing:
You do not have to have a monotone voice, or difficulty making eye contact to have AS according to the DSM-IV.

Difficulty recognizing faces and lack of a sense of humor is actually not part of any criteria for AS that I'm aware of. They are simply misconceptions perpetuated by the misunderstanding of NT's and the fact that some people with AS do have difficulty recognizing faces (and many without it), and people with AS may not be able to pick up on microexpressions in real time.

To Auntblabby:
I don't think there is anything here to indicate this person's functioning level, or any way to conclude that most people with AS are of a particularly impaired functioning level. Remember AS only started to become recognized in the early 90's, with the vast majority of "official" diagnosing starting in the late 90's and so the majority of people in the world who have AS, while likely know they are different, likely do not know they have AS, and this would apply to most people over the age of 25.

To stargazing:
The "battery of tests" is basically aimed to determine whether or not you meet the criteria for AS, and don't meet the criteria for things which can present in a similar fashion, such as higher functioning autism, pervasive development disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS), non-verbal learning disorder (NVLD) which might as well be AS, schizophrenia spectrum disorder such as schizoid personality disorder, and issues that were acquired rather than innate.

Welcome!

Welcome greetings, stargazing, to the WP community.

I also was diagnosed with Tourette's as a child. But I think the doctors didn't really know any better and that was the closest thing they could find. I blinked my eyes and cleared my throat. I still clear my throat sometimes, but not to the extent I did.

I wonder if these tics were actually stims of some sort...

Anyway, welcome!

Welcome to WP!

auntblabby:
I am planning to take those official tests to see what they say. My best guess is that I would not meet the criteria for AS the way I am now as an adult, but the way I was in early childhood does fit the aspie profile remarkably well. As for meltdowns, I had a bit more than the typical share of tantrums in earliest childhood, which my parents believe were simply out of sheer frustration with myself. I do get "lost in the corridors of my mind" very frequently and lose track of time and my surroundings almost completely, but as an adult I thankfully never have difficulty keeping it from happening when necessary.

Chronos:
I have read some mention of aspies often having an unusual difficulty recognizing faces, but perhaps they weren't the best sources. I do know that I have read almost everywhere that people with AS often are deficient at enjoying many conventional types of humor, especially recognizing irony and sarcasm. Presumably this makes perfect sense, considering that "between the lines" subtle and nonverbal aspects of communication are one of the primary traits of AS. I suppose AS varies enough for this to be widely variable, or perhaps it's one area where I would be considered marginal.

Kiseki:
My primary tics across the board were always blinking and clearing of the throat! Apparently those are extremely common, though.

A little more info on myself: I am an exceptionally intellectual, curious, enthusiastic guy who is dealing with a frustrating professional situation currently (a VERY long story). I am very friendly, love being social and meeting new people, but always have a serious need for alone time. I am exceptionally well-balanced emotionally, have a high IQ (somewhere around 143) but am very poor with mathematics. One of my main lifelong obsessions is harmony (especially singing in harmony), which explains why I ending up pursuing choral conducting, teaching, and singing. Despite my lifelong difficulties with nonverbal aspects of social interaction and frequent lack of awareness of how I come across, I have always somehow managed to have plenty of friends, which I still find surprising. Nowadays, nobody would suspect that I might be on the autism spectrum, despite my persisting quirks. I have unsurprisingly had lifelong difficulty with dating and attracting women, no doubt due to the exceptionally high level of social and interpersonal savvy it requires. I have come EXTREMELY far in this arena and evidently all women who meet me think I would never have any difficulty with dating, but I am still a virgin and have only ever had one real girlfriend in my life (which only happened because she was exceptionally assertive and initiated everything).

Hello stargazing! Have fun here

I just took the following online test and scored 23:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/aqtest.html

This test seems pretty comprehensive. It says I'm "very likely neurotypical", but I know I would have answered the majority of those questions very differently when I was 7 years old and the results would have been dramatically different. If I indeed have ever met the clinical qualifications for AS in my life, I must very well-adjusted now as an adult:


auntblabby:
LOL! Yes, I suppose that is technically an option. But I'm very well aware that having sex for no other reason than to be able to say I'm not a virgin won't help me. As for representing an AS hero to you, I deeply appreciate that, but it seems a tad generous. I can assure you, the progress I have made socially has only come with tremendous hard work, perseverance, loss of life opportunities, unhappiness, and perpetual "behindness" that I realize will linger for the rest of my life. Nothing has been easy, and certain things in my professional life that have recently taken a sharp turn for the worse can be traced directly to these AS-like struggles early on.

To WrongPlanet!! !

OK, so the embedded image doesn't seem to be working for some reason. I added it as my avatar instead...