wondering if I'm on the spectrum

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hey there,

I'm a 24 year old gay male (though I've been extremely uncomfortable with being assigned to male gender since I was around 6 years old and still have trouble with it)

I've been curious about whether or not I'm an aspie for years now. my younger brother definitely is, I haven't read about whether or not it runs in families. I have social anxiety disorder, which is sometimes debilitating. I consistently score in the 99th percentile on standardized tests but anxiety and depression related issues caused me to drop out of high school and I've been in college on and off for 7 years and I'm still a year or two away from a degree.

I had horrible social skills until adulthood, and I've only recently started to get better. my oldest friendships all date from around age 17, and of the three people I've known and been friends with that whole time, one is a diagnosed aspie, one is now a special ed teacher, and the other is definitely not neurotypical though I don't know what his deal is. I'm particularly awful when under stress or alone with men, especially if they're straight. with them I'm very bad about eye contact, my social anxiety is especially intense, and unless we're on an intellectual subject or some kind of deep emotional problem they need help with, I have no idea what to do. prior to 13 I had no friends, from 13 to 15 I had one friend who I was codependent and obsessively in love with, and he was pretty weird himself (did calculus in the shower with crayons, had weirdly childish mannerisms, I remember fighting passionately over the viability of hydrogen fuel cells in cars...), I had no non-internet friendships until 17, and I have trouble integrating into groups of people my age, non-nerds, and so on, though lately I've been lucky about finding lesbian science geeks with whom I get along swimmingly, and I've had some fairly good friends from around 2007 onwards.

I find repetitive motion soothing, I constantly carry a small fidgeting toy called a klix (they are amazing but they aren't sold anymore) and get a little nervous when I can't have it. I've always had abnormal interests (I remember reciting encyclopedia articles on nuclear fusion verbatim to my kindergarten teacher and in the lobby at church) but I've gotten to be less obviously weird in adulthood. I mean, gay vegetarian neopagan nerds are not exactly thick on the ground here in Arkansas, but I can at least make polite conversation at parties now if I have someone I know nearby or enough alcohol in me.

from a bit of googling I've also realized some things I've never really thought about (like, I really, really hate reading non-digital clocks and I'm not very good at it) are more than just personal idiosyncrasies. I've always had trouble with eye contact, sports, conversations with strangers, and non-academics. I've quit at least two retail jobs in the last year rather than deal with social-interaction induced panic attacks, though I get to work as a teaching assistant and tutor sometimes and I enjoy that profoundly.

that said, between therapy and a customer service job, I've gotten to be fairly good at small talk, and from the way my friends tend to confide in me and ask me for advice about complex emotional problems I don't think I'm particularly bad at empathy. I'm actually drastically more comfortable talking through deep emotional problems stemming from neurochemical disorders or childhood trauma than I am making casual conversation...

as far as other neurological things go, I strongly suspect that I have a mild form of temporal lobe epilepsy (I'm not diagnosed and I'm not sure I want to be, but I have textbook Geschwind syndrome and I believe my depersonalization episodes and occasional intense religious experiences may constitute simple partial seizures, though they've never impaired me in the slightest and can actually be kind of fun sometimes.) I've also had Bell's Palsy. I mention this because I've spent nearly an hour writing and rewriting this post, and because google informs me that epilepsy and autism spectrum disorders are often comorbid.

so, the traits I share with aspies aren't as severe as some people's are, and while I'm often terrified of social interaction other people don't tend to overtly *confuse me* unless I'm dating them (or trying, I could write a whole post just on that.) does this preclude an asperger's diagnosis? does the fact that I identify with aspies fairly strongly mean I could be one or that I have too much empathy to be one?

I could see a childhood diagnosis being overlooked because I was extremely precocious and an excellent student, and from age 15 until now concerned parties have been devoting their energy into dealing with my depression/anxiety/sexual orientation drama (my parents are evangelical and attribute any kind of maladjustment to a poor relationship with God, and a previously high-functioning catatonic teenager screams emotional problem but evidently not autism spectrum.)

anyways, I'm just curious if any of this sounds similar to your experiences, if anyone has any recommendations for further reading, and if there are any benefits to perhaps seeking out a formal diagnosis.

thanks!

A lot of this sounds familiar, actually, and seems like a genuinely accurate self diagnosis. What in particular were you looking for reading-wise, may I ask?
Edit: I should add that there are articles and well recommended books under the "Info and Media" tab at the top of this site, if you're truly interested.

oh cool, I'll have to check out the links. I'm not sure what I'm looking for as far as the reading, I guess I just like to understand what's going on and knowing myself from an objective, clinical standpoint helps with self-evaluation. my social anxiety and depression issues got worlds easier to deal with once I understand what was going on and was able to compartmentalize and recognize the difference between an adaptive emotional response and non-adaptive ones, and like I mentioned in my original post a lot of my social skills grew out of therapy for that so it'd be interesting to see if I could end up more functional socially through some sort of formal attention to my suspected aspergers. *shrug* when my diagnosis shifted from major depression to social anxiety disorder *causing* depressive episodes it also helped a lot, so if the social anxiety disorder is comorbid or related to an autism spectrum disorder and I could further refine my diagnosis it might be beneficial.

honestly my first reaction when I have an "oh s**t" moment is to go find a related community online and to see what the people in it think. I just got done hanging out with that special ed teacher friend I mentioned (was helping her set up her apartment, she commented on a repetitive motion thing I was doing and we've been talking about our mutual suspicion I'm on the spectrum from time to time for a month or so), and after I got home from hanging out with her a facebook friend who is definitely an aspie started talking to me about it and I did more reading, and I felt like I had a bit of an epiphany and moved from "maybe?" to "definitely" re: being an aspie, so yeah.

edit: was reading wikpedia, evidently the fact I have various tics is typical, too. sheash.

Holy freaking crap, what kind of compound is that? Calcium, Magnesium, Iron, Silicon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, obviously a base... some kind of drug maybe?

Sorry happened to notice that as the first thing about you. I'm a bit of a [al]chemist myself, took college level AP class in HS and continued it for my core studies. Not exactly my AOE seeing as I'm a computer science major, but still.

Welkome to WP

Mick

haha, it's a variety of actinolite called Nephrite. it's an amphibole mineral found in metamorphic rocks. Chinese Jade.