About me

Post Reply New Topic

This is my first post here. I have no idea if I'll stick around or not. (Just being honest.) I'll see how it goes. I'm 66 years old. I've never been diagnosed, but I think that I may have Aspergers. When I was a kid I don't think even my shrink had ever heard of it. A few items in the Wikipedia article do not seem to apply to me, but many of them do, and much of GreenTurtle's cartoon fits me pretty well. I have very high verbal skills, and when I was younger (late teens and 20's) I was very good at math. I would not call myself extremely clumsy, but I have poor coordination and I do not have great balance. I never learned to ride a bike as a kid, and my several attempts to learn a musical instrument clashed with my poor coordination. I can't dance with a partner because I will always step on her toes because my feet get out of sync. I tend to get obsessed with a subject and stick with it for several years, during which time I get very deeply into it, before moving on to something else. As a ham radio operator I achieved the highest license level. When my hobby was programming I wrote some fairly sophisticated amateur-level programs. For six years, studying Spanish was all I did and I became quite fluent. I have extremely poor to nil social skills, so that I have not had a girlfriend since junior high school, and I've never been married. I have few friends. As far as my ability to live independently, I am very high functioning. I don't need other assistance than having a house cleaner come in once every month or two. I am financially independent, which is fortunate, because I don't have many employable skills.

I love old music. My favorite musician is Hilary Hahn, whose performances of the Bach solo violin repertoire are sublime. I cannot listen to music as "background." When I listen to music, I listen and become totally engrossed. I suspect that my brain reacts abnormally to music. Or perhaps, it is only when listening to music that my brain is not abnormal. Lots of people tap their toes to music. I bounce my entire body around, unless I'm in public, when I make an effort not to, which is never entirely successful. Music quiets my unruly brain, almost like a drug, even while it activates my body to move in time with it. I am drawn into it and feel as though I'm subsumed by it. Most people enjoy music, but most people seem to enjoy it in a more calm manner than I do, thus my feeling that I am abnormal in my reaction to it. ("Normal" being whatever most people do: not a value statement, just a recognition of being at variance with the crowd.)

I love hiking in the mountains. I moved here (Spokane, WA) to be near British Columbia, and I spend my summers there. I am not religious, but the closest I ever come to using religious language is when I'm in the mountains or speaking of them. One person I know called the mountain his church. If I believed in a god, the mountain would be where I'd go to worship. Nobody ever conquers a mountain. But if one is fortunate, one may have opportunities to walk upon the mountain and occasionally gaze out from the summit. When I'm hiking, the destination is far less important than the scenery and the exercise.

I love diving, both scuba and freediving. I do both only in warm, clear water at moderate depths. The world below the waves is remarkable for its beauty and diversity. Corals are colonies of tiny animals, but they often take forms that resemble plants on land. And the diversity of animals in the sea boggles the mind.

It was just 3 or 4 years ago that a friend who is a social worker suggested that I might have Aspergers. I had never heard of it before that. As I said at the start, the description seems to fit, but I've never been formally diagnosed so I am far from confident in my self-diagnosis. (When I diagnose my own medical symptoms I am almost always wrong.) Still, I tend to be obsessively interested in a subject for several years at a time, I have zero or near zero social skills.

Some random personal thoughts, not to try to assert them as "truths," but just to expose what's in my head:

I read on Wikipedia that the latest DSM no longer lists Aspergers. Now it's considered to be within high-functioning autism (HFA). But the Wiki article seems to draw distinctions between the two. I'm inclined to regard the labels as somewhat arbitrary. If I display a certain group of behaviors I have Aspergers. If I display some, but not "enough" to "qualify" then I do not. The human condition encompasses a large universe of qualities. Certain sub-groupings have labels because someone considers them useful. Mental illness is any emotional condition that makes life intolerable or unduly difficult, and a condition that one person cannot live with is not a problem to another. My lack of social skills is "abnormal" for me because I'd like to have a companion. But maybe I'd be unable to live with another person, and my lack of social skills is a blessing. "Normal" is a concept fraught with pitfalls, just as is "natural." The naturalistic fallacy is the mistaken belief that if something is natural it's safe, or healthy, or good. Cobra venom and curare are both 100% natural, and both will kill you. The normalistic fallacy is the mistaken belief that "normal" is necessarily desirable. It often is, but not always. E.g., in the U.S. a normal weight is heavier than a healthy weight.

I see my lack of social skills as a deficit. I do have empathy with the suffering of others, but I cannot read people. I need to be told what they're feeling or I will be oblivious. This, for me, is a problem. And it leads to great difficulty making friends, which is a problem. But I play the hand I was dealt. I'm fortunate to be able to do the activities I enjoy, and to be able to travel to places I can do them.

If anyone actually takes the time to read this, I'd be interested to hear whether you think this describes someone with Aspergers, or just a person without social skills. Or maybe I was just dropped on my head as a baby and have my own particular, individual brain damage.

Hi, I'm not qualified to give an official diagnosis since only a medical professional can, but it sounds like you have a lot of Aspergers traits. There are many types of Aspies on the spectrum: some are more socially adept than others. I was diagnosed about six and a half years ago at age 45 and it answered so many of my questions. I wish I had known many years earlier!

My muscular co-ordination is also poor: I never managed a bicycle or a manual (stick shift in US?) car. I can only write left handed, but can only cut with a scissors, or manage a mouse, with my right hand. I was pronounced unfit for military service due to my co-ordination. (at the time, military service was compulsory in my country).

I have some similar interests and find that listening to music really feeds my inner being. I also used to do0 a lot of mountain hiking although I haven't done so for some years due to lack of funds, but am planning on changing that. I've never fit into any particular category with my interests. Other interests of mine include Scrabble, cartoons, reading, fiction writing, running, and world building (creating own worlds / countries).

You will find many types here and for the main part we are much more respectful and empathetic than other "NT" sites. There are forums and threads here to suit most interests, tastes and moods.

Welcome to WP!

Thanks for the welcome, Enviro.

Interesting about the handedness. I'm not sure I've heard about using different hands for different tasks. I have no trouble driving a stick-shift, though I have not owned one since about 2004. Both of my present cars are so high-tech that they have no transmission. I.e., no shifting of gears.

I, too, was judged unfit for military service, in my case mental, as I had been sent to shrinks throughout my childhood. They never did me any good, except in the end to establish a history of mental issues. I'd have gone to Canada if I'd been drafted. Sometimes I think I'd have been happier if I had. I'd be a Canadian citizen now.

Well, I'm going to explore the site a bit now before lunch.

The only difference between AS and HFA was that one included a "significant speech delay in early childhood" and the other did not. Aside from that, they were virtually identical, which had a lot to do with the change in the DSM. I was kind of against the change at first, but I've come to realize that most people have no clue what either one is anyway and the media in the US loves to associate Asperger Syndrome with violence, so its just as well that term be dropped.

I wouldn't presume to confirm or contradict your diagnostic conclusions. You know yourself better than any of us. If you feel pretty confident it describes you, you're probably right. I think there are a lot of undiagnosed adults still out there with no clue why their lives have been such a struggle.

Although I suspected when I was a young man that I probably had something similar or related to autism, I had never heard the term High Functioning, so I, too, was well into middle age when someone called my attention to an article on AS and suggested that it might describe me.

I knew instantly that it was a description of me - in fact, I was very unnerved by the fact that the symptoms read like a personal profile. It gave me the creepy feeling that somebody had been watching me for months or years. Even the few things that didn't seem to apply to me at first, came clear to me over the next few weeks in moments of epiphany - the phrase "May see lights or hear sounds that others do not," which I first took to mean hallucinations of some sort, I realized meant exactly what it said, when I suddenly remembered several instances in my life in which I had noticed slight noises that others around me either didn't notice until I pointed them out, or sometimes couldn't hear at all. One was a tiny electronic whine emitted by old style TVs that is supposedly above the range of human hearing. I thought everyone heard that. Apparently not.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Hey daniel1948 welcome.

Thanks for that clarification.



I was blissfully unaware of this. Maybe because I don't have a TV.



That could have described my cat, gone these twenty years and I still miss him. He often seemed to see things I didn't. Invisible mice, perhaps.

Welcome!