undiagnosed with aspie brother

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Hi all,
I'm 19/male, from Sweden and starting to suspect that I have Aspergers. My brother age 16 have Aspergers, diagnosed and "treated", i.e. he goes to a children's psychiatrist of some sort once a week and have had extra support in school, help with planning and such. However I've managed fairly well by myself all life but I have a few similarities with my brother that just can't be coincidence, for instance we both have perfect pitch, we have both from early ages indulged ourselves in special hobbies/interests and our style of walking looks pretty similiar. (Not that I know if that last thing counts but people that don't know both of us tend to recognize us as brothers based on how we walk, so to speak, besides that we, obviously, look similar.) I have other small skills that make people call me "Rain Man", too

Also, my father have said that if Aspergers was more recognized and known when he was a kid, he'd probably be diagnosed with it too. A few years ago, I went to the very same psychiatrist a couple of times that my brother goes to, but he decided that I had too few Asperger traits to actually be "labeled" with it. Every now and then I think everything would be easier for me if I could be sure about wether I have AS or not, since I've been really confused the last few years, perhaps even dysthymic. Bloody hell
So, I guess what I'm asking is do I have AS or not ???

I wouldn't listen to the doctors too much on this one. You very probably have many of the characteristics of Asperger's, but you've been able to adapt (possibly) better than your brother, and therefore you wouldn't fit the "label" of Asperger's according to the doctor's specifications.

I have two boys, one aged 21, and one aged 11. When the youngest was diagnosed with High-functioning Autism as a five year old, I began to read many, many books on the subject, and in the process realized that our oldest son would have surely been diagnosed with Asperger's when he was little, had anyone known what it was back then! I don't know if this will make any sense, but the oldest son had fewer "symptoms" than the younger one, but they were more pronounced -- i.e. he lined up toys, didn't play with them but more "collected" them, had a huge obsession with animals and knew all of their scientific names, didn't really play well with other kids, was a little professor, etc. Partially because he was the first child, I'm guessing that we spent lots of time with him trying to help him adapt to neurotypical society. I knew something was different about him, but he wasn't THAT different, and so we just assumed that he was an unusual kid but not that much out of the norm.

He has turned into a great adult, but he has his litttle "quirks". We all now joke around about who in our household is more Aspie than the others (we all take turns!), but it's evident that there's more than enough of this in the grandparent's background (on both sides) to make it obvious why our boys have it. This son is going to college, has a "thing" about maps, and is therefore going to go into something map-related like GIS systems/urban planning. I think that he makes his "aspie-isms" work for him. We expect that the youngest will do the same.

So, yes, you very well may be an aspie too. It doesn't matter too much whether you do or don't have it, and it doesn't really matter too much whether you are diagnosed or not. If you think you have it, that's fine -- knowing about it can help you with your future!

Kris

Nice to meet you, man_and_djinn .

It is not rare for siblings to have AS.

Welcome to WP!

Tim

Thanks for the feedback. Yeah I guess it doesn't matter really wether I try to get myself diagnosed or not, but in some way it's beneficial to have a reason to why I'm a bit odd/weird/not-like-others (and act such) I think