Hey, I'm new here...

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Its usually not my style to start off with an intro post, but hey, what the hell!

Anyway, I'm 19 years old, and I was diagnosed with 'mild' (or was it 'very mild'?) AS at like, age 10. I know I was a problem child in some way, as I remember going to councilling of some kind(I would sit there and sorta mentally laugh at the idiot councillers and their moronic questions), but to the best of my knowledge, AS related problems(namely, the social ineptitude) did not manifest until after the diagnosis.

Now I'd describe myself as having more 'Social Anxiety Disorder' instead of AS; I'm able to make friends, but am often too anxious and afraid of social interaction to even try.

This may sound like pure denial to the experianced ear, but I'm starting to suspect that my entire AS 'experiance'(or at least a large part of it) has just been some kind of sick, demented, placebo effect. Whenever I hear about some apparant negative effect, eg, clumsiness or slow processing speed, I will begin to manifest that effect within the next few days/week despite the fact that just a short time earlier, I was totally fine in that area(Then seemingly at random, the affects will appear and dissapear). Of course, its hard to verify this as far as social interaction goes, as even if I was infact 100% neurotypical, I wouldn't actually know if what I'm saying and doing is normal or not.

Of course, the most logical answer is that I'm simply adapting. Aside from somewhat poor social skills, the only other AS characteristic that I naturally manifest is the whole eye contact thing. But the thing is, when I decided 'Alright, enough of this, time to make some f**king eye contact' my problem nigh on evapourated in the space of a day. Which of course, fuelled the 'its all a placebo' thing.

My dream is to get a DNA test, which would diagnose me correctly once and for all, regardless of the outcome. But of course, they can't identify 'us' by DNA... yet.

My question to those of you who decide to grace this thread with your prescence; What is 'mild' aspergers? Is it merely 'high functioning aspergers'(although I'm not totally sure what that is), or is it 'Congratulations, your 90% normal, and 10% aspergers. Have a nice day?'

And before I forget, kudos on the site name. Very clever.

Welcome greetings to the Wrong Planet community, Redbus.

welcome Redbus,

i have just turned 53, 14 months upon official diagnosis, which occurred just over two months after i had self-identified on this sit -

just having been invisible (and i can assure you i was NEVER hiding) as an aspieform HFauti for all that time... it takes a hell of a lot of adaptive power out of you

yes i might be true that you were misdiagnosed and are not affected, but there is little in your post that i find particularly convincing either way...

you will find that there are a somewhat large number of aspies in these parts, i believe mainly of the female gender, whose aspieness is characterized by a certain 'malleability' as opposed to the more 'typical' rigidness which is part of the diagnostic criteria.
although male myself, i have always presented more female-like...

i think the linguistic talent has something to do with it...

i'll leave any discussing your dx right there, and get to the questions:

i don't think there is such a thing as 'mild' aspergers, at least in its essence; i also am quite convinced that Asperger's IS HFA (i don't believe the language acquisition argument holds very much water - the pragmatical language USAGE of most if not all aspies is still 'different' enough from NT 'normal' usage.

the term 'mild' is really only applicable in terms of the Quantity of affectedness, i.e. in the resulting behavioural problems, which are obviously VISIBLE problems.

in that sense, yes my autism is so extremely mild, that i would choose to regard ANY of my autistic traits a TALENT, honestly: any of them; and i was measured conservatively in the highly-gifted range, with no weak areas (which is somewhat un-autistic)
and yes, indeed, had i known at age 18 (in Holland) that i would from then on have been entitled to a certain minimum benefit for the rest of my life, i would in fact have arranged my life in a manner better to suit my social ineffectiveness, and would NEVER have had the need to apply for same benefits...

i did not know, that is all...
you tell me: how is my autism / asperger's 'mild'

but granted, now that i know...
and the above is in no way intended to claim that my problems can be in any way construed as being even close to the unmildness (i.e. severity of 'symptoms') of any let's say Kanner-auti -
on the other hand: they stand very little chance of still going unnoticed and unaided and un-cared-for - there are those of us on WP who wouldn't mind being a little bit more 'severe' to finally get them the official dx


next, you can't really say that 10% of you would be non-affected; autism is pervasive (the words are in effect synonymous), which means ALL of you is affected, but within that context, yes you could say the sponge-saturation might vary from x% to X%, as long as it's all the sponge

extra: i do not believe 'social anxiety' is an essential part of autism, i do however believe that due to the nature of the autistic experience, 'anxiety' per se would be about the first response to autistic perception; and the more so when it comes to things social; but i believe it can be worked on by exposing oneself and training oneself, and learning to cope, and cope better, and maybe even gain enough confidence to be able to let go...

it's what happened with my eyes, and shyness, and whatever... i got exposed, and somehow, i got through, with not too much embaressment, and i lived to tell - as a result i am very good and even expressive with my eyes,
and i can behave very natural and nt-like, and although i NEVER act a 'part'
it is always at best 'i play myself' - you never get me as a person, only as a function, sort of

the heart's not in it, you could say, but i learnt the truth is, however much heart i may really have, that particular proverbial kind of heart was never anywhere to be in

i can only hope that made some kind of sense,

Robert

Welcome.

Welcome to WP!

To WrongPlanet!! !

I like your name.

Hey thanks for the warm welcome.

Talking about AS is still a rather new thing for me, so don't expect me to just rush right in...