Can you be shy with aspergers or am I just shy?

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I am undiagnosed, but I suspect I may have aspergers or similar. I also suspect I'm shy but I'm not sure if that's the case.

Maybe someone here could help?

An example: My friend texts me to tell me he is recovering from two days of drinking and partying and he got work done on his tattoo, I tell him that is nice, but other then that I don't know what to say, I don't care and I get an impression I am suppose to care about this uninteresting stuff.

Another example: I am in a room with 3 people I barely know and nobody is talking, it feels awkward to me because I have never been to this persons house and my heart is beating faster then normal and I don't know what to say to these people, there is nothing I want to say to these people, and half of me is bored and the other half is nervous, these people remind me of people who might make fun of me if I act weird.

People tell jokes and I am usually the last to laugh, I can't tell my own jokes I can however make people laugh when I am being sarcastic or mocking people/the situation in a harmless way. My friend once told me I laugh like I am appreciating the joke instead of finding it funny, like I know it's suppose to be funny but I don't feel the sense of funny-ness usually.

I get upset at weird things like touch, or noises or lights, someone tapping on something, a door opening and shutting, a person shifting a lot, a bright light, somebody hugging me.

I'm fairly sure I have meltdowns but I also don't know, I get overloaded and things that normally are ok with me become huge deals and I yell and punch walls and act like a jackass and then after I will just want to sleep, sometimes they are long or short, long ones will go on, short ones is where I snap briefly but manage to keep the anger contained or distracted until I can get away from the bad situation, other times I get angry and I can't talk.

When I am in a room with people I feel intimidated by them sometimes, almost sensing their need for me to say something they want to hear but I can't do it and I get nervous then and it makes it worse.

I was really super-outgoing as a child, but when I got to middle school I felt more childish and behind the other kids, they picked on me for not being normal and I began keeping to myself and I became afraid of other people.

When I was a kid I used to complain to my mother about people staring at me, I also used to spend a lot of time by myself having fun, I would ditch other people to play by myself.

I had a lot of trouble in school, I didn't pass it I had to go off and get a G.E.D.

I get angry when people ask me to many questions or make me repeat myself.

My mother tells me I am not afraid to ask weird questions, like once at a funeral I asked the grave digger how much they made, and once at a sacred site I asked one of the ladies if she was praying, I was probably 15ish.

I like to spend a lot of time alone, but then I want to talk to people when I hear about something I find interesting to get their take on it, and mostly talk their ear off.

When I do something new I have to ask a lot of questions about it or I don't understand and I notice I need a lot more attention when I comes to learning most things, other times I will pick up things that are hard for other people but these things are very few.

I can look into my girlfriends eyes without feeling weird, but with most people I can't look at them in the eyes, so I look at their nose or other facial body parts.

I have had panic attacks before but they are rare I used to be very depressed but now I am doing fine.

There are times I need to get away from people and escape to feel better, if I'm not let go I will become freaked out.

... etc etc.

I wanted to add in case this is a no-brainer that I have read that people with aspergers can't be shy in many different places on the internet and in books. I am guessing they can be but I'm unsure.

Weird that some people say that. Any kind of person can be shy, except non-shy people.

I think that there may be a misunderstanding here. Many people with Asperger's are more than just shy. Their problems with social interactions are so severe that just calling them shy is incorrect, because it understates the problem. Remember, though, that, not everyone with Asperger's is like this.

What exactly are the other problems with social interactions? I get bored easily with other people, annoyed.. or I say something dumb or ramble, or I want to do something else but that doesn't strike me as a major issue/problem.

I am confused again, if you say more then just shy you are implying that they can be shy, am I right? But then you can't say that they are shy at all because that would be incorrect?

I was just referring to things on the shyness-introversion spectrum.

(There are, however, many other possible difficulties, such as taking things too literally, missing implied messages, saying inappropriate things, and many others.)



Yes, it could simply be shyness, so you can be shy and have Asperger's syndrome.

However, sometimes it is misleading to say that someone is shy, because they are far worse than shy. it is misleading in the sense that if something is hot, you would not call it warm. It is the difference between nervous and terrified. In this case, you start with shyness. When it gets worse, you get into social phobia / social anxiety. Note that this is independent of whether you have Asperger's. You can have one or both. You also have the personality disorders, which really makes things complicated.

I sure hope you can be shy and have AS at the same time, because if not, logically I shouldn't exist.
But I think Yensid said it best: shy isn't always quite the right word. In many cases (including my own), shy can be an understatement.

I've never seen any statistics, but my guess would be that a majority of Aspergers people are shy.

One of the problems with shyness is that it isn't a medical diagnosis. It's just one of those things that you can't really define but we all know it when we see it.

I believe we shouldn't get too hung up on specific diagnoses. One psychologist will say a person has Aspergers, another will say they have high-functioning autism.

You sound shy to me. Your symptoms seem too strong to just be an introvert. That business of being outgoing when you were very young sounds unusual. But were you outgoing outside your family?. I could talk a lot inside my family when I was small, but I shut up among strangers.

AC

I'm an aspie and very confident, I can struggle to talk to other people, but this doesn't come from shyness at all - in many situations I am confident to the point of being an arrogant, I was a little shy as a child but certainly not now.

So it stands to reason that you can get shy aspies too.

Shyness comes from a lack of self-confidence, being scared to talk or interact with others, where as with asperger's it's more not knowing how to talk or interact with others - this can make you very anxious, but to me there is a definite difference between the two, and if that is the case then you can be both at once. Aspie is how your mind works, shy is part of your personality.

Honestly, I think you are more socially indifferent than "shy" because you mention a number of scenarios where there was a lack of interest in socializing with others and being interested in them and what they have to say.

I perceive shyness as more of "social awkwardness, yet with a yearning motivation to connect with others". When I was a kid, I was painfully shy and I found it so hard to speak to others around me (imagine a class nerd, but the loner). I got made fun of a lot by some of my peers. However, I was always interested in other people and I understood social cues and I got along with much fewer (but friendlier) peers.

I've worked with many people with Aspergers who were sometimes shy, but mostly socially indifferent (i.e. focus is on their topic, not getting facial expressions and body language, etc.) I know this reply didn't give you a definitive answer, but I hope this helped.

I was shy for the longest time as a teenager, and I have AS.

I am not really shy. I am anxious in social situations because I know I can make faux pas and I have to check myself all the time, but otherwise I am not scared by talking to people. E.g. I am not afraid of speaking in public (I have no perception of the audience, which is both good and bad) or approaching a stranger to ask a crazy question. I can easily come across as inappropriate due to that, like the time I asked a guy I'd never seen before if he was gay, because I was studying his behaviour . So it's not that I am scared by interactions, it's just that I make them wrong.

Then one can have AS + shyness, or social phobia etc.

I think the issues are totally separated, AS is not "worst than being shy", it's simply another condition.

Yes you can be shy with AS.

Yeah, I was outgoing among strangers, I would walk up to people in the park and strike up a conversation with them, I'm lucky I didn't get abducted, I always talked with the teachers in school too, not the kids though, the kids made fun of me because I was.. weird, I didn't let people brush my hair, wore the same clothes, talked to myself, picked my nose in puplic.. other kids told me to do things that I didn't know were mean and I did them, I didn't know any better, it didn't bother at all though up until middle school and then I kind of woke up out of a fog and realized I was different and the other kids had singled me out as a freak.

I feel like I put up a front when I talk to people, and it takes work to keep it up and pretend to be interested in a lot of things I don't care about so I can get by with my day, life, job etc.

Other days I feel like I am not as able to keep it up and I just want to hide out all day long and go for a walk, read or draw before I crash.

I get nervous when I talk to people sometimes because I don't know what to say, I say the wrong things I think, I'm tired and I have no enegry to deal with it, I act awkward and sometimes don't know I did until someone tells me. I overanalyze people while I'm dealing with them to I think. I find myself drifting off into other thoughts when people are telling me about their day as well.

I guess the issue is is that I want to know what I have so I can fix it or at least have some idea of what I can do to avoid behavior that drags me down, I'm sick of having such a hard time going through life when other people I know seem to sail through it.

A lot of the things on here have helped me cope, when I read about melt downs I was like s**t that's me, I realized that almost all the things that could start off meltdowns have happened to me right before I went batshit crazy.

Or why when people touch me I wanted to punch them, or why I don't like the "feel" or some objects. Why people seem to shy away from me even though I am being confident, why I get stuck on one topic for such a long time and won't let it go to the point were others get freaked out and I know it.

And the lights and the sounds driving me crazy.

Or shutdowns, I was told when I was a kid a lot I would stop talking when I was in a situation I didn't like, like a zombie, I still do it today my s.o will be raising her voice "Why won't you say anything, can't you just say something, even that you can't say anything, -name- say something, -name- come on say something, if you don't say something I'll leave."

But then some things don't fit, I'm actually in a relationship, and I can manage to look some people dead in the eyes, I can pass as being normal quite a bit, at least I think I can. I am very artistic and romantic which doesn't seem to be anyone with aspegers or hfa etc.

Then sometimes I'm afraid it's all going to crash and I'm very likey going to end up homeless and alone in the end, unable to take care of myself.

I can't go to a doctor to find out I don't have any spare funds to do that unless I'm dying of something.

Believe it or not I am 24 years old, most people are shocked when I tell them that, they can not believe I am that old.