possible aspie but missing a few symptoms...

Post Reply New Topic

I just wanted to say that this thread almost fully described me and my suspicions, you made no need for me to introduce myself and gave me a reason to post. Ok, so our main difference is that I'm a 24 male. Hi

I think I have all the symptoms one way or the other, while some of them were forced out of me cause I was trying some kind of self deception all this time.. the only two things I don't really have problems with are the two you listed.

I can normally read and understand others facial/body expressions and voice tones, though this ability might have evolved early one on me subconsciously cause I can't remember my conscious self awareness before I was ~9 years old. I look into the eyes occasionally not only to make me look normal but also cause I can understand the speaker more just from the eyes, this can be extremely exhausting though. I can use expressions too but I have to "act" them, and in case of having anxiety, I put in a blank or a serious face cause I get overwhelmed.

Second thing is that I seem to be able to understand sarcasam, at least now, I just use logic, but sometimes I might slow process it and judge fast only to be ashamed at my own reaction =]

My other life stories are not that interesting to mention as it's very similar to what most aspies have always experienced.

I'd like to add that I have 'O' ocd( which would be my actual worst mental enemy) and possibly I have "partial" adhd or add. I've only self-diagnosed myself from researching all this over the past couple of months. I've went to a psychiatrist when I was 17 and all I got was SAD(cause I was a big fat lair and a teenager)

Today I can say I was 98% sure I'm an aspie, but after this thread this skyrockets to, 99. Big Step.

Anyway thank you yeshuafreak212 and others in the thread so far for sharing your thoughts, and I hope my self speculation have been of help

I got a diagnosis because I couldn't stand the situation that I didn't know if I was or not. I knew I had a lot of the symptoms, I scored 32 out of 40 on the self tests which put me into the "probable" range.

I just didn't want the obscure situtation of talking about it to friends saying something like "I could be Asperger's and I'm having these difficulties". It's kind a meaningless. When I leave a party early or get stressed at the shopping centre, you only have statements like "I could be Aspergic and I'm having challanges".

It wasn't sufficient for me. I had to know, did I have it, did I not?
Was the challenges and difficulties I faced daily, considered normal? or was I indeed off the charts of normal.

I had to know where I sat in order to re-evaluate my life and try to deal with my challenges. The phsychologist said I was way above the cut off, so now I know my personnel challanges are not the typical challanges of everybody. They are my challanges, and I must learn to deal with each one as I find suitable.

Yeah, I did the EQ/SQ test, and I was more of a systemizer than empathizer, but it wasn't by an incredibly huge margin. I also did the facial expression test. I did pretty well, but I'll admit it was harder than I thought it was going to be.



You're welcome I know how you feel. I spent a few weeks browsing this forum before finally joining. Seeing other people on here talk about their traits that were very similar to mine gave me the courage to make my own post on here. It also helped me see that my suspicions may be more than suspicions!



That is exactly how I feel. I want to know for sure. Either I have this or I don't. Like you say, it's odd to say to people, "Well, I may have Asperger's/Autism so that's why I am the way I am." I feel like if I had a "real" diagnosis people might take it more seriously.

Trying to get an evaluation makes sense if you suspect you might have AS. What I mean by a diagnosis being inappropriate is that if there is no significant impairment, you simply can't, and shouldn't, be diagnosed. You can have all the subclinical traits in the world, but if you're not impaired, then you're not diagnosable. A psychological diagnosis is not meant for people who are eccentric, introverted, or nerdy--those things don't cause trouble and don't require assistance. It's something they stress in your first-year psychology classes: You don't diagnose people unless there is distress or dysfunction involved. You never diagnose somebody just because they are unusual or different. We learned that lesson when the whole psychology profession had to eat crow about homosexuality not being a mental illness after all, even though most people are heterosexual. I think we've been a bit paranoid about not diagnosing people just for being unusual ever since.

By the way, "significant impairment" does not mean "a lot of impairment"; it simply means "enough impairment that it matters". In the case of autism, it means being far enough away from neurotypical that as you go about your life, you need help, or have to use technology or alternative methods, or you use more effort than most people, or you cannot do some things that are expected of an average person. Disability can be invisible and mild. Some autistic people need outside help only during exceptional circumstances (ex., searching for a job; finding a house); some cope on their own just fine, if they have enough time to rest from spending more energy than most people do. It still counts as impairment.

For those people who are just eccentric, nerdy, or introverted, and who do not meet that "significant impairment" threshold, sometimes looking into an autism diagnosis can be part of their quest to accept themselves as being different. We live in a world where a person who stands out too much and in the wrong ways can have a hard time of it. The problems related to being different are real, and they can be tough to deal with. This eccentric but non-disabled group has a lot in common with the autism spectrum, since their experiences of life are different from the typical. However, they don't need a diagnosis. They may have subclinical traits, or be part of the broader autism phenotype; they may be culturally autistic. They may even have more in common with autistics than with NTs, and communicate better with autistics. They share the common experience of facing prejudice for being different. But they don't need a diagnosis, and there's no reason they should have to sit through an evaluation.

Sometimes in this group of people there's this attitude that, "I'm different; some people reject me; therefore, there must be something wrong with me." Maybe it's comforting to say, "I have Asperger's; I can't help being different." But you don't need a diagnosis to say that. You can say, "I'm different, and that's okay, and the people who reject me for being too nerdy or eccentric or quiet are people I probably wouldn't like hanging out with." Sometimes, in that group of people who don't need a diagnosis, there's a very real need for validation that they are okay the way they are, that the people who have mistreated them were wrong to do so.

I would like to say as a nerdy/eccentric/maybe BAP sort: well said, Callista! As a kid a diagnosis would have served me well (and did, although it was ADD, whereas if SCD had been around or I'd met a clinician who knew of PLI, the diagnosis might have been more accurate). But at this point in my life I don't even need to go back to the doctor for an SCD diagnosis, because I've learned enough social rules and emotional intelligence to get along now, and the fact that I was undiagnosable with anything until I was 13 and don't have/need a label now doesn't change the fact of my "different" life history and my ability to click with other different people. I just say to my boyfriend that I'm like Bones, a fictional character whom many identify as on the spectrum, but they never use the A-word for her on the show itself. So it leaves open that possibility that maybe she's "just different" or BAP, and outgrew early struggles like I seem to have done. (And yeah, she still makes faux pas sometimes, but she's successful and rich and does not need professional help for anything other than the conflicts at work, for which they brought the psychologist character Sweets in.) During my adulthood, and especially after dropping my ADD treatment after I felt it no longer seemed to be working or seemed relevant (and later I started to think I may never have had ADD at all), I've been self-treating with reading psychology, reading and attempting to practice philosophy, and living the best life I can. Works for me. And as long as it works for me, I'm happy at this point to leave the resources, and labels, to those whom they can really help, and stick with officially just "being like Bones" (and unofficially having possibly had SCD as a child, but I can't send a shrink from 2013 back in time to diagnose my younger self so I'll never know).

Hope nobody minds the rant. It's just that I've had arguments with family (and my ex) over whether I'm on the spectrum or not, and so reading about the validity of quirkiness or BAP traits without actual, clinically significant autism helps soothe some old wounds of cognitive dissonance.

Yes, very well said, Callista. I was trying to argue the same thing in another thread but did not articulate my points as well as you did above. I'd like to copy and paste your post and put in into any thread where someone says impairment shouldn't be in the criteria for ASD (quoting you , of course).

GhostsInTheWallpaper -I like your signature: '...naturalized citizen of neurotypicality."

Thanks I came up with it when I realized there were similarities between having grown up a "weird" kid and having lived in a foreign country for the last few years. I was out of step, not getting a lot of things, but I didn't necessarily feel like a total alien, and I was ultimately able to acculturate even if it took me longer than most people. And perhaps part of why I don't need a diagnosis now is that most of my remaining quirks can just be chalked up to being from a different culture. Or they're accepted by the quirky set of friends from around the world I made.

Works for me. That way I don't have to re-type it.