Self diagnosed Aspie: Was I wrong?

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I have good motor coordinatino and have excellent strength for my small size, but things always bump into me (doors, walls, etc). I also feel as if I am not walking a straight line even though I am. I don't mean that I'm dizzy or anything, but I always feel as if I am walking sort of sideways (to the right) and am self conscious about this. Nobody has said I walk funny. I also have extremely loose and flexible joints, so maybe that's why I feel so much like a gumby.
My son (Aspie) also has an odd gait. He walks more with his back very straight and with short little steps. He also never knows what to do with his arms so they just sort of hang. I wouldn't at all call him clumsy and he's great with working with small electronics. So, maybe motor differences should be the new criteria instead of clumsy.
My daughter, now (Aspie) is a complete clutz and doesn't have an athletic bone in her body.

We are currently determining to see if this user is ever serious here. Don't trust his posts at the moment.

As for the thread, motor clumsiness is sketchy. I can drive well and type over 80 wpm as well; for me, it kind of showed itself as someone trying to play on the school's football team; I didn't have the coordination to really "tackle" anyone. The motor clumsiness thing would show itself more in fast-paced team sports.

Your second post had a lot of traits that went along with Asperger's. I'm finding that there's a lot of gray area in the classification of Asperger's; some traits one might have, when another doesn't have at all. I'm missing a few notable traits (black-and-white thinking, more logic than emotion, facial cues, etc...) and I was told that I had it by a few professionals. No official diagnosis, but they were in the psychiatric field as professionals.

Simplified version of what Asperger is:

"An autistic person who displays all the signs of typical HFA except having a history of delayed or abnormal speech development, is said to be suffering from Asperger's Syndrome (AS)."

http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Is-HFA-- ... &id=883583

The diagnostic criteria are made by human beings and human beings are fallible. To me, these criteria appear somewhat subjective and can sometimes be politically motivated. Consider the DSM-IV versus DSM-V criteria for ADS/AS.

Look at the definition of shyness, SAD and AvPD. There isn't this clear demarcation between the three. I think the same may be the case with AD. It's not as if the human mind is either AD or NT. I think there is a continuum from moderate ADS to moderate AS to mild AS to NT, etc.

I'm seeing a pattern with the whole clumsiness thing. Has anybody considered that perhaps it has to do with participatory motor control? Like, doing things where you need to sync your body motions with another person. Dancing would be the ultimate example. Walking in a crowd is a good one. Any type of choreography, or synchronized performance. Or does this extend to solo activities, for those of you who have the muscle coordination difficulties? When I think back to when I had a strange gait, it was always when I was in the presence of others. I don't ever remember being self conscious about walking alone. This may be a key factor in the muscle issues for people with AS.

i respect very much what you just
said. I wish you well and hope your
wife remains as commited as you clearly
are.

You might be adapting to the NT world. Over the years (I am a geezer) I find that I can adapt to and even understand to some extent how the NTs around me (mostly family) "tick". I can also control my most Aspie-ish extremities so I do not weird people out. I am married to an NT and most of my children and grand-children are NT.

I now "pass for human" without any difficulty at all. I have learned the move well enough so that it is nearly second nature. I still have to work at not inflicting my literal mindedness on others.

ruveyn

i took that original comment as sarcasm, but it did seem odd to me at first, maybe the way it was worded, i had to think about it for a few seconds. maybe he's just very cynical

YES!! !! !! !! !! !! !! ! lol! THAT HAS BEEN MY REASONING ALL ALONG! that EXACT line!
"[these things] are made up by humans and humans are fallible"....did you get that from me?!

i do think there is something to your "participatory" theory! because i think i have had similar experiences. yet, i think i also have excellent motor skills and eye-hand coordination. so, as many have said, it's a spectrum. it's a matter of finding/seeing the differences. (my experience is third paragraph down)

things are not so cut and dry, black and white, ironically. it's also ironic that the "NT" population seems to think in black and white about diagnosing, and how the "AS" people are the ones seeing a continuum here! (i have also thought before that it's PERSONALITY differences that contribute to that (as in myers briggs). maybe it can be thought that "NT's" and "AS" are different personalities! i think is possibly a spiritual note to that as well - it does make sense with the whole higher consciousness, that all things are connected, nothing is separate, etc. or maybe i'm just crazy - i've been said to have a "thought" disorder - as in schizophrenia! i know the two can be confused. idk how to tell the difference. lol.

i have not been diagnosed AS, but i am almost convinced at this point that i have it, or HFA, because of my cognitive development difficulties. i'm 28, female. (i think i'm part of the "lost" generation). i just want to SCREAM about this frustration of being undiagnosed!! ! really, bc of the lack of understanding. i try so hard to understand others, but i don't feel they try to understand ME. again, the irony of things. and the sheer MADNESS of having difficulty describing it to others!
i also have a 7 year-old son, who has not yet been diagnosed. i wonder if you are concerned about that with your child (maybe you mentioned it but i don't remember). it is a double-edged sword - you want to be diagnosed, yet you don't want to be labeled and bound/restricted/confined by it either.

so, my experiences that jump out at me with the "participatory".
when i was a child, when someone drove by playing music and i was walking, i would be pulled to match up to the rhythm of it, i would have to walk in sync with it. it was like i almost couldn't resist it, it bothered me somewhat. strange.

in elementary school, when getting into line for lunch, i watched some kids walk - not all of them, but a specific couple of boys (and i'm a girl!). something about the way their feet moved when they walked drew my attention, and i tried to copy it. i was called out about it, asked why i did that. i don't know. i didn't really realize i was doing anything strange.

in junior high while walking to school, i would watch people walk and would have this pull to sync up with or coordinate with them. not consciously, i wasn't thinking to do it, it was more some unconscious pull. i NEVER before thought of or even realized that was considered a "gait".
when walking with friends, i would try to sync up with them, why i don't know, and it was odd.

but, the sync of the movements, as in dancing, was therapeutic for me, but it was more about motor movements than a social interaction.

i think i had issues in P.E. in school, and team sports (only did once)

in college, in modern dance class, i had trouble COORDINATING my movements between the right and left sides of my body - running and kicking forward my left leg and putting my right arm out at the same time - something like that, anyway, i would end up doing it wrong and getting tripped-up and kind of frustrated....NEVER before had i thought of myself as being "clumsy". nobody confronted me either, or if they did i didn't "get" it.

oh, another interesting thing. i have always scored high on spatial tests - 160 consistently.
i went to ability testing at a place called JOCRF (johnson o connor research foundation), in SF, and they tested that - spatial, and the physical ability. i scored at the top with structural visualization (manipulating objects in my mind), but VERY low with actually putting the puzzle together with my hands (relating to mind-body physical connection issues)

on the OTHER hand, i think i have great motor skills though and excellent eye-hand coordination. i even get frustrated watching others who aren't able to do things as well as i can. i'm good with mechanical things, things around the house, etc.
i am good at driving and LOVED it when i was younger - i first drove when i was 10.
there was just something about the MOVEMENT of it. makes me think i shouldn't have been driving!! ! (even at 16)

i had been very aware of the spatial relations and aesthetics, though that has changed in the last couple years as i have been focusing on other "developmental" tasks such as understanding and articulating better with words and sense of history/time, and other cognitive skills, meaning, life, etc. rather than physical/motor ones. i've always felt my "wiring" was off and i was behind my peers. and - i had absolutely NO HELP! even my own uncle whose son has autism didn't see it in me or help me. i was neglected, put down, called selfish, all sorts of things. i STILL am. i had to leave an abusive ex. i think my stubborness didn't allow those things to get to me though.

so anyway, i hope that makes sense or helps somehow with that aspect of what's going on with you.

with the larger picture, i think the resolution is to just find out as much information you can about AS (which it seems you have) and cope the best that you can - because to my knowledge that's all that can be done (though i don't know if that is true or not). no labeling of yourself, etc.
just understanding. i do not understand why there is a lack of understanding in your case. i thought it was a HUMAN thing, at least morally or spiritually, to understand others and have compassion (as in buddhism)

just say, "i have these differences. i have difficulty with these things. i am working on them". hopefully your wife can see your GENUINENESS and honesty. look into her eyes. if she is not wanting to accept it, maybe that is some personal or spiritual growing and learning that she needs to work on. you cannot force her to.

i think the best thing is to accept yourself, and you can only do the best that you can. but be whole in yourself and communicate yourself the best that you can, that way you feel no heartache about it. then maybe you need to let go of the rest. as long as you are whole in yourself, i think that is what matters.

: )

I am finding myself agreeing with tyliseea. I think that most disorders are actually exageratted personality types, which seems plausible!

i think it even goes higher than personality types though, i think it goes to brain types.

or it could be some other factor like something spiritual - how can we possibly know?

Exactly the same here. If I'm deliberately concentrating, I can play crazy fast guitar solos or precision jump 8 feet. But if I'm going about my life in a normal state I mess up otherwise easy motor tasks pretty easily.

So I come across as just this careless douchebag...*sigh*.

It took me a long time to learn touch typing, longer than the average person. I eventually learned and now I type really fast. Not sure how many wpm, but fast, definitely. I guess I have the motor clumisiness but I can work on it and overcome it to somem degree. I am awful when it comes to things like screwing on a valve stem cap or a butterfly nut. I drop them, sometimes more than once. Even though I have conquered typing I would still say I am clumsy at times.

Recon, it's a matter of what you've practiced. You say you experienced motor clumsiness in youth, but not today - that would tend to indicate that during the intervening period, you learned to compensate for the motor difficulties, making yourself "normal" in this regard.

No, motor clumsiness is not diagnostic, just suggestive. It would be like someone who hears voices, but since they seem to come from things that actually exist (like dogs or toasters), someone claims that they're not schizophrenic, because they aren't hearing disembodied voices.

I read somewhere that aspie clumsiness is specifically not being "aware" of where your body is. There is a specific medical term for this, but I forget. If this is accurate then one would expect an aspie to do well at driving and video games. The article noted that people with this condition (not just aspies have that) are not clumsy when doing things where they can see their body parts. So for example catching a ball in front of you where you can see the ball and your outstretched hand would be easier than catching it overhead where you can't see your hand and have to just "know" where your hand is. This leads to a type of clumsiness where you tend to bump into things.

This is in addition to weak fine motor skills (meaning very fine grained control over something, totally different than catching a ball), which explains the bad handwriting.

I'm no expert and maybe this article was wrong. Just sharing what I read.