Am I faking or is it just my anxiety talking?

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I know Asperger's something your born with so if I've got it I've always had it. But I think I fear that maybe I've remembered things incorrectly from my childhood or something. What if I've even "faked" things from my childhood? Again, I would never do these things on purpose but my mind won't shut up about it.

Just now I was looking at photos of myself (photos I've got on my computer) and I realise I don't know who I am. It's like I've played different "roles" throughout life to try to fit in. Especially during high school. Then I became some sort of rebel who did what I've always hated to do; I broke the rules. I started drinking, I hung out with people who weren't good for me at all, I felt like s**t and I tried to "find myself". I didn't though. Anyway, seeing those photos and seeing how I was able to socialise with people (though still feeling lonely and miserable a lot of the time) makes me doubt myself and AS even more. I can't stop these thoughts and they enter my mind over and over and over again and make me so anxious I just want to hit myself in the head repeatedly. Can you (or anyone) relate to this?

I'm trying to focus on where I want my life to go but my problems cripple me (the whole thing with failing my studies for example ). I know I'm repeating myself. Sorry.

Also, it seems to me that the fact that you ask yourself so many questions means you're most likely neither hypochondriac nor faking .

I agree.

I talked about this with a friend a couple months ago. I talked about writing a list to take to the psych explaining why I think I have AS, and how I'm constantly thinking about it. I ended up with 6 pages. She said that that by itself is kinda a sigh that I have AS.

Also, it seems to me that the fact that you ask yourself so many questions means you're most likely neither hypochondriac nor faking .

No need to apologize. As far as it goes yes, I can relate to trying to fit in. I tried drinking and smoking pot to fit in, but you know what? I never did. Part of that for me is that I am a Christian and those things go against my faith. Part of it though was that I couldn't relate to the sort of people I found myself around. They were "scummy", for lack of a better term and I'm not. I still have two friends from that period in my life, but they were people who were accepting of my intellect and who tried to relate to me on that level. In the end, they grew through knowing me and I grew through knowing them. The party people? All I learned there was that I was not one of them and would never belong with them-and I didn't want to. The thing is, life is not linear. We develop as people because of our mistakes as much as we do because of our successes. Everyone has regrets. You shouldn't dwell on them though. Learn from them and move on.

So far as it goes, I definitely get the doubts about Asperger's. I have gone through and am going through the doubts in my mind over it because of my self-diagnosis. I wonder if I am not making too much of the things I have done or had happen to me. Yet I can also look at the facts. I am almost 39 and have never had a girlfriend. I often get stuck in patterns of behavior. I have aspie communication issues. I have asked other people how I seem to them and many have confirmed that I come off like an aspie. I have always found machines easier to deal with than people. I have never really fit in as a member of any social group. I don't understand fashion and tend to dress comfortably and practically. The conclusion I must come to then is that, even if I don't have clinically diagnosable Asperger's then at least I am on the Broader Autistic Phenotype (BAP), and can still benefit from learning what others on the spectrum know.

Why is that?



I did the same thing, only my list is 19 pages long. Why is that a sign of having AS? Anyway, I gave the list to a psychologist and she said that list + talking to me for 1,5 hours made her suspect I have Asperger's and/or ADD (but she's obviously not sure and it's not even sure I'll get an assessment yet).



I'm actually a Christian too and that's why I felt like I "broke the rules" for a while. I still drink from time to time (mostly when I just want to escape all my thoughts and the anxiety etc).

Anyway, you said people have said you come off as an Aspie. People don't say that about me. People have said I'm quirky, intelligent, that I'm either talking about what interests me or that I'm being very quiet etc. They've also noticed my difficulties focusing and my need for planning. That's pretty much it. I don't think they'd believe I'm an Aspie if I told them (if it turns out I am an Aspie that is). Not that they know that much about Asperger's but still.

I think it may have something to do with collecting and organizing information and obsessng over a subject.

Reality check, please: last time you said you were going to fail a test you then actually did very well.



Memory is very unreliable and you're smart in questioning its accuracy. However, you've put together a large list of symptoms from both past and present that are strongly suggestive of the diagnosis.

Here's the problem for the perfectionist in you: this may be all you ever get - strongly suggestive indicators. Even if diagnostic techniques like brain imaging get perfected, there will always be a certain ambiguity for borderline cases like Asperger's, simply because the definition of what is normal and what is a deviation is ultimately arbitrary. (not to mention the admittedly somewhat esoteric question of whether it's even possible or advisable to put complete trust in any method of defining your experience of reality)

Let me assemble an incomplete list of potential benefits of receiving a diagnosis (which applies even if your diagnosis is a false positive):

1. You get support and accommodations for your impairments (if they're “real” or “imagined” is completely irrelevant as long as they impact your life now)
2. You've spent time getting to know yourself and are thus able to tailor your life to your individual needs and wants
3. If things should get worse, it'll be easier to get more support than if you didn't get the diagnosis now

I don't have enough time to write up more.

Let me now give you a complete and exhaustive list of all the problems you create by "faking" symptoms and then getting the diagnosis:





















OK, there may actually be two things to consider
- if you want to get a job with the government they may ask about stuff like an ASD diagnosis
- certain kinds of insurance might be harder to get or offer worse conditions

Yeah well, now I'm failing (at least I think it counts as failing). I'm over a month behind in 2 out of 3 courses I'm taking and they're now making me drop one.

Well, there are two people who say I come off as an aspie. One of them is an aspie/ADHD PI borderline person like me and the other is my best friend whose son is an aspie. There is a third person who thought I was mildly autistic that I knew in high school. Other people have told me I don't have it or that I am "...not an aspie, you're just an as*hole!". The latter person told me all the reasons why I was an as*hole and proceeded to describe an aspie.

It may well be that the reason no one thinks you are an aspie is that they do not have firsthand knowledge of what an aspie is. Because of this, I would not ask the question directly. Instead, try to get them to tell you how you come off when people first meet you and see if the pattern fits. Press them for specifics too as NT's do not like to do much more than generalities and may not give you enough data to draw a good conclusion. Part of this is because they are afraid of hurting your feelings, but ultimately all they are really doing is frustrating you.

There's no reason to feel bad about this. If you're dropping a class you're merely adjusting your work load to the resources you have at your disposal. You're currently spending a lot of time on on personal issues and it's only logical that this means you have less time for school. There's also absolutely nothing wrong with spending that time with yourself now - there are questions that you need to resolve for your own mental well-being and it would be a mistake to simply ignore them.
I could give you a long list of people who have dropped out of classes/college/whatever only to become great successes (with various definitions of success as well) later on, but once again I am too busy with procrastination for that.

My point was that you're obviously very capable and you can be proud of being able to perform well even in times you're struggling with life (not everyone can do that). Dropping a class now does not change that assessment; it doesn't mean you're failing, it means you're adjusting to the current situation, which is a smart decision.

I think where you see adjustment I unfortunately have a tendency to see failure. That's because I'm not living up to my own expectations (or my parent's expectations for that matter). I'm not capable of handling what I should be able to handle and things aren't going according to plan. This year I'm only taking a few courses but my plan is to start studying "for real" next year. A Bachelor's Degree (and after that a Master's Degree) in Biomedicine. But if I can't even make it this year, how am I going to make it next year? And if I can't study Biomedicine I don't know what to do with my life. Biomedicine has been the plan for years and I really thought I was going to be able to handle everything but I'm not. I know I'm complaining a lot (which I feel bad about) but I don't know how else to vent right now. I need to get these things "off my chest". I wish things were different.

That's what I've been doing and they all say the same thing. That I'm quirky, intelligent, like talking about my interests but that I can be quite withdrawn if I don't, that I don't like being spontaneous, that I'm a bit of a loner, that I'm in not like everyone else, that I do my own thing and don't have to "go with the flow" etc. When I tell them about my social issues they say they notice it sometimes but that I'm able to hide it quite well. Some people haven't even noticed it (especially people who don't know me that well). Things like that.

Sounds similar to me and I think I have AS, so yeah, it makes you sound like an aspie to me. Do you have black and white thinking too?

Depends on what you mean by "black and white thinking". I have a tendency to be either on or off, obsessed or uninterested, talking too much or being too quiet. I have a tendency to see things as either right or wrong, true or false, good or bad etc. Not always though. But yeah, is that what you mean?

That pretty much nails it. I was EXTREMELY black and white when I was younger, but it is something I have learned to deal with as the years have gone by. Now I see quite a bit more gray area in a lot of things and it makes it easier to deal with other people. I used to take every battle I could find but now I just pick the ones that are important and let others be who they are. With time and age some of the more obnoxious traits I used to have have gotten less severe. I suspect the same is true of most of us though.