Can I be on the spectrum if...

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OP, are your parents NTs? Did they have exceptionally good social skills? It is possible that there is a social learning effect if you were lucky enough to grow up in a family where one or both parents consistently modelled great social skills, encouraged two way communication, and validated/valued your participation. The overall effect of this is to create a solid learning curve, and in theory that could be an a reason. The daily practice you would have had (in such a situation, if it existed) would be to facilitate new neural pathways that supported those behaviours, and your performance of them, which had always been encouraged, would not get attached to anxiety.

So yes, I would say it is possible, though it is not common; in life and even in ASDs there are always exceptions to the rule, and maybe you are one of them. It's rather a good exception to have.

I really enjoy socializing and being accepted, I really do, I'm just not good at it, which makes people not want to socialize and accept me. I am diagnosed btw and all my autistic, even severely autistic friends really enjoy socializing and getting together were just not very good at it on a NT stand point. I also am easily overwhelmed and drained from socializing, for example I was just at a party, I had a hard time dealing with the crowds and loud noises, my throat hurts because I talk too loud when I'm tense and I had a bad case of IBS but man did I have fun, jumped on the trampoline with my cousins and heard stories, but I'm also happy to be alone in my room now listening to music and thinking about sonic on my own.

Sorry, I miss read the question.. Well it could, I don't know for sure, I'm not a specialist. Perhaps because autism is so varried, just because someone is autistic doesn't mean they can't LEARN social skills.

Which autistic traits do you have?

I don't have a program buffered for that yet, sorry. They're sitting all over my brain, not in 1 place. Eg: That thread a couple days ago that asked 'which sounds are annoying to you' (not in so many words) and I only answered with 'tires when driving, especially studded tires for winter'. I knew at the point when answering the question that I there were other sounds that bothered me, but I couldn't think of any. Haven't though about it at all until this morning I was woken up by probably the biggest one; lawnmowers. I know lawnmowers bother me, very strongly. But it feels like because it had been awhile since talking about what sounds bothered me, the thoughts were next to each other or something and so when I tried to pull them up, one of them just wasn't there. Like, that chunk of information, 'sounds which bother me', are not a single entity, so unless I'm having really good recall that day, I will not be able to talk about it. This causes issues for me when getting assessed for mental health issues I so obviously have.

This sort of memory issue is very descriptive to me, and it seems like it could be more than just the result of dissociation because last time I talked about what sounds bothered me was on a forum but an SPD forum not an autism forum. Like, the situation was very similar. But alas it's a relatively unimportant detail of my life; annoying sounds are annoyances, rarely anything worse, and when they are worse, I'm already in a foul mood, and how I got to that mood is the problem.

But that's one: sensory disturbances, generally mild. At their worst I need to cover my ears. I might stim when hearing them. I will, if in comfortable company, complain about it a lot. Second: I stim.

Anyways, it's unimportant to me that I have autism things all meshed into 1 right now, especially given that the process of whether I have it or not is not so much concerned with checking off symptoms but understanding how one's mind works differently than whatever a 'normal' mind works like. Like, if I end up having it, great, I might be able to get disability that much easier, and will be able to probably find a therapist to help me who specializes in helping autistics rather than nons, even if the issues they're helping me with might not be autism specific.

Another one is that I have developed stimming. I've probably always done it, but I've noticed it over the past several years as I have been in physical discomfort or pain due to undiagnosed celiac disease. At those points in time I also found that I cannot abide being touched. It is the opposite of comforting. It's grown into something quite major when I'm alone the past few months. I bought my partner a weighted blanket a year ago and I, having no internal understanding of how or why it might help something then, use it now far more often than he does. I still don't really know why it helps.




Anyways, I woke up and had a perfectly analogy to what I am like. It's like when I'm acting properly, I'm always a talk-show host. I don't watch talk-shows much, but whenever I see them, I can tell that those people are not being themselves. And with good reason, they're on public television and have a role to perform as a host. People whom I can think, right off the top of my head, who show this 'not being themselves' really well are Ellen Degeneres and Kathy (from Regis and Kathy). But pretty much any host shows some of this. The ones that I find show it least have a lot of humor to deflect it, like they're doing a comedy routine, or who end up interviewing people in a far more serious way. The show The View shows it the least, probably because there's a group of them who often seemingly interact like they actually would if they all sat down and met in a coffee shop everyday. But only for some things, there's still this 'must stay on topic, must be public-presentable' vibe for a fair bit of their stuff. It's just this weird thing, because they're acting but not acting; acting as themselves but they're acting, not being. Like, Steven Colbert does is clearly and obviously acting, so whenever there's something not perfectly 'on' about how he's acting, it's because he's trying to figure out what his persona of that character would do, not what a persona of himself would do. As a result, he doesn't come off as 'not quite right', it's known and understood that this character is not him.

I don't necessarily feel like I portray as a talk-show host (I hope I don't, because they're easy to see through IMO), but I feel like that's what I'm doing.

When I'm not doing that I'm just...weird I suppose. I can be weird around my immediate family (but I cannot be emotional around them, especially negative emotions).

tldr: My parents had a public face and a private face, I seem to have mimicked that. Their public face was pretty good. One of them is probably autistic. There was not a lot of open communication. Didn't need to be, I copied them anyways.

No one in my family is diagnosed. My dad is no doubt on the spectrum, he's the classic absent-minded professor. Didn't speak until he was like 5, fumbles for words, can't stand changes to his routine. He doesn't stim, he doesn't walk or talk funny, and, to me, he's fine at communicating.
My mom could be on the spectrum. Like me, she's weird when just being herself, and she doesn't have many friends, and has the empathy of a fish.

My parents were very...weird in their upbringing. They weren't the type to dismiss questions and the like, we always ate dinner together and would listen to the news and there'd nearly always be discussion about what was going on in the world. I think my parents enjoyed talking to each other a lot that way, critiquing everything, and I think it was possibly a very purposeful thing my mom did so that the family would have family time. Ideas and questions about things, there was lots of discussion between them about such things. I would not say that there was a lot of open 2-way communication though. I listened a lot, and questions about how things in the world work, like politics and laws, would be answered.

There was also a lot of anger in my house growing up though, and it galls. Like, even though my family at one point were the people I was most comfortable around and could just be myself with, there was a lot of yelling and anger and little compassion. I do not talk to my parents much, months between my last communication with them. I duck my mom's calls. She stresses me out; I do not meet their expectations. My parents' relationship has taken a nose-dive too, now that there are no children to take anger and frustrations out on. Like, I can talk to my mom about something and my dad knows nothing about it because they just don't talk. I had a falling out with my mom and therefore my dad (he's not really the person to call and talk to me, ever). Both think I am not living up to my potential, my mom and her family decided I was the black sheep by moving in with a boyfriend when I was already in university (catholic family). My mom continually suggests careers or whatnot for me to do, things I despise. 'Oh why don't you go into nursing? You would sit and talk to your grandma who rambled and who had alzheimers so well! What about becoming a teacher? You always babysat that kid who had behavioural problems very well.' Well, what she failed to know was the amount of pressure I had put on myself to do those things. Those were the right things to do, to do those things = being a good person, even though they were so very tedious, painful, and hard. But I did them because I firmly believed it was the right thing to do. That's what growing up Catholic brought me, a very strong drive to be a good Christian, because God loved me and understood me, and I wanted to do the right thing. Now when I am faced with things like that, acting a certain way, I avoid them instead of doing them. Part of the reason I do not have friends. I also do not have anywhere near the energy and focus that I had when I was a kid. I am no longer religious; losing belief in God (I logically knew even as a child that God probably wasn't real) hit me very hard. I had been feeling close to a thought, an imagination, and now there was no longer anyone who actually understood me, because I never really expressed myself to anyone. And part of the 'this is what a good person does' drive has been changed; I do not think it is best for me to put myself through undue stress for the sake of making someone else comfortable, for instance. It is not a responsibility I have, at least I tell myself this and am told this by my partner whose moral compass is very similar to mine. But there is still sometimes this giant social pressure.

I was someone who would listen to others, not someone who would talk to others as a kid.

There was little emotional support from my parents, but I also didn't seek it at all. I was never emotionally close to my parents in terms of telling them things about myself or relaying things about myself. I don't remember them saying I love you really, but my mom did comfort me the one time I broke down in front of her when I was 13 about being bullied at school. I didn't tell her when I got my period first, because it felt weird to do so, because she'd never had any sort of sex talk with me, I got that from school and a book.

My parents were, however, very good at the 'act properly in public' thing. Like if there were anger and arguing, but then someone came to the door, both of them would immediately do the 'everything is normal and I'm going to put a great big smile on my face and act appropriately'. I feel that if I learned anything about communicating and being, it was that. Put on a face for public, because you need to. They were both really good at that.

Talking about my parents is a whole kettle of fish :-S When they phone I usually do not answer, and I get very stressed when they call. They know I am having psychological difficulties, but I do not care to talk to them about it at all. Even my dad who is generally fairly laissez-faire, has at points criticized me for playing too many video games instead of applying myself to something. But he fails to see that the video game is not actually difficult at all and has a calming atmosphere (I love a game with a good atmosphere, music, images, etc) and has a commitment of none or like, 2 hours a week at a certain time, that what I am doing there is totally different from being able to focus exactly at the right points in time and be able to DO all the work that is required for continuing my education.

Now I'm 6 months into a business my partner has started up, which I am helping run, and my parents have said nothing good about it when they came in. My mom seemed to think it was neat though, but my dad is completely negative, 'I thought there'd be more x' and 'I hope you'll make more money and that your sales haven't peaked at this'. My mom when talking about it has nothing but suggestions for things to do, despite her not knowing the market, product, and now has less business experience than I do.

I think most of my childhood I was allowed to just do my own thing. I got good grades, so there was no praise for exceptionality and no criticism of poor grades, until I started getting bad grades at university when I became very depressed. I remember moments in time when I was upset that they basically ignored me and what I was doing. My brother, being the oldest, they were involved with him going to university, his graduation, etc. My sister is the 'smarter' person and they paid close attention to her, which just exploded in their faces. Like, I remember it being this big thing when my brother went away to university. Lots of discussion and planning about it among the immediate family and then all the relatives. When I went away to university they couldn't be arsed to even drive me halfway across canada themselves to drop me off, they delegated my brother and sister to do that instead. They cut off proper support when I could have used it the most in later years, but I couldn't go to them asking for help the way I think most people should be able to go to a friend or a family member, plus I never went to them for help even as a child with any sort problem either. But they also never reached out.

I absolutely have some ADHD-ish traits which seem to overlap with autism. The more responsibilities and therefore the less downtime I have, is the only time they have become obvious though. Focus and memory and having moments where I feel like I have to move, racing thoughts.

Past couple of years, really strongly the past couple of months, I have this all-or-nothing thing in actions going on. Like, either I am doing things and there are a multitude of things in my head, or I'm stuck at doing nothing.

Delayed social maturity and social reasoning....Somewhat-I remember even in grades 1-3 there were cliques of girls that were boring to spend time with, although I didn't pay them much heed. Only when I was teased by these cliques when I was older did I pay any attention to them.
Difficulty making friends and often teased by other children....yes
Difficulty with the communication and control of emotions....yes
Unusual language abilities that include advanced vocabulary and syntax but delayed conversation skills, unusual prosody and a tendency to be pedantic....I stuttered for years (still do sometimes) and I use words still that many don't use in regular conversation. Am I pedantic? Have you seen the walls of text I write??
A fascination with a topic that is unusual in intensity or focus. maybe
An unusual profile of learning abilities....I think no, but maybe so. Memorization is very difficult, really really hard, I much prefer subjects where learning involves putting information together. eg: biology is hard and boring, while cognition is super interesting.
A need for assistance with some self-help and organizational skills. as an adult, yes, as a child, no
Clumsiness in terms of gait and coordination. yes, its getting worse though, MS results next week
Sensitivity to specific sounds, aromas, textures or touch. yes

The list from http://www.tonyattwood.com.au/index.php/about-aspergers

It probably depends on how old you are, and how long you've tried. I can interact with people socially, but it's taken a lot of practice, a lot of frustration, a lot of commitment and a lot of help.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that everyone can overcome that part of the diagnosis, but some people can. Overcoming difficulties is what people do.

The way I am is that there's a 'public' me and an 'alone' me.

Up until I let someone into my 'alone' me, I never perceived the HUGE disconnect between these 2 parts that I am seeing now, as I try to communicate and be my alone me when I am no longer alone. And now I have a hard time seeing that person as a whole too, because the 2 different selves see him in 2 different ways.

The exterior me seems to have developed nearly completely different systems for understanding the world around me, than my interior me. The exterior me is not capable of love for one, it has some emotions, but only faintly. It is so unaware of the internal me that entire concepts that have the same name are not actually the same concept from one part to the other.

At a very young age I -knew and purposefully- acted and was different ways in different situations. There's more of a blending now of outer parts, but my inner part is still there and separate.

It would be my inner part that is on the spectrum, not my outer part.

Like, to me, socializing isn't at all about properly conveying how I am. It is about reading the other person and not acting in a way that will not piss them off, acting in a way that they would like to interact. As such there is really little to no connection when socializing to my inner self.

Suddenly when I'm in my inner self I'm a very different person. Bringing the inner self to the exterior, ie: being my 'alone' self far more often than a couple hours a day when I'm alone at night, is when I noticeably have stims, meltdowns, communication problems, strong focus or lack of it, etc. Granted, if I have always been this 'other' part of me when communicating, I have no idea how my inner part of me would have learned how to communicate. Which is why I'm just not sure if it's because I have autism or I never developed the skills due to how I interacted with the environment.

I can't call my exterior self as 'scripting' though, because I have separated that self from parts of me. And I automatically speak and such using that self. I definitely use whole phrases as 'a thing' when I speak, or take prosody from one specific phrase and paste it into another. Eg: "The joys of x!" I can say it in a couple different tones of voice but x can be anything that is a negative, and the expression is one of exasperation about thing x. BUT I can only say that I do these things right now because I am taking what I do apart in my head. When actually saying anything like that is very automatic, and I do NOT consciously think that I am doing it, so because of that I don't think that it qualifies as scripting? But I don't know. I don't know how an NT thinks. I don't know how an aspie thinks. I only know how -I- think.
The issue is that self is limited into what it/I can talk about. I will generally try and deflect any sort of personal questions, politically charged ideas, and similar things, or go into 'listening mode' which is what most people want anyways, someone to listen to their opinions.

I feel like there's a lot of people out there whose "brain wiring" is more similar to autistic than neurotypical, but they don't fit the diagnostic criteria and thus aren't considered autistic. Some of them may not be disabled at all, or some of them may have autism-typical impairments that aren't in the diagnostic criteria. Unfortunately, there's not really a term for this overall category of people; you can generally only get called "autistic" or "on the spectrum" if you fit the diagnostic criteria.

Here are some of the non-social traits autistic people often to have, in case it helps you categorize and/or help yourself:
Introversion, as opposed to extroversion
Highly sensitive, of which extreme versions of this are sensory processing disorder, or sensory defensiveness
Executive function deficit/disorder

That's really kind of funny because sometimes I wonder the same thing.
But - it's because I think I'm behaving socially normal, and then I overhear people talking about me and realize that what I thought was "correct" behaviour was actually quite bizarre.

I think these people are generally said to be part of the "broader autism phenotype (BAP)".

More autistics have lowered sensitivity than heightened.
There are autistics who aren't introverts.

I am so extremely introverted when removing the outer part of myself that communicates with everyone but doesn't really involve anything about myself. The outer part is perfectly extroverted.

People should read threads before they post uselessness.