"You definitely don't have Asperger's!"

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Well theres the argument that if you outgrow autism you never had it to begin with

I believe that you can overcome some disorers but others are life long. But you can learn skills to cope but even that can be limited and the struggles will always be there

I had a developmental delay and I always felt behind growing up. I don't consider myself NT because I function different and don't handle stress well and at my bad moments I am not normal. I am even on SSDI. So obviously I hadn't outgrown all my problems but yet everyone acts like I made a big accomplishment because of where I am now and how much I overcame as if it's a miracle and I am like "Doesn't everyone do that though, no one makes a big fuss about what accomplishments NT kids do and how hard they work." Not to the same degree they have done about me. Without support, I might have been worse off and still have a language delay. If I were abused, my problems might have been worse. My mom says my AS comes and goes and I never understood what that meant but maybe it means when I am tired or stressed and at my worst moments, my symptoms show and I don't act normal but when I am calm and relaxed, I am okay. But yet I have noticed my symptoms even when I was fine and not having any anxiety so my husband says I have my moments. My mom says that is just being me. Plus they have been pointed out to me in a subtle way by other people without them saying the condition. But I also think I could just be an introvert and maybe I just don't enjoy socializing and that is okay, it doesn't mean I am broken and that it's an impairment.

That is why I said it was questionable. People often argue if you overcame your symptoms and they are no longer an issue for you, you never had it to begin with. But that doesn't mean those symptoms you had never impacted your childhood.

I'm going to answer everyone, so it's a bit long, but it ain't boring! ...I think

I still have difficulties identifying and expressing emotions. And I don't miss people nor have I ever missed anyone that I can remember (even when they die). I know the concept of missing someone, I have descriptions, reasons and articles on why people miss each other, but I don't seem to have that feeling. I want to know if that's because I'm the cold hearted person people tell me I am since I was little, or if it's something else.

I still am misunderstood to a dangerous degree, I'm surprisingly good at being linguistically robust, but it makes no sense that what I say has offensive meaning to people in most of the social situations although I'm being polite, grammatically correct and using soft words, or at least I think I am. My social stamina has always been tiny and I can't seem to figure out how people bond and make friends. I want someone to teach me that or at least tell me why it hasn't been possible to do so.

I can learn by myself anything concrete, with tangible scientific description, but when it comes to bonding, loving, those kinds of things, I don't have it. And you know? I'm happy like this. But I want to know why I struggle with these things. Why I have no friends. Why I had to learn to communicate through studying compulsively about it when people just seem to be good at it. Why I need an amount of isolation that gets on people's nerves? Why can't I keep a job that involves social interaction from moderate to high extent without freaking out? Am I just socially broken since birth? Or does it have a name and I'm actually quite normal and just like a lot of other people? Get it? That's my motivation to look for a diagnosis.

I can't precisely explain all the reasons and/or struggles behind it otherwise this post would be a book, or describe the other many struggles because I haven't learned how to express them well.

My difficulties are far from being the worst possible, I've managed to reduce them to an extent, I've managed to cope with it, not overcome it. I've seen people working harder than me with less results and people in VERY BAD condition. But that doesn't make the problem disappear, that does not make me less painfully awkward when I'm not paying attention to how I behave. That doesn't change the fact that I still need people to tell me when I'm being rude, because I have no clue and people make sure to let me know how offensive I was being by calling me names (ex: Selfish). That doesn't change the fact that I grew up with four of my cousins that are completely socially and emotionally apt. I couldn't even socialize with them in a natural way, so I just played video games because that way I didn't have to talk and to this day they don't talk to me because they think I'm awkward and creepy.

I understand what all of you guys say, I Thank each and everyone. It might sound like I'm looking for a label.
It is indeed very human to want an answer. We all have struggles, different ones.
I just don't want to accept that I don't love just because I have a cold hearted personality, that I don't bond because I'm frigid, that I don't miss because I just don't care about anyone. Or that I'm rude just because I want to offend people. Or that I don't enjoy physical touch just because I'm untouchy. Or that I can't stand crowded, loud or bright places just because I'm not man enough.

I don't want to be or do those things and I try hard to 'out grow' it, but it doesn't seem to be enough. I keep hurting people, embarrassing myself, offending them on a regular basis although I've studied for so long how to be sociable, I've attended courses FOR YEARS. I've been even to churches that teach how to be kind and even there people complained about the way I behave, spoke and even stood.

I've been studying autism for a few months and before that Psychology, Discourse Analysis and Neurolinguistics so I could ''blend in'' and understand people. I'm normal, I'm sure I'm not being affected by the special snowflake syndrome. I just have some difficulties understanding a ''few'' things and I know that's normal too. I don't need an ASD diagnosis, I just need someone to show me the way so I can find the answers I need, and till this moment, the possible treatments for Asperger's sounded very much like what I need. ASD, for me, sounds like a fatal blow to the issue, not to kill it, but to explain it in a logical way that I can understand and deal with, rather than dealing with my personality (personalities change, these behavioural patterns don't, I've been like this my entire life although I fight agaisnt it).

PS: Sonically, special thanks to you. I love to go agaisnt my own confirmation bias. I'll research those topics.

THANK YOU EVERYONE! YOU ROCK!

Peacefully,
Dante

Last edited by Dreadful Dante on 21 Jun 2016, 6:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No problem.

Your welcome.

Ah yes, the old "inspiring disabled person" trope. When someone with a disability does something that would be pretty darn good in an able-bodied NT, suddenly it's like epic self-help-book material or something, not just doing a pretty darn good job. It's kind of condescending to disabled people because it implies that the expectations able-bodied NTs had of them were low to begin with. The other problem it can cause is that it can raise the bar to other disabled people who are not in a position to do the same kind of pretty darn good job. If they're not inspirational, suddenly they're back to being mere damaged goods, rather than people who just had a lot of bad luck piling up on them, including their disability, and are trying to make do with what they have. Like the poor people who work two jobs to barely make ends meet, they may have overcome as much as the "inspirational" cases just to get to their less outwardly impressive place in life.

Hey dreadful dante, after this more detailed description one thing stood out- emotional coldness in a social situation. Which is not usually in ASD but is in a few other conditions, emotional coldness can cause a lot of issues and is for the most part atypical. I would recommend that you do mention this with a psychologist and they may take action from there.

I do enjoy a few people's companies and have a moral code that states I need to be grateful for anything positive people do for me, thus anyone living close to me knows how I thank for every tiny thing. I do care for them, although it's a learned and trained behaviour based on my morals (that's based on books I read), and directly caring for someone tires me faster than working out heavy (I run out of spoons - see spoon theory). To care for someone I usually NEED something of interest in return or I do it utterly for social pressure. I haven't been able to care for someone just for caring (can someone explain to me how that works?).

I do have a way of loving, but it presents differences from other people's descriptions of it. It consists in the overall preservation of physical, emotional and moral integrity of living beings around me. Humans, dogs, trees, insects, even if they try to kill me. It's easier to "love" them by these standarts if they don't display any interaction towards me. Of course for plants only the "physical integrity" counts and so on.

I don't miss anyone, but when I know someone fun and ocasionally meet them again and we have common interests to discuss about in a VERY intelectual level, I like it. (Within contexts I have scripts for, so I know how to interact).

I think children are adorable, although I avoid physical affection but for a few seconds as a greeting IF NEEDED. That must be a sign that I'm not that frozen, I have that "awww effect" when I see babies and like when they smile. That's something emotional, isn't it?
(I've done some research on this and that "aww" reflex is natural for everyone, it doesn't actually say much about a person).

I'm not cold, I've been called cold. But I do not think that word defines me in any way.

I have accepted the way I am, it's just not simple to "leave it be" without having awful and agressive feedback. I have to plan it.
I don't see it as a bad thing. I see it as a challenge to become a better version of myself. A limitless challenge that has taken my lifetime to learn ways of coping with it.

EDIT: I remember from around 2 years ago, my therapist said she had started watching a cool series with her husband the other night and the series had a character who spoke and behaved exactly like me, but she couldn't remember his name. According to her, "The big something". I guess she wasn't very well trained or hadn't watched it enough at that time to identify that Sheldon was clearly autistic. I didn't know at that time if that was meant to be a compliment or just an observation, but ever since many other people have said the same thing. As Sheldon Cooper is a genius, I like to take it as a massive compliment.

Peacefully,
Dante.

Dreadful Dante said: I do enjoy a few people's companies and have a moral code that states I need to be grateful for anything positive people do for me, thus anyone living close to me knows how I thank for every tiny thing. I do care for them, although it's a learned and trained behaviour based on my morals (that's based on books I read), and directly caring for someone tires me faster than working out heavy (I run out of spoons - see spoon theory). To care for someone I usually NEED something of interest in return or I do it utterly for social pressure. I haven't been able to care for someone just for caring (can someone explain to me how that works?).

If it's any help, I can try and explain my perspective on caring and altruism. I don't think "pure" caring exists, I don't believe any group can stay together without a common purpose, I think there's always a payoff. I often behave "altruistically" but only to get something back. When I protect, it's because it distresses me to see people I identify with get hurt, it feels like I'm protecting myself. I suppose I protect my partner and my son because of my instinctive need to propagate my DNA. I try to make people happy either to bolster up my self-esteem and status or to win approval, protection, or companionship. It's not particularly conscious, I just do it without thinking. I don't think good or evil people exist. I often feel very guilty if I abandon anybody or make them feel left out, because I hate feeling abandoned or excluded myself, and I identify with those who those things happen to. I identify with animals too, usually, so I like to look after them, up to a point - I don't have so many grievances against animals as I do people, on the whole, I have to hate or be angry in order to be uncaring. For some reason I detest bullies and I've been know to take stupid risks to defend their victims, and I love the idea of punishing the sadistic. I saw a car hit a child once, and the words "Oh my god!" were out of my mouth before I knew it. Some kind of instinct I guess. I don't much care about absolute morals, to me they're just a set of rules designed so that people can rub along together without too much friction, and I distrust religious morals especially, because they're too detached from the needs of the people who are expected to obey them, though some of them are echoed in my own behavioural tendencies. All in all, I don't see emotional empathy as a sentimental or righteous thing, only a biological thing.

Thank you for your insight, Diamond.

I, too, think it is very biological. Sometimes even ONLY biological. I once cared for a dog for around 4 hours after picking him up from the streets, I cleaned him, fed him, etc. I was trying to see if I was going to feel anything, because I've had many people saying they "just feel the need to help them" or "they can't see a dog in the streets without rushing to shelter them".

After that day, I figured I didn't actually care for that dog one bit, I was doing that because I had social pressure on me telling me I had to be somehow "good". So I beared with it.

All the animals I've ever had died from starvation because I FORGOT I had animals. All the "friends" and family I've ever had stopped contacting me after I became "cold" and didn't respond. <- I didn't even realized they were willing to talk to me, I thought it was casual small talk with no meaning to me, just like asking for the weather in an elevator (That's just weird). All the relatives who became sick somehow EXPECTED me to know when they were sick so I would visit them. IT MAKES NO SENSE TO ME. Why would I expose myself to someone's disease and endanger my health just to stand there and ask "How are you doing?". If it's not that bad, they can manage by themselves. What can I do or say to a crying someone if I don't even know how they feel? I've tried it (social pressure) and only made it worse each and every time. That's why I think I'm not that empathic. I don't think it's bad, I just wanted to name so I know why I'm like this instead of having to accept that I have a stone heart anyways.

Everyone in my family cares (it's illogical to WANT to be sick and stay close enough to you so they can get infected, if it can be spread, that's usually what happens).

There was a time I thought I was broken and explained to a very wise someone my case. She said "allow yourself to love, start from the little things and work your way up" That day she gave me a white rose and told me to take care of it until it was dying. It lasted 15 days. I remember how beautiful that rose was, but I wouldn't want it back. It was easy although mechanical to care for it because it didn't respond to my stimuli, I was glad when it was over. It knew it wasn't going to surprise me, be offended or treat me like I'm ogre because I accidentally said something bad. I could "predict its moves". It didn't ask for my help, but I had the moral duty to make it last for as long as possible. Towards people I don't have that, although biologically speaking I can protected someone from being hit by a car, for example, or from being bitten by a dog, but I usually vanish after doing that to avoid interaction. These kinds of things are not emotional, they are pure instinct.

I really enjoy your insight, Thank you so much. I'll talk to a new psychology I've been directed to. I hope she can help me or if not, just tell me why I didn't "heir" these traits from everyone around me.

This is the curse of High Functioning Autism or AS.

The less obviously autistic you are, the less likely you are to get diagnosed. However, that doesn't mean you're not autistic.

I grew up with fairly strict parents, so I was raised to behave myself in public, but outside of those rigid rules, I was always clueless about "humans." AS wasn't known back then, so my "quirks" were just dismissed.

I was told this off someone in my family before and they explained that someone they worked with who had aspergers removed a bunch of stuff that someone else brought into the room because they didn't like the way they had put them on the floor, so that meant I wasn't autistic, great logic. I am diagnosed by a specialist and I wrote down my life's history and examples/traits I believed were relevant to the possibility of being autistic (which actually had similar examples to going bananas when someone causes me distress in an environment), so the person's misinformed opinion that I definitely wasn't autistic wasn't very accurate.

I learned elegantry in my family. I would be threatened to be sent to an orphanage or some "corrective" institution if I didn't behave properly. So, I just HAD to find a way of behaving properly although I had absolutely no clues on how to do so and kept being punished for not being able to. Vicious cicles suck and nobody would understand that.

I very much agree with the notion that the more you've learned to adapt and mask your difficulties and stayed afloat somehow in the 'system' the longer it will take for you to be diagnosed or even figure out the underlying issue that is causing you problems as it was in my case, I managed to keep bobbing along and continuing to damage myself and eventually learned about mental health which eventually led to me piecing together what I had been missing from the wisdom I gained in counseling.

My mom would give me extreme threats and they always worked like a charm. I guess if you are gullible and literal and have anxiety, threats will work. You all of a sudden get a boost in your brain and you are able to stop because of the anxiety from the threat. A super power there.

Try going to another psych for a second opinion, and don't purposefully act NT this time, act like yourself, and see what they say.