I'm sure you get a lot of this, but... could I be an Aspie?

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Oh, it didn't surprise me in the least. It's like... the true me doesn't care about the social rules at all, but there's a voice in my head saying that's wrong of me. The true me hates normalcy anyway, but that voice is telling me I should. That is strictly a metaphor, by the way -- I don't hear literal "voices," but I am conflicted, and I hate it!

I have a feeling, MOST here are like that! I AM! I only wish I heard women saying these things like 20 years ago. My life would probably be very different!

I say that because I had a lot of trouble understanding females, and often didn't know where to start anyway.

I was always putting the cart before the horse. I always had trouble deciding between the chicken and the egg, cause and effect. YIKES!

Isn't it funny how some of the things that are the most pervasive and cause such a BIG change are so small and simple?

If I just have social anxiety, could I still stick around? I like the way you guys think around here.

You sound like an Aspie to me. I remember before I knew about AS that I really didn't mind being by myself and prefered solititary activities. I didn't suffer from loneliness like everyone else I ever meet. I thought it was because I was used to being alone. The stage fright you have in social situations can definitely relate too. I twirl my hair and pick any loose hairs that get on my clothes off as the light touch of the hairs on my skin makes me nuts.

I doubt your problem is social anxiety. You DO sound like you could have AS. Think hard. Do you or did you have REALLY STRONG interests? Did you have a GOOD vocabulary at an early age? Have you had problems with some rhetoric, humor, etc... They are all probable AS symptoms. Granted, they don't mean you have AS, but they are part of a puzzle. If you have enough pieces that fit, it starts to paint a certain picture.

Some even call AS the geek syndrome! I guess I am a geek.

I could read when I was five. I could read light years faster than everyone in my grade for the entirety of elementary school, which drove me CRAZY during class! I am blunt and honest even when I could be tactful; I don't believe in pretense.

When it comes to pursuit of interests, what is "strong," and what is "Aspie strong"?

Of course you can! We even let some NTs hang around once in a while. Your reading abilities seem a lot like mine were, as does your lack of interest in what people call "tact." With pursuit of interests, what is Aspie strong? Hm... it sorta depends. There were long periods of time in my life where I had no particular interests at all. Oftentimes Aspies have intense interests that also change. I had a music obsession (trombone) for several years, which was then replaced with biology and chess. The chess obsession is beginning to fade, and I might be sliding toward physics to replace it. If you can spend fairly long periods of time on some interest, or if it occupies a large portion of your thoughts, it might be considered "Aspie strong."
Anyways, the hair-twirling is enough to fulfill category II. So, you meet categories I and II. You have said that it seems to interfere with your social interaction, so that's Category III. If you were reading at a high level very young, you probably didn't have any difficulty with language development, so there's category IV. If you were developmentally normal outside of the social realm, such as feeding and dressing yourself, you meet category V. That leaves category VI. Are you scizophrenic? If not, you meet all the criteria for an official Asperger's diagnosis.

You really DO sound aspie! Strong IS a subjective term. I guess I basically mean to where you can get so involved that it can affect your attention to even basic needs. Of course, that may not be constant, etc... ALSO, it can be subtle. I think the reason why so many learn to read so early, and speak so well is because it is a likely first interest.

BTW I always remembered reading earlier than when I was five, and recently found evidence I was reading even before I was 4! And YEAH, I remember how first grade was. I just read sentences while everyone else struggled with words. Just another reason to be BORED! I once went through a whole spelling book, learned every word, etc... The teacher actually demanded that I erase everything, and go at the pace of the class. 8(

If I were king, I would pass a law to say that the teachers should just give a test, and say "OK, You're so smart..... TRY THIS!", and give the student a more advanced book. After all, to do less is to say that the teachers have no purpose! The government could just tell the parents to buy the books, and have the kids go through them. Teachers are supposed to be there to push the students beyond their current ability with the goal to meet AT LEAST a MINIMUM level of competency.

If they did what they were supposed to, I would probably be smarter, and wound have remained a straight A student.

And HEY, Orwells definition sounds like mine! Like I said, you are sounding more and more aspie! As he said though, I think EVERYONE here is happy even if you AREN'T aspie! Some people have some crazy ideas here, but some people express unusual ideas that, frankly, SHOULD be the norm, and are pretty nice. So I am willing to live with the crazy ideas.

Frankly, I HATE the current society that is destroying the English language, and you have to twist things around to make sense.

No problems at all with language or basic things like feeding and dressing myself. No schizophrenia. My paternal uncle is a schizophrenic alcoholic, though (my paternal grandparents' alcoholism is one of the reasons I refuse to drink), and my mother has anxiety and gets panic attacks. I don't get panic attacks; instead of coming in sporadic, intense attacks, the anxiety is constant and subtle, sometimes better than on other days but always there when I'm interacting socially. It hasn't always been this way, but now it's obvious.

OMG!! The driving thing... I thought it was just me! I can't possibly watch the speedometer (or just "feel" how fast I'm going), pay attention to where I'm going, keep track of the cars around me, and watch the road ahead of me at the same time. I haven't taken my driving test yet either (I'm 22), but I don't know that I'll ever be able to drive without a passenger as another pair of eyes. If I look away (to check my mirror/blind spot, for example), the car isn't staying in a straight line. If I'm reading a road sign, the car isn't maintaining speed. How do other people do it?!??!

^ My thoughts EXACTLY.

My mom and I had a fight today over something so STUPID (I overreacted to finding I'd wasted money by ordering the wrong book online for a class), all because of my anxiety. (I partially blame my incompatibility with talking on the phone; it never would have happened if we'd stuck with e-mail). I wrote her an e-mail afterwards, just trying to apologize but also explain myself, and I think it explains my problems really well:

"This is what it's like being me: I fear that my assumptions about normalcy and what's acceptable and common, about the way things work and people think and react, are always wrong. Events always confirm it; people get angry when I didn't intend for them to (like the Bursar three years ago), or assume I'm angry/angrier (like today). I interpret EVERYTHING differently from the rest of the world. And then one of two things happen:
- I feel guilty and foolish (i.e. after our phone call)
- I feel privileged and special (i.e. I thought the Sumerian love story we read for Lit class today sounded exciting and romantic and beautiful; the rest of the class thought it sounded like gross, ancient porn).

I didn't intend for you to want to help me or get angry with me, but the fact that I was sharing this at all told you differently. I didn't intend to sound so angry, just bummed. What made me angry was searching for a solution when I didn't want to discuss a solution because it was such a minor, insignificant problem! Only worth mentioning! Not immediate action! I thought you're supposed to share minor things in casual conversation and then move on. I don't like discussing nothing in particular without a point or objective to achieve, but I assume everyone else does!

Don't tell me people have to learn these rules. Social interaction -- not the name of any class in school I can remember. I had no problem in childhood because we're not supposed to know them anyway. I had no problem in adolescence and high school because I was a loner and didn't care about my social interaction skills. Since I opened up a little in college and actually amde and enjoyed having friends, I need knowledge of social interaction but I still don't have it. That's my problem. It's not instinctive and natural for me like it is for everyone else. And whenever I try to act natural, well, things like our conversation today happen.

I walk and daydream, I watch children's shows, I walk and daydream, I eat my pizza in sections, I walk and daydream, the only hot dogs I eat on a bun are Sheetz's, I've dated one person in my entire life, I hardly ever take the initivative to make friends, I order pretty much the same meal in every restaurant I go to, and I walk around daydreaming and ripping leaves off bushes. Nothing about me is normal, but that wasn't a problem until I started really interacting with normal people.

And that is how I defend what I said today. I try to be normal, have a casual conversation, and it's a bust because I'm not normal."

My mom apologized for overreacting. I mentioned the thing with the book and din't for it to escalate into such importance. As I wrote, "I thought all I was doing was mentioning some bad luck (ordering the wrong book and losing money). I thought next my audience would sympathize and agree that was lousy luck, say, "Bummer," and we'd move on to the next conversation piece. I did not bring it up with the intention of needing or getting help, not because I'm on a power/independence trip, but because I don't need any. I thought you enjoyed knowing what I'm up to and what's going on with me." She also assured me "Normalcy is relative and subjective," and some of her best friends and the smartest people she knows are loners who feel abnormal, and devoted an entire paragraph to listing all my good points. My mom is the best, but I feel like such a burden to her, despite how much she (daily) thanks me for helping her and telling me how proud she is of me, because somehow, she ends up dealing with my issues.

But in all honesty, if a person has to "think hard" to find possible symptoms......chances are......they aren't there. And likely don't have Asperger's Syndrome.


If I thought really hard, I could recall things that fit virtually every category at one time or another in my life. And I think 98% of the general public could.

And that's a big problem with trying to diagnose this syndrome. Virtually everyone can associate with a majority of symptoms. But I just don't think someone that really has AS needs to think hard to find those syptoms. They should be very obvious.



The original poster has looked through 100 symptoms on line and typed out 15 that they recall having. Maybe even 20. But no one here knows how many NT symptoms they have. Know what I mean?



It's like saying a person may have stomach cancer because they recall throwing up, waking up with a sore stomach, or having bad gas ! Lots of symptoms line up, but very few of those have stomach cancer.

I know you are probably well meaning, etc... but you DO hint at why I said think hard.

If things are automatic, you can miss them. Yesterday, I realized I was rocking and rubbing my hands.(Not in a normal way, and for like an hour) Would I have noticed that earlier? Maybe not. My interests, I had earlier seemed to dry up(Even if my job IS related to one and indirectly related to another). The TRUTH is that I have another. I am basically studying 6 languages.

I'm not aware of a sore stomach(more likely to be one of several problems) really being a symptom, or gas, for that matter. Now, I once had bleeding and remembered how it was very common. That IS a symptom, and even HOSPITALS test for it, still, I didn't assume I had cancer only because I had a few symptoms. Eventually, *I* found out it wasn't cancer.

STILL, what if I didn't think about it, and put the pieces together? Cancer WAS a likely possibility.

As for 98% having symptoms? Not the ones I am looking for. THOSE symptoms are present in less than perhaps 2% of the population. Even the more popular ones are probably less than 5%!

Could it be a false positive? Yep! But they would probably fit none the less.

True. Great metaphor.

I think Erich didn't read it that way (I didn't either, until now). Sorry

CarpeDiem118,

If you just said you figgeted, I would think BIG DEAL! If you said you were just nervous around people, same thing. Even the two together. Maybe even one of the other things. But you DID list quite a few. If you had as many symptoms of cancer as you do for AS, a doctor would be concerned and check.

Well, I had my appointment today with the psychiatrist my school sent me to. She said, judging by what I told her, my family history, and especially my speech patterns (which you can't judge online), she thinks I have Aspergers! Great! I'm an individual, I'm a genius, and I honestly would not have fallen for the McDonald's Prank Call Scam.

I don't know why, but on my walk home from there, I found myself feeling better than I have in three years. I was even singing. Then my mom called and told me my grandfather is in the emergency room and we don't know why yet. God, please take care of him.