Is there anything that makes you think maybe its not Asperg

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I feel very uncomfortable in social situations, but all my life I thought everyone did and they just learned to deal with it. I've been told by some people that I'm not awkward at all and then others will say the exact opposite. So I go back and forth with doubting myself. I also think when I'm around other ballet dancers it's easier, because it's not unusual for someone to be obsessed with ballet, even amoung NT's. Also, I'm told by almost everyone that I'm a very good dancer and I think this gets me a certain amount of respect (even though my dancing shouldn't affect how people treat me.) Sometimes, I feel like I'm fine in social situations, because I can make people laugh. (Usually, because I'm so open about my "odd" behavior, and some people think my quirks are funny) Other times, I have no idea what I'm doing or saying and just want to leave very badly.

When I was a kid it was a different story. I went through the bulk of my childhood with little to no friends. The only real friends I had were kids who were also outcasts. I flapped my hands, head banged and bit myself when I was upset and I couldn't hold a conversation with someone my own age without being made fun of. Despite switching schools 14 times before I graduated, I still have trouble meeting new people and often don't know what to say.

Basically my childhood alone makes me positive I am on the spectrum. However, I feel I've learned to cope very well and that makes me doubt myself sometimes.

I feel very uncomfortable in social situations, but all my life I thought everyone did and they just learned to deal with it. I've been told by some people that I'm not awkward at all and then others will say the exact opposite. So I go back and forth with doubting myself. I also think when I'm around other ballet dancers it's easier, because it's not unusual for someone to be obsessed with ballet, even amoung NT's. Also, I'm told by almost everyone that I'm a very good dancer and I think this gets me a certain amount of respect (even though my dancing shouldn't affect how people treat me.) Sometimes, I feel like I'm fine in social situations, because I can make people laugh. (Usually, because I'm so open about my "odd" behavior, and some people think my quirks are funny) Other times, I have no idea what I'm doing or saying and just want to leave very badly.

When I was a kid it was a different story. I went through the bulk of my childhood with little to no friends. The only real friends I had were kids who were also outcasts. I flapped my hands, head banged and bit myself when I was upset and I couldn't hold a conversation with someone my own age without being made fun of. Despite switching schools 14 times before I graduated, I still have trouble meeting new people and often don't know what to say.

Basically my childhood alone makes me positive I am on the spectrum. However, I feel I've learned to cope very well and that makes me doubt myself sometimes.

When sounds bug me I have no idea if its the sensory issues or just me being annoyed. I don't know the difference between annoyance and sensory issues.

I think it's my shyness when it comes to socialness because I am too afraid to say anything and I don't feel interest in socializing so that could be why I don't do it and it can't be the AS. A real aspie would fail at doing it when they try vs someone who doesn't socialize because they aren;t interested while a real aspie isn't interested because it drains their energy.

I had friends growing up and I had kids my own age and then it started to get hard in 4th grade because their interests changed and I still wanted to be a little girl while the rest were in a rush to grow up saying they were too old for toys and other things. I think that's the reason for me failure in friendships to a peer developmental level all because of them.

I do not get upset if I can't watch Benny & Joon everyday because well it's a DVD and it's not going anywhere so it be here for me to watch anytime. I don't need to shower at eight and things don't fall out of place if I don't shower at eight. I don't think I was non-functional routines or else I'd be getting upset for not being able to shower at a certain time and not being able to watch B&J. But I do get upset without the computer but I try and do other things.

As a kid I did what was on my mind, I didn't have rigid routines like getting up at the same time, eating breakfast at the same time, playing Barbies for a certain amount of time at a certain time, etc. I just did what I felt like and I never got upset when someone came to the door or when my family go out and do things or when my mom get a new haircut or when she move the furniture. If I did get upset, then I don't remember.

I didn't start getting overwhelmed with the noise my brothers and their friends make till I was 15 or 16 and it was hell. I couldn't stop worrying about the house getting a mess from them so it was hard for me to sleep if they were still up. Maybe it was because they were older so they made louder noise because they were older vs them being little and not being as loud and making as many messes and they take up less space but we lived in a tiny house so they took up more space when they have friends over and they stay there for long periods of the time, they didn't when they were little, then their interest changed and they wanted to be with their friends a lot longer. I just don't like lot of people being in my home. But I didn't have that problem with grown ups when I was little when my parents do bunco. I think it was a neighborhood thing they did because they have gone to other neighbor's houses for bunco and they all took turnings having it at each others homes. Maybe it had to do with hormones because when hormones change in your body, you change so things that used to not bother you might bother you now and your feelings change too and emotions.

My anxiety started when I was about 12 even though I didn't notice it till I was 13. Hormones might have also done it.

I don't remember meltdowns when I was little except for my teens. I can remember getting upset when things not go my way and when I come home and see my brothers had touched my stuff and I start crying and get all upset and not calm down till it was fixed and I always get revenge on my brothers for it. I would also get upset when i come home and I go up to the play room to play with the brio tracks because that was what I had planned in school for when I come home and play with them but instead I would see my brothers had wrecked it and I would start yelling and screaming and crying and my mother didn't care because "It's everybody's." I would even get punished for yelling at my brothers and their friends for wrecking it when i be trying to play with it and they weren't gentle and they had their feet on the tracks or their legs and I tell them to get off and they wouldn't listen and then I get upset. I don't know if that was anxiety I was having but I remember how hard it was for kids to be wrecking things in my home and ruining my fun and it always had to be my fault. That's why I don't bother with people anymore when things don't go my way, I walk away from it, I leave. That could be the reason to why I hate people and don't really want to have anything to do with them so maybe un AS related. I would never do the same to my own child my mom did to me because I could make my child grow up to be anti social if I did that to him or her and made them out to be the bad guy.
I don't literally hate people because I won't hate someone for being a person.

I don't face the problems many aspies face here with people but then again I isolate myself from society so that could be why I don't get crap. I also don't seem to get crap at work many aspies here seem to get so I must be that mild then to not get crap. Someone once said it's because I'm a woman.

I am not sensitive to many things like to bright light besides the sun and I don't hear well as autistics do, maybe it was my hearing loss that damaged my hearing, and my sense of smell is poor and I suspect it's below normal because my mom can smell things before me or things I can't smell or maybe she just has a good sense of smell above the norm.

I don't feel so drained being with people but I'm always wanting to be alone anyway after that.

I didn't have the anger problems aspie kids have. When my mom take things from me as a punishment such as my Barbie dolls, I didn't go into rage and go manipulative on her to get them back and feel all shattered inside like I had a big huge hole in me because something big was taken from me. I just respected it and went along with it knowing I will get them back when it ends. I knew why I was being punished and knew not to do that again. My mom always told me why I was being punished and she take all my dolls. I also didn't hold grudges except I did get back at my brothers. I never ever thought my mom stole from me when she take my things as a punishment. I took things from my brothers too as a punishment and didn't see that as stealing. But when I was 17, I felt that way lot of aspies feel when my mom took the computer from me for three weeks and yeah I did go manipulative on her because I was mad at her. My shrink told me I was manipulating her because I wanted the computer back just like lot of aspies want their things back they spend lot of their time with. So what did change betyeen me being a little kid and me being a teen for when it came to having something big taken from me? I sure didn't act bratty when mom take things from me but I did at 17. Hormones maybe.

Even though I have been officially diagnosed I'm still going to post because there are times when I doubt my diagnosis is correct.

With my family and my counsellor I seem to be able to have 'normal' conversations with them. I mean, I'm still not very good at small talk (I've never been) but I can talk with for example, my step dad about something interesting and he doesn't say that I'm boring him, or I'm being rude, or that I'm going on and on about the same thing. This has made me doubt my diagnosis. Another thing is that when I attend social groups for people with AS it seems like I'm too high functioning to be there. Even though the group facilitators seem to think that I do have AS, I can't see how I'm acting like anyone else there. I know that everyone with AS is different but once again I seem like I don't fit in.
Either I really don't have AS or I just can't see it in myself.
But when I'm with other people my age I cannot seem to relate to them at all and I struggle endlessly trying to think of something that a 'normal' teenager would say. That once again makes me think that I do have AS.

1. The symptoms of AS fits my life history perfectly (as far as what AS people go through).

2. I've exhibited symptoms of AS routinely and at varying degrees throughout my life. I've seen many diminish as I got older and better learned to deal with some areas of life. So, while they still exist, they don't manifest in any noticeable way, but I'm aware of it.

3. I suppose a part of me wonders if I legitimately have AS or if I'm hoping to have it so I can "explain" why my life has been the way it has been no matter what I try to be "normal."

I get other people's jokes and have laughed in group situations.

So some social/non verbal signals must be going into my head...

Or at least being processed on a basic global level.

Perhaps too much information is going in an fragmented way and I'm overwhelmed by it sometimes.

Perhaps I'm just processing the general social atmosphere rather than specific interactions.

I've lost count of the number of times I've sat on my own (because I didn't really know how to go about sitting next to people), only to laugh at presentation jokes or jokes on other tables.

It's bizarre.
I clearly understand puns, references, innuendo, idioms, metaphors and so on (I've actually had a lot of training in English Literature to recognise them). I've also picked understood jokes in foreign languages that I've learned and been faster on the uptake than some other people. However, I seem to laugh by myself, soaking up the situation in my own private way, observing other people chatting, having fun and laughing.

So I laugh to myself a lot while laughing with everyone else.
Sometimes the laughing response seems delayed or even ahead of everyone else.
Sometimes, I'm out of sync.
I'm not immune from the contagion of laughter.
But perhaps the "signal" comes through weaker, stronger or more distorted...I don't know.

I've been told I have a "wonderful, unique sense of humour".
This is why I doubt sometimes.