Does anyone else love going out every weekend?

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I think I was diagnosed as a child, but I'm not sure. I forget if I was diagnosed or if the doctor said "He has ADHD and might have Asperger's". But if they thought I had Asperger's, why did the doctor and my parents do nothing about it? Why didn't they look into it more? My parents were preoccupied with my little brother who had a brain tumor at the time, but you'd think they would have said "Oh snap, we might have TWO special needs children!" I don't know for sure. Back when I exhibited all of the major symptoms my parents told me I had it, once or twice maybe, but it wasn't until I was older and could look back and say "Wow, I was a weird kid" that I asked about it and my mom said "You were diagnosed with Asperger's as a child." Instead of thinking "If I have this, I should do some research" I thought "Imagine that, I might have a mental disability."

My mom told me it just meant I was smarter and had a tougher time socially, and I thought that was the extent of it. When I developed better social skills during adolescence my parents and I both assumed I didn't have it and forgot about it for several years. Now I look up all the symptoms and realize it's more than that; it describes my EXACT personality, and the way I learned social skills is 100% Asperger's, even if I did a damn good job of it.

Is it mild Asperger's? I don't know, I guess it's mild now. I learned to look people in the eyes because my mom kept telling me "Look people in the eyes when you talk to them." It was no different from learning to say please and thank you, just a lot more difficult to form a habit of doing. Making compulsive trumpet noises in the middle of class and not understanding why the teacher got mad at me for doing it, I figured anybody might be equally likely to do that. My cheeks hurt this very minute from twitching them.


XLCR: I just read your post a couple pages back, I hadn't seen it before. That's EXACTLY how it is for me. I get to the party, find a comfortable conversation, and stay there...if I can't find one, my "anchor" is wherever people are doing shots. Once I'm f***ed up I either completely shut down and go inside my head or I stumble around being awkward and drunk, making conversation with strangers at whim. One time I made out with a fat girl after getting drunk but that was about it. I've never played onstage before; playing guitar for 8 family members and a pretty girl was nerve-wracking though. My goal is to play for a real audience before the end of the year. I can't imagine it will be easy, even if I do it with a band! When I'm in a crowd I feel anonymous, but looking out at a crowd? I hate delivering speeches! And nobody cares if you bomb a speech, but if you mess up onstage, people are there to enjoy themselves! What do you do, not make eye contact with the audience the entire time?? Was it really scary at first? I get nervous at first even when I'm jamming with other musicians. I've been playing for 7 years but only started practicing every day within the past year, so maybe as I become a more skilled and confident guitarist that anxiety will fade. But how exactly do you do it? I can't imagine looking out at a crowd of 30+ mostly expressionless faces, each judging me, and NOT having a significant amount of anxiety to get over.

I would feel okay to go out one weekend maybe a second one but after that I would feel overwhelmed. Not partying though maybe for a meal and depending on the people if they are really intense in their demeanor I would have a very hard time.

I had a friend several years ago who was really intense and wanted me to come over visiting all the time, in the end I had to give it up I couldn't cope and just wanted to be at home.

Hm, I always initiated hangouts with my two childhood friends. 70% of the time it was me calling them, but we'd hang out all the time. I'd hang out with my one friend almost every day and I always wondered why he never called me. He said "I don't have to because you always call me to hang out." When I fell in with a group of friends in high school, I rarely initiated chill sessions and never led the group to do anything. In college I would text two friends to hang out, and I had other friends but they would usually initiate. One of those 2 friends interpreted it as neediness, violated my trust, etc. so he was replaced with another friend.

That's weird, it has always been exactly 2 main friends I call upon to hang out with.

I hate going out on the weekends. After a long week of getting up at 6 in the morning and doing schoolwork until late afternoon just wears me out. I need my two days to recover and enjoy myself. To me, having two friends is a lot. I have a hard time keeping up with one, much less two, any more than that I simply cannot tolerate. If anything I feel like I need to stay in every weekend. And really, its not depressing at all. Not even a slight little bit, I can't get enough alone time. I would not say that I fear change, I see it as necessary. I just hate unexpected crap. I have everything planned out a few days in advance, and if anything changes within that window of time, I get angry. If my friend called me at 9 AM on Saturday morning I'd tell them to go to you know where. I sleep in until about 1-3 PM on Saturday, I don't care what. I would however go to the beach if it was later in the day and I had plans for it (maybe go to bed a little earlier and get everything ready to go the night before).

They say people with AS need routines to function, and I hate routines...and I don't function. My parents pulled me out of college 4 months ago and told me to find a job, but finding a job is the most stressful social situation ever.

When I was in college I would use any time I wasn't out on the weekend to lock myself in my room with my guitar, bong, music and laptop. I'd go out on Friday, and I guess NTs spend Saturday morning/early afternoon chilling with people too, because I'd show up at my frat again on Saturday night and they'd always say "Where ya been all day?" I'd sleep for a long time that night and spend all of Sunday bumming around too. Then on Mondays it was back to the grind of classes and club meetings.

Some of us find a slight change such as a change in class schedule or work hours, to be crippling. We literally react with fear and confusion, and it can take weeks or months before we get used to the change.

Some of us can get extremely stressed to the point of utter exhaustion at the end of each day, over tiny changes. For instance, if one's job is as a cashier, and one is told to ask a new question such as "would you like to donate some money to X charity?"

This seemingly insignificant change can be a source of much stress.

In my experience, here are some things that disturbed and distressed me:

- A new cashier at the coffee shop I would go to each day on my way to work
- The subtly different sound of a new string on my guitars after changing them
- Switching to AwesomeWM for a while while the Haskell libraries in the Arch repo were incompatible with Xmonad. Every time I used the mostly identical key chords (with the Windows key as the modifier instead of the Meta key) I felt uncomfortable
- Having my hours changed from 8-4 to 7-3
- Having an item added to or removed from my job description, no matter how small.
- A 7 minute change in seasonal bus schedules.
- A change in the layout of a supermarket
- Reading something in which a word is either spelled differently, or used in a different manner than I am accustomed to
- Seeing a poster on a forum with a new avatar. It can take me weeks to get used to this.
- Daylight Saving Time
- Being given a different brand of chocolate syrups I was to make milkshakes with
- Reading the 5th edition of Copi's Introduction to Logic after reading the 1st edition.
- Reading the revised edition of The Gunslinger after reading the original.
- Watching a movie with subtitles after only seeing the dubbed version, or vice versa.

In each case, these are rather small changes. But dealing with them is actually exhausting and full of stress. They intellectually exhaust me, and wear me out.

Exhumed. Yes, you've got my party strategy down. One thing I didn't mention was what you said about using a friend as an anchor. I did exactly that. Once I finally made a friend or two that were more comfortable in those situations, I would use them as a 'front man' and let them do most of the talking while I hung back and tried to look somewhat interested in the conversation. Once I was wasted, I felt more comfortable, and people would pass off anything inappropriate as drunkenness.

As far as getting on stage, even after thirty-five years of performing I still have a very hard time making eye contact with the audience. I use the strategy of scanning slowly across the room from time to time. If you do it slowly enough they will think you are looking at them. A lot of the time I play with my eyes closed. I don't really need to see the fretboard most of the time anyway. Once you get into the big rooms you can't see the audience anyway as soon as they turn the stage lights on, then you are bloody blinded and everything beyond the lights is dark.

Oddly, it makes a difference to be part of a band. It started out as a variation on the front man approach. I didn't start out as a lead guitarist, but as a bass player who stood in the corner of the stage, out of the spotlight, while everyone was looking at the star of the show. But as time went on I had a harder and harder time getting along with egotistical 'stars' that were legends in their own mind, maybe just a part of growing up. One day I found myself standing front and center being my own front man, but as long as the band was there I had learned to feel comfortable. It helped that I worked with many of the same people for many years.

But I never billed my self as the leader. I always went with a group name. Oddly enough, I just played my first solo gig tonight down at the local Elks. It felt really strange to see my name in an ad in the paper last night.

Zero, just reading your post almost exhausted me. Not really, but I did identify with a number of things that you mentioned. However, there is obviously a great difference in degree. I could mention the problem I'm having with using the front door. While my father was fading I blocked off the front door and routed all traffic through the garage/laundry room so he wouldn't be tempted to try going down the high, steep, and often slippery front steps. Now that he has passed I'm finding it very stressful to use the front door again. Another thing your post made me think of was watching the director's cut of 'Bladerunner' after becoming used to the original version. I was so uncomfortable with it I don't want to watch it again.

Once again here we are talking completely different orders of magnitude. I would not presume to suggest it is as difficult for me as for you.

Come to think of it, I've disliked change more than I realize. My parents say I hated change as a child, and I know I did, but even recently...at age 15 my parents bought a lake house, and I DREADED going there and only became more comfortable with it over time. I couldn't fall asleep there without having the TV on and the door cracked open a little bit (it was comforting) for 2 1/2 years. I'm struggling to think of examples because I didn't acknowledge my Asperger's until recently and I basically chose to never think about all the odd behaviors I had as a child. I'm glad that it's gotten easier with age.

XLCR, your scanning across the room strategy is what I use when I give speeches. I could see myself having the same role in a band: singer/lead guitarist, writing a lot of the songs, but not really leading anything.

However, my obsession with becoming socially normal compels me to overcome a lot of these things, like my need for an anchor at parties. I've overcome many AS detriments, and I learn more about social skills with each passing year. Now I realize I'll probably have a lot of on-stage fear and awkwardness to overcome unless I can chill out and disengage my Aspieness. I plan to go out all the time when I move to LA later this year, to concerts, clubs, parties, all kinds of things.

Even though my social intelligence starts out synthetic, I feel like it becomes more instinctive over time. I feel like I must be getting better at engaging whatever part of the brain NTs use to socialize, that's why I say "disengage my Aspieness." Eye contact has been instinctive for a long time whereas fluidly greeting someone with a hug or handshake is much more recent. Once my mind has performed all the calculations necessary to get something down fluidly, the logical part of my brain can usually forget about it and let instinct take over.

Then I'm thrown into an unfamiliar social situation where I don't know the rules, and I have to adapt again.

The first thing that popped into my mind from your first post was a possible pathologization of some of the characteristics of being highly gifted, since dabrowski's overexcitabilities are often mistaken for asperger symptoms in some cases, especially if your intellectual differences with your childhood peers are sufficient to cause one to find little to relate to other people, and then not to "have many friends". That's where my intuition is pointing, for now, because "loving the sensually stimulating atmosphere", "feeling a part of the crowd", "masterful lying habits"(which require a well-developed 'theory of mind' to convincingly pull off.) and "master debate skills" seem to be antithetical to the fundamental characteristics of aspies, everywhere along the IQ spectrum.

Then, hey, your SAT score seems to suggest you might have been highly gifted. Hmmm... yep, that's where I'm leaning, right now. Of course, you could've also had greater-than-average-levels of autistic characteristics, which would've further increased the probability you would've been seen as possessing aspergers, even if you "really didn't".

Last edited by swbluto on 09 Apr 2011, 10:13 am, edited 4 times in total.

Some level of disliking or hating of moving to different place is normal to pretty much all children though.

Since you're the second person to not believe me, I just talked to my mom, and she says I was officially diagnosed with it in 5th grade. You're telling me that diagnosis is wrong?

I'm obsessed with improving my appearance and social skills, that's the only way I function socially. Doesn't overcoming fear create an adrenaline rush in you? Fears can lessen with time, fear can be enjoyed in a way. I'm terrible at lying when confronted, but I'm good at manipulating people; it seems common with Aspies and there's a thread about it on here.

I looked up "Dabrowski's overexcitabilities" and I'll admit, that describes me just as well, but there are two things that don't at ALL, that I'm the OPPOSITE of. Liking physical activity and sports, I hate sports, the only thing I do related to that is ride my longboard. Concern for others, empathy, being overly emotional--I'm usually expressionless and monotone, and when someone is angry or sad, his/her emotions don't transfer to me at ALL. I hate it when my friends are sad because I have to pretend to be sad too. I never remember details of others' lives, and I only ask about them because I know I'm expected to.

Really, "Dabrowski's overexcitabilities" mentions no concrete detriments; this esteemed intellectual made no attempt to examine the tradeoffs, making it appear as though there aren't any noticeable ones.

Is it possible I have a combination of both? Where do you draw the line? Some people REALLY seem to have Asperger's while others are diagnosed and accepted to have it, yet don't exhibit ALL of the symptoms. A couple of you seem really hung up on the fact that I go to parties.

Also, where are all the other symptoms? Can all of these be described by Dabrowski's overexcitabilities? What probability is there that the ones that can't are purely coincidental? I've been making this list over the past few days, and it's based partially on this forum, so I don't know if they're really all Aspie traits:

-Social anxiety, lack of social intuition
-Spring allergies, cat allergies
-Intensely focused on a couple of interests--music, videogames, cannabis
-Internet addiction--I spend at least 4 hours a day online
-Love of trivia
-Impulsiveness
-Predisposition to enjoy certain things, like music, science, and computers
-Advanced vocabulary at a young age
-Tendency to ignore or forget about hunger
-Frequent insomnia
-Seeing patterns everywhere. When I'm on the toilet I look at the floor tiles or the grain of the wood in the door and see all kinds of faces and creatures, when I look at a symmetrical pattern I organize it into sub-patterns
-Difficult time conveying and understanding sarcasm
-Being clumsy--this improved over time; I was always last to be picked in gym class until about junior year
-Overly formal style of speech
-Tendency to focus on one conversation topic or jump around to many
-Tendency to self-medicate
-Sensitivity to cold
-Sensitivity to light--I can't sleep without pitch darkness, and I always blink for photos
-Compulsive tick-like body movements aka "stimming." I used to have several, including making loud trumpet noises in the middle of first grade class, now the only noticeable one is twitching my cheeks occasionally. I also chatter my teeth in patterns. They come and go.
-ADHD
-Depression, had that numerous times
-Low self-confidence
-Difficulty multitasking
-Difficulty with sequences of events
-Visual learner
-Being too naive and trusting of people, realizing this and becoming overly suspicious
-Being too generous with belongings; I'd bring gum on the bus, everyone would ask for a piece and I'd give it all away
-Lack of fashion sense--I wore sweat pants exclusively until 5th grade, wore old navy clothes exclusively until 8th grade
-Self-centeredness
-Telling stories with no point or conclusion
-Bad short-term memory
-Distinct posture and gait
-Speaking in monotone with few facial expressions (though I don't always do that, if I'm in a certain mood I find it very difficult to express emotions, and I'm often in that mood)
-Inability to empathize with people; I can't literally be saddened by someone else's suffering
-Younger appearance (like many things on this list, due to a combination of factors not exclusive to AS)
-Being inflexible
-Dislike of change
-Tendency to become infatuated with girls easily

I maintain my belief that I have Asperger's, but I'm willing to accept that it may be milder than others' and mixed with "giftedness". I feel like a "gifted" person wouldn't have so many of the Asperger's detriments, especially the physical ones. I'm friends with mostly "gifted" students and I've always felt inferior to them in certain areas, like math and motor skills. My best friend is gifted and has ADHD, but he's good with girls and sports.

I think I accurately diagnosed myself, and I've confirmed that I'm officially diagnosed, sooo...to me it still looks like I've simply gotten better than most of you at recognizing and following social conventions.

But yeah, I must have both. I'm always either talking very quickly and gesturing wildly or struggling to find the words to say and remaining emotionless.

You might be 'right', but I'm still rather skeptical due to sheer statistics, the amount of anti-aspie characteristics and the common belief that aspergers is too readily 'diagnosed'(Especially among psychs with 'pet disorders'). Also, there are multiple Dabrowski Excitabilities, and rarely does one have every single one.

See, this is where the statistics arguments comes in.

According to Wikipedia.com, what's the incidence rate of aspergers? The worst case number I could find was roughly 1 out of 250. The average seemed to hover about 1 out of 500.

What percentage of people have an AQ above... let's say, 30? About 1 out of 20.

What percentage of people are more verbally skilled than visuospatially/mathematically skilled? About 2 out of 3.

What amount of people tend towards being less excitable / expressionless / "more monotone"? About 1 out of 5 to 1 out of 10. The percentage probably increases with increasing IQ among guys, given that a large percentage of the high-IQ guys at my school seemed to be pretty un-excitable, emotionally and tonally speaking (A large percentage tended to be "typical nerds").

You crunch the numbers, and the likelihood seems to be pointing to 'normal variation'.

Of course, believe what you will. The only thing I'm offering is an alternative perspective that might make more sense in the probabilistic way than aspergers, and whether you think it's a 'better explanation' or not is upto you. I'm not going to waste time persuading anyone away from what they're already convinced of (But, hey, don't forget to keep your confirmation bias on a leash. Everybody could benefit from that.).

"Seeing patterns everywhere. When I'm on the toilet I look at the floor tiles or the grain of the wood in the door and see all kinds of faces and creatures, when I look at a symmetrical pattern I organize it into sub-patterns "

This is a common thing for stoners and people who consume psychoactive drugs.


About your virginity. Why don't you just find a whore to help you with your problem?

I want the affection and reciprocated desire from a woman, and I consider losing my v card to be a significant social milestone. It's taken me years to learn the proper social behaviors for attracting and romancing a woman.

I've seen patterns like that since I was a young child. I've tried Salvia once....it was terrifying. Aside from that I've only smoked weed.

What's the probability that I'm just a "gifted" NT with so many detriments, many of which are related to Asperger's? I doubt it's much higher than the probability that I'm an Aspie with a couple "highly gifted NT" gifts. Why can I relate to every post I've read here? My mind clearly works in much the same way, so what difference does it make? Do you really think I'm closer to being an NT than an Aspie? Doubtful!

And "gifted"! What a stupid label! "Oh, it's not Asperger's, he's just gifted. Yes, he thinks like an Aspie and has many of the same behaviors, including the negative ones, but he's perfectly normal."

Most if not all of the Dabrowski's characteristics I exhibit can be present in Asperger's. Not all Aspies are creative, but many are. Two or three other Aspies here enjoy going to clubs and parties because like myself, they've found workarounds and ways to cope with social anxiety. Some Aspies get intense sensory overload, others get none; I get comparatively very little. There was another Aspie at my school who still hasn't achieved any level of normality, and he talked by quickly rambling or struggling to get the words out, and he loved debating and proving people wrong. "That's a cool bug!" "ACTUALLY it's an insect...(rambling)" There's not a chance he was just gifted!

With therapy or practice, anyone can strengthen the connections between parts of the brain that were weakened at birth. Maybe not entirely; I can't recognize or understand many social behaviors, but if I can identify one, with enough practice it basically becomes instinctive.

There's nothing anyone claiming to have Asperger's has mentioned that I cannot relate to, so if I'm an NT...well, I can relate to more than just being bullied or enjoying computers!

I have an aspie friend who enjoys going to bars and drink and be with his friends. Not something I would ever do and he says he does it because he doesn't want to be a stereotype of AS so he likes breaking those stereotypes. He even goes to sport games. He says beer helps him cope and he has hearing loss.

I have another autistic friend who loves going to concerts and he always uses ear plugs. I don't go to any concerts. I have only gone to only five in my life. Weird Al twice and The proclaimers but it was a tiny one and two others at 13.

If going to parties or concerts or to any sport games or anywhere else breaks you from having AS, especially trying to be normal and learning social skills, then we have just found the cure.